ICC Note:
Although September’s suicide bombing of All Saints Church was the single most deadly attack on Christians in Pakistan’s history, Christians across the country have suffered intense persecution for year at the hands of Islamic radicals. Christians are disproportionately accused and convicted under Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy law. Christian women are kidnapped, forced to marry Muslim men and forcefully converted to Islam. These daily incidents of persecution make Christians in Pakistan some of the most persecuted Christians in the world.  
10/1/2013 Pakistan (Christian Today) – Pakistani Christians nationwide have been demonstrating over the ongoing attacks on Christians, and in particular over Sunday’s double suicide bombing of an after church meal in Peshawar.
According to a report by Wilson Chowdhry, chairman of the British Pakistani Christian Association, there are now reports of violence against Christians as a result of these protests.
Chowdhry said gangs of Muslim youths are reported to have burned a church and Christian owned houses and properties in Karachi. They also tried to burn a second church down before being stopped by Christian youths.
In Iqbal Town in Islamabad, Christians were protesting outside a Unitarian church, when seven or eight masked men rushed in and started beating the Christians.
Witnesses speaking on condition of anonymity due to fears for their safety, said that after the incident some of the protestors, including a pastor were missing. Some also claimed that police were involved, punishing Christians for holding protests on the main highway for several days.
Chowdhry said there are also horrific, but so far unconfirmed reports that body parts and organs from the bomb victims in Peshawar had been stolen and offered for sa le, allegedly by local paramedics and criminal gangs.
Chowdhry said, “If true, then here we have Muslim criminals making money out of the suffering of the Christian victims in a truly blasphemous and sacrilegious way.”
Meanwhile, in South West Pakistan a major earthquake has collapsed houses and left over 300 dead. The earthquake was so powerful it created a new island off the coast.
On top of the barbarity of the bombings, and the reminder about the trade in body parts, stories emerged that tell of the medieval barbarity of parts of Pakistani society, namely the ongoing practice of trial by ordeal/fire in some tribal regions as a form of justice.
Chowdhry said these are popular because they are qui ck and cheap, unlike Pakistani’s notoriously slow and expensive legal system.
Chowdhry added, “Feudal lords and tribal councils … still make rulings on disputes and crimes like theft, murder, and girls falling in love with inappropriate men. In some cases the accused are made to walk across 15 foot long beds of burning coal. If their soles are unmarked, they are declared innocent.”
The extent of the depravity of Pakistani society has now also reached Israeli newspapers, with one writer highlighting the case of Kainat, a 13-year-old girl hoping to be a doctor, but who was drugged, kidnapped and gang-raped for four days before she escaped back to her family.
Instead of the usual custom of an “honor” killing, the family fought for justice. Chowdhry said the police refused to act, because t he rapists were powerful in their community. It is common for powerful village men to rape girls, and then kill them for having “shamed” their family.
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