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Muslim landlords force Christians to ‘evict their homes’

Christian residents of a village close to Khanewal, the capital city of Khanewal District in the Punjab province of Pakistan, are being forced by local Muslim landlords to "evict their homes" by Thursday, July 1, 2010, reports Jawad Mazhar, special correspondent for ANS, reporting from Pakistan.

There are 250 Christian families living there amidst 6,000 Muslim families.

The ASSIST News Service (ANS) has learned from local Christians that the residents who are being forced out of their homes are all from village number 123/10R, Katcha Khoh.

Talking to ANS about the peremptory eviction order by the Muslim landlords, Christian villager, Shehzad Masih, claimed that Muslim elders had ordered some local Muslims to evict the residents because some of the Christian families “had raised their voice against the injustice which was being served to them.”

Mr. Masih said that 75 percent of the families have already locked their homes and migrated and now has nowhere to live.

He went onto allege that one of the landowners had tried to sleep with one of the teenage Christian girls he employed and had become angry when this didn’t occur and this had caused much anger and the need for revenge.

ANS has also learned there were several precedents from the past which could be singled out when Muslim landlords or their sons had raped or attempted to rape Christian women or girls who served at their homes as maidservants.

The order of the alleged unlawful forcible relocation by Muslim elders of village was issued after Christian men, women and girls had protested against the “disdainful attitude of Muslim women and men towards Christians at this village.”

Khalid Gill, Christians Lawyers Foundation (CLF) President and General Secretary Azhar Kaleem told ANS in an interview about the “pathetic condition” of villagers.

Local Christian residents especially, Rasheed Masih, Shehzad Mash, Nathaniel Masih, the son of Inayat Masih, and also a Christian widow called Laviza said that they have no other place to settle therefore they have appealed and expressed about their apprehensions to the Chief Justice of Pakistan’s apex Court, Mian Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhary, and also to the American Ambassador to Pakistan, Anne W. Peterson, asking them to help them save their homes.

They also stated that they regretted that those “Christian leaders who proclaim to be stalwarts of Christian rights” are “just working for US Dollar, Pound Starlings and Euros” and apparently “have no interest in problem of Christians in Pakistan.”

Talking about another shocking case, Ferhan Mazher, head of the Rays of Development (RoD) Organization in Pakistan, said, “Recently, a Christian woman in Lahore committed suicide due to poverty and their domestic problems, whereas their house was surrounded by churches and Christian Seminaries who apparently did nothing to help.”

He added: “In the area of Lahore where she lived, there are more than 350 registered Christian organizations and they get huge grants of millions of U.S. dollars under the garb of Christianity or Christian persecution, but they failed to provide counseling to the impoverished woman, and her four children, in time to save their lives. ”

He was talking about Munazza Riaz, who killed her four minor children and self by injecting them and herself with poisonous drugs. The dead were identified as Maiza, 9, Aaiza, 8, Ansa, 7, and Nauman, 3, and their mother.

Khalid Gill, Azher Kaleem and Ferhan Mazher have now appealed to all the international donors to “only donate to the honest organizations which are hankering to protect Christian rights.”

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TAGS: Pakistan anti-Christian violence persecution eviction order Christian rights

[06/29/2010]

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