(ENI/CT) Last Friday Christians across Pakistan were due to join in a peaceful protest against the blasphemy laws which led to a Roman Catholic bishop's suicide. The protest was designed to be peaceful and a day of prayer and fasting. Bishop John Joseph, chairperson of the Roman Catholic National Justice and Peace Commission, shot himself in the head on 6 May in the courthouse where a Christian had been sentenced to death, in protest against the blasphemy laws.
The Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Revd Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, who knew Dr John Joseph personally, said his death showed how the blasphemy laws had poisoned relations between faiths in Pakistan. He admired Dr Joseph's "total commitment" to fundamental rights for all in Pakistan.
"His concern was not limited to the Christian community, but extended to all marginalised groups in the country," Bishop Nazir-Ali said. "Bishop Joseph's death has deprived the country of a great worker for the rights of the poor and the deprived."
The World Council of Churches (WCC) has called on the Pakistan government to repeal a controversial law on blasphemy which, the WCC says, has led to the "frequent persecution and victimisation" of Christians in Pakistan. In a letter to Ambassador Munir Akram, Pakistan's permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva, Dwain Epps, the WCC's coordinator for international affairs, said that the organisation was concerned about "the frequent persecution and victimisation of Christians that have resulted from unwarranted and indiscriminate application of Section 295-C of the Pakistan penal code relating to the law of blasphemy".
The WCC called on Pakistan "to take immediate steps to repeal Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code, and to guarantee the physical integrity of those presently charged under the Blasphemy Law," Mr Epps said. The letter was made public by the WCC on 13 May.
Mr Epps described the death of Bishop Joseph as "evidence of the level of frustration and despair among members of the Christian community in Pakistan". The WCC has been receiving "for some time", reports of "discriminatory practices and of persecution of religious minorities in Pakistan, including Christians, Ahmadiyas [an Islamic religious movement rejected by orthodox Islam] and Hindus", despite article 36 of the Pakistan Constitution which guarantees the legitimate rights and interests of minorities.
Mr Epps claimed that "extremist" elements and groups were misusing the blasphemy law to incite religious hatred and animosity against religious minorities which had led to a "growing environment of religious intolerance and has placed religious minorities under a state of siege".
Several Christians have been sentenced to death for blasphemy, but their convictions have been overturned by higher courts. However, Dwain Epps said that even if Masih's appeal against his conviction succeeded, there was no guarantee, "given the environment of intolerance [that] he will not be killed by extremist elements, as happened in the cases of Manzur Masih and Niamat Ahmar", two Christians whose convictions for blasphemy were overturned on appeal, but who were subsequently murdered. Mr Epps added that in the climate of "fear and intolerance" it was difficult for those charged under the blasphemy law to get a fair trial.