09137
February 24, 2009

Pakistan Christians jittery as Islamic law enforced in Swat Valley

by Anto Akkara
Ecumenical News International

BANGALORE, India ― Churches have joined human rights groups in expressing anxiety over Pakistan’s federal government agreeing to enforce Islamic law in the troubled Malakand Division of the country in order to broker a truce with pro-Taliban groups there.

In the region that includes the Swat Valley, which is about 160 kilometers from Islamabad, the Pakistan government agreed on Feb. 17 to introduce the Islamic legal system called Sharia, thereby making constitutional and the juridical law redundant.

“Both of these ― the basic law and fundamental rights ― have been exposed to grave risk,” said the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in a statement. The group expressed “serious concern at the absence of any guarantees against transgression of the constitution and the people’s basic rights” due to the imposition of Sharia in the lawless region.

“We are very much concerned about these developments. It does not augur well for us,” Victor Azariah, general secretary of the National Council of Churches of Pakistan, told Ecumenical News International. Azariah pointed out that supremacy of the Sharia system would impair “our religious freedom in the area.”

While there are few Christians in the region covered by the government deal with the Islamic groups, Azariah pointed out that the North West Frontier Province, under which the area falls, has hundreds of thousands Christians who now feel threatened by the developments.

Due to ongoing attacks and threats against Christians by Islamic militant groups over the years, most of about 1,000 Christians in the Malakand Division have left the area.

The last of the Christian schools in the region, a Roman Catholic high school at Sangota, was bombed and destroyed in October 2008 as the century-old school run by Catholic nuns was educating girls, which pro-Taliban groups strongly oppose.

The year before, the school at Sangota had remained closed for weeks following threats of suicide attacks, and another Catholic school at Bannu had been bombed at the same time.

Female education in the Swat Valley has ground to a halt with more than 200 schools that enroll girls attacked or forced to shut down by extremist Islamic groups.

“This is very tricky step,” said Peter Jacob, executive secretary of the national Commission for Justice and Peace of the Catholic Church in Pakistan. “The government is trying to restore peace in the lawless region. But, it could also backfire as emboldened groups could put forward more demands.”

Reinforcing fears expressed in many quarters about threats to individual liberty and the rule of law under the Sharia regime, Musa Khan ― a reporter with Geo TV ― was shot dead on Feb. 18  while covering the victory marches by the Islamic groups.

“Freedom of religion will be certainly a casualty there. It is a big worry for us,” noted Jacob.