Pakistani Christians Need Our Prayers

PDN

Sadly the campaign of intimidation and death against non-Muslims in Pakistan shows no sign of stopping. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-12617562

This latest assassination not only killed one of the most prominent Christians in Pakistan, but is part of a very nasty campaign to eradicate those who stand up for the rights of minorities. Our fellow Christians in Pakistan, along with other non-Muslim groups, must be feeling very vulnerable right now.

This guy had received death threats in January.

Pakistan's Minorities Minister, Shahbaz Bhatti, has died after gunmen opened fire on his car in the capital, Islamabad, hospital officials say.

He was travelling to work through a residential district when his vehicle was sprayed with bullets, police said.

Mr Bhatti, a Christian, had received death threats after calling for changes to the controversial blasphemy law.

In January, Punjab governor Salman Taseer, who had also opposed the law, was shot dead by one of his bodyguards.

The blasphemy law holds a death sentence for anyone who insults Islam. Critics say it has been used to persecute minority faiths.
'Concerted campaign'

Mr Bhatti, 42, a leader of the ruling Pakistan's People Party (PPP), had just left his home in the I-8/3 area of the capital when at least two gunmen ambushed his car, police official Mohammad Iqbal said.

He was rushed to the nearby Shifa hospital, but was dead on arrival, Dr Azmatullah Qureshi told the AFP news agency.

The gunmen escaped in a car after the attack, witnesses said.

Television footage showed Mr Bhatti's vehicle riddled with bullet holes. Reports said it did not have a security escort.

No group has said it was behind the attack, but leaflets issued by Tehrik-i-Taleban Punjab, a branch of the Taleban in Pakistan's most populous province, were found at the ambush site, according to the private TV channel Express 24/7.

Security has been stepped up on all main roads in Islamabad.

In January, Mr Bhatti told the BBC he would defy death threats he had received from Islamist militants for his efforts to reform the blasphemy law.

"I was told that if I was to continue the campaign against the blasphemy law, I will be assassinated. I will be beheaded. But forces of violence, forces of extremism cannot harass me, cannot threaten me," he said.

A government spokesman condemned the assassination.

"This is concerted campaign to slaughter every liberal, progressive and humanist voice in Pakistan," Farahnaz Ispahani, an aide to President Asif Ali Zardari, told the Associated Press.

"The time has come for the federal government and provincial governments to speak out and to take a strong stand against these murderers to save the very essence of Pakistan."

Keylem

It's awful the intolerance against christians in certain parts of the world, I pray every day for peace. .

Don't know how to add youtube link!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeQ85q_7opc&feature=player_embedded&skipcontrinter=1#at=21

virmilitaris

Not a religious person but my heart goes out to these people. Something needs to be done in Pakistan, the situation is beyond reason at the moment.

Shahbaz Bhatti was a brave man and in years to come I believe he and Salman Taseer will be seen as such.

Baggio1

Yeah Bhatti indeed a true brave soul and i'd say apossible saint case coz of his witness to faith? was interesting to read he was a devout Roman Catholic, sure does put things into perspective what it REALLY means to bare ultimate witness to one's faith eh!?

......

Donatello

This just in from CWN:


Bishop Andrew Francis of Multan is calling upon the Church to declare Shahbaz Bhatti a martyr. Bhatti, a Catholic cabinet minister, was assassinated for his opposition to the nation’s blasphemy law.

In Rome, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, the president of the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue, agreed that Bhatti died as an “authentic martyr.” Presiding at a suffrage Mass for the slain Pakistani leader, the cardinal revealed that in their last conversation, in November 2010, Bhatti had told him: “I know that I will die assassinated, but I lay down my life for Christ and for inter-religious dialogue.”

During his Angelus audience on Sunday, March 6, Pope Benedict XVI voiced his hope that “the moving sacrifice of the life of the Pakistani minister Shahbaz Bhatti may arouse in people's consciences the courage and commitment to defend the religious freedom of all men.”