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104 where around a dozen armed men vandalised 120 tombstones in the Ahmadi
graveyard at Model Town in December. Police removed Quranic verses and
religious texts from tombstones in an Ahamdi graveyard in Hafizabad in August.
In the same district, unidentified men erased Islamic inscriptions from
gravestones in another Ahmadi cemetery in October.
The Ahmadis complained that while the authorities banned their
conferences, rallies and major sporting events in Rabwa, the centre of the
Ahmadi community in Pakistan, anti-Ahmadi clerics were given a free hand to
hold a number of provocative rallies in and around Rabwa.
Ahead of the forthcoming general elections in 2013, Ahmadis remained
the only community on a separate electoral list in a country where the name of
every other registered voter was included in a joint list.
Freedom of thought, conscience and religion
Christians
In addition to the challenges faced by all religious minority communities in
Pakistan, the challenges to Pakistan’s Christians exercising their religious
freedom were brought into focus by several attacks on their places of worship
during the year. In Karachi, at least six churches were attacked, two of them
within a period of 10 days in October. In the first of those attacks, around 200
people, who had been protesting against electricity outages, reportedly
desecrated the holy books and damaged St Mary’s statues in the church. In a
rare twist to the use of the blasphemy law, the police registered a ‘blasphemy’
case under Section 295-A of the Pakistan Penal Code (for deliberate acts
intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religious
beliefs) along with charges of looting, vandalism and theft against the protesters
on the complaint of the church pastor.
The more well known and more controversial charge of blasphemy
emanates from Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) and carries
the mandatory sentence of death. Under Section 295-A of the PPC a convict
can face fine or imprisonment for up to 10 years.
Some leaders of the Christian community had opposed registration of a
‘blasphemy’ case over the church attack, arguing that since they had never
endorsed the blasphemy law, opting for it in one instance would make it difficult
for them in principle to protest against its misuse in the future.
As many as half of the targeted churches in Karachi were situated in Essa
Nagri, one of the largest Christian populated areas in Karachi. In May, St
Luke’s Church in Essa Nagri, situated opposite the house of minority
parliamentarian Saleem Khokhar, was attacked. The parliamentarian said after
the second of the two church attacks in Karachi in October that churches
were being attacked to prevent people from practising their religion freely.
“We all are Pakistanis and our house of worship should be given protection
and security,” he had said. Christian community leaders repeatedly drew
attention of other citizens to Islam’s message of tolerance, love, brotherhood
and respect for other religions, people of other communities and minorities.
Police increased security for churches in Islamabad on the eve of Christmas