Archbishop – we need to reform Aid to Pakistan
Church of England Newspaper April 8th
Following the Easter Sunday bombing in Lahore in which 74 people, mainly women and children and 320 were injured, Archbishop Justin Welby has called for reform in UK Aid to Pakistan.
Not all victims were Christian but the Taliban have confirmed that they were the intended target. Pakistan has a population of 190 million people with 2 million Christians. The European Commission, the European Parliament, the US House of Representatives and the US Administration have designated Christians and Yasidis in the Middle East to be victims of genocide.
The UK Government is an exception. It maintains that persecution of Christians does not occur in Pakistan, demoting their treatment to simple discrimination. UK aid to Pakistan in 2013 was £338 million, the largest to any recipient of UK Government foreign aid.
Writing on FT.com, and on his own website, Archbishop Welby said: “ There is an urgent diplomatic task to ensure that no country …. supports the persecution of anyone because of their religious belief”. He added: “The Pakistani diaspora in the UK is part of a network of relationships that … can be built on… by more closely aligning aid and trade policy with the strengthening of the human rights and religious freedom agenda.” Addressing the UK government’s justification of this budget level “to improve stability and security in the region and beyond” he said; “Academic research shows that societies that guarantee religious freedom are generally more prosperous and stable.”
Bishop Michael Nazir Ali, who was in Lahore over Easter for a wedding, has written from Lahore to the CEN that
“We need to address the underlying issues which are about common citizenship, one law for all, the equality of all under the law and the prevention of the teaching of hate in textbooks, religious schools and by some religious leaders. This will create a society where people are less likely to turn to extremism and violence. The army’s security operation is underway and that is good but it won’t deal with the root causes of recruitment to vicious ideologies.”
Interviewed on BBC after the bombing, Bishop Nazir Ali said: ”Legal discrimination against Christians was embedded in law in Pakistan 25-30 years ago. There is also social discrimination in employment, housing opportunities and schooling.” http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/64385/
Reuters reported (March 6 2016 http://reut.rs/21gqxWE) that the blasphemy law states that anyone found to have defiled the name of Prophet Mohammad in writing or speech, including by “innuendo or insinuation, directly or indirectly”, should be punished with life imprisonment or death. In 1990, that was strengthened to “death and nothing else”. No one in Pakistan has been executed for blasphemy so far, but jails are filling up with those sentenced to death, and there have been sporadic assassinations of the accused and people involved in their defence.
Bishop Nazir-Ali put the change from when he was Bishop in Lahore in the 1980’s down to a process of radicalisation based on an ideology that is regarded as based on religion. “It is for others to say how distorted or authentic it is- but that is what is causing these problems.”
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