Pakistan: Row over demolition of historic Roman Catholic institution

By Rodrick Samson 
Special Correspondent for the ASSIST News Service in Pakistan

LAHORE, PAKISTAN (ANS) -- The row has broken out in Pakistan after the Gosh-e-Aman Institute, an historic Roman Catholic institution, established in 1887, has been demolished on the orders of the Punjab provincial government

Zenobia Richards sitting amidst the rubble

It stood on a 2-acre area now worth billions of rupees and housed a senior citizens’ home, a girls’ school, a convent and a chapel and was demolished on January 10, 2012.

The legal arguments over who owned the building and the land has been going on for some time; at least since a woman convert to Islam had sought shelter in the facility.

The Catholic Church had filed a petition at the Lahore High Court (LHC) protesting at what he says is the illegal demolishing of the building.

Father Emmanuel Yousaf Mani, director of the National Commission for Justice and Peace has been leading the case at the Lahore High Court.

The residents have since been trying to find shelter.

Zenobia Richards, 61, told ANS, “The Catholic Church has filed the petition only for the illegal demolishing, but not for the desecration of the church, which is unacceptable. I have filed a case at the LHC against the desecration of the Bible, Mary`s Statue and the rosary. I am surprised that the Church in spite of having the authority didn’t mention the desecration.

“I have also questioned them that why they had given the land to a Muslim inside the church premises. I will fight for my right. I saw everything happening in front of my eyes. God has given me the courage to file a case for blasphemy.”

Surveying what is left of the institution

Father Emmanuel Yousaf, after appearing in the LHC said, “The case is in the court and we have full confidence in our legal system. We have filed the case for illegal demolishing of Gosh-e-Aman. We are trying to do whatever we can for the displaced.”

A representative from the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) said that the land was government property, and it was in possession of a “land mafia.” The group was led by a woman, who was a Christian who had converted to Islam. She had deployed armed men around the property to resist demolition by the LDA officials. The church had not been able to oust her, but she left the place before it was demolished.

Pervaiz Rafique, a Member Provincial Assembly says that he will be raising the matter on the floor of the Punjab assembly and will demand the Government officials to answer why they had illegally demolished the Church property.

Discussing what can be done about the demolition

Zenobia Richards, 61, has been working for the Catholic Church for over 24 years,and she lived alone and had no connection with the Muslim convert.

The case is in the court, the Church leadership has refused to talk to anyone regarding the proceedings. The question about the Muslim convert being the legal or illegal occupant is being investigated as she claimed that she had the property documents and the church had transferred the land to her, but the LDA and other government officials say she was illegally living there.

Gosh-e-Aman (Corner of peace) was established by Catholic Church of Pakistan in 1887 and, after the creation of Pakistan, it was being administered jointly by the Catholic Church, Anglican Church and the Presbyterian Church. Later, in 1970’s, Caritas was looking after the property. Since 2001 a welfare trust had been taking care of the premises. There were around 5-6 families in the premises along with the women who later converted and became a Muslim.

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Rodrick Samson is a freelance journalist based in Pakistan

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** You may republish this story with proper attribution.

Landlord Evicts Church

Gospel for Asia
For Immediate Release

A small congregation, like the one pictured here, was recently evicted from the building it uses for worship.

SOUTH ASIA (ANS) -- Gospel for Asia-supported missionary Tonkal Bustan is looking for a new place to conduct worship services after a landlord kicked his church out of their rented space.


The small group of 15 worshipers had been meeting for worship and prayer in a rented room. But one Sunday in July, the worship service was interrupted by the landlord, who said the neighbors were complaining about the services. He said the fledgling church's neighbors claim they are disturbed by the prayer meetings as well.

He then told Pastor Bustan and his congregation they had to move. Unfortunately, that's not easy. This tiny church is located in a large South Asian city that is also a popular tourist destination. Rents are very high, and many landlords refuse to rent to Christians.

Tonkal is asking Christians around the world to pray for his church and that their landlord would change his mind and allow them to stay. He also asked for prayer that the ministry would not be hindered by this setback. Also, pray for Tonkal to be encouraged and filled with wisdom as he deals with this situation.

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• Join a congregation at the dedication of their new church building.

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Gospel for Asia is an evangelical mission organization based in Carrollton, Texas, involved in sharing the love of Jesus across South Asia.

Blast Near Church in Kirkuk, Iraq Injures 13

Christian leaders say senseless violence designed to confuse, shock.

By Damaris Kremida

 

ISTANBUL, August 3 (Compass Direct News) – A car blast outside a Syrian Catholic church in Kirkuk, Iraq yesterday morning left 13 wounded as police located and disarmed two more car bombs targeting churches in the city, according to area sources.

 

Online video images of the attack against the Holy Family Church showed one of its walls blasted open and all its surfaces covered with broken glass, rubble and dust from the entrance where the explosion took place to the sanctuary on the far end of the building. The explosion occurred on the second day of the month-long Muslim fasting period of Ramadan.

 

Nearby houses in one of Kirkuk’s oldest quarters, where Muslims and Christians had lived together peacefully, were seriously damaged, and cars on the street were left in twisted piles of metal. Shattered glass wounded 13 residents as they slept, area sources said.

 

“We are sad because this is nonsense, and people are discouraged,” the archbishop of Kirkuk, Monsignor Louis Sako, told Compass. “We try to encourage them and give them hope. We have asked the mayor-governor to help the families that lost their houses and cars before thinking to restore the church.”

 

Today all but one of the wounded residents in the church’s neighborhood – an elderly man who was seriously injured – reportedly had been released from the hospital. The Rev. Imad Yalda, the parish priest, was in the church building at the time of the blast and was also slightly wounded.

 

Though Yalda and the community were sad about yesterday’s events, a local pastor who requested anonymity told Compass such attacks have become a normal part of the lives of Christians in Iraq.

 

“He accepted what happened, but he was very sad for the building of his church,” the pastor said. “But this has become ordinary for us, and we expect that any minute something will happen here. When you are living in this situation, you are used to accept what is happening.”

 

No terrorist or extremist group has taken responsibility for yesterday’s attack in Kirkuk, and local church leaders said it seems Christians in Iraq are trapped in a senseless game of power and intimidation.

 

“Sometimes we feel there is some pressure over the Christians all over Iraq to make them leave their cities and go to the northern part of Iraq, to Kurdistan,” said the pastor, “but who knows? I can’t say those who did this want us to leave our city.”

 

Sako said the perpetrators, whether they are Islamic extremists with anti-Christian motives or terrorists with political motives, are trying to create an atmosphere of confusion by attacking Christians during the Muslim holy month of fasting, Ramadan.

 

“They are using this to shock people,” said Sako. “They are getting the attention of politicians in Kirkuk and in Iraq and saying, ‘We are here and powerful, and we can do whatever we want.’ It’s just confusing – [they want to] say they are here and create a chaotic situation and make a panic among the people.”

 

Car Bombs Defused

Authorities also located two other cars full of explosives in the area. One was parked in front of the church building of Mar Gourgis, of the Assyrian Church of the East. A school is located next to the church building.

 

Another vehicle packed with explosives was parked in front of a Protestant church in the neighborhood. When the church pastor and others in the neighborhood heard the blast at the Holy Family Church at 5:30 a.m., they came out to see what had happened.

 

In front of the Protestant church complex they saw a suspicious car filled with containers of gas. Before noon, special forces confirmed the car was full of explosives and disarmed it. In the process there was a small explosion that broke 21 windows of the church complex.

 

Kirkuk’s Christian leaders said they fear more Christians will decide to migrate abroad after this attack. The Protestant church that was targeted yesterday has 70 members, of which nine will be leaving the country in the next two months, according to its leaders. Yet they hope that Christians will remain in Iraq.

 

“We continue to witness to Jesus Christ and our Christian values; we are not afraid,” Sako said. 

 

Kirkuk, 250 kilometers (155 miles) north of Baghdad, is a culturally diverse city with about 10,000 Christians.

 

There have been at least 45 abductions in Kirkuk since the start of the year, with most victims coming from well-to-do families, Agence-France Presse (AFP) reported last month.

 

A special report prepared for U.S. Congress last month stated that Iraq’s security is declining and is less safe than it was a year ago.

 

AFP also reported that June was the deadliest month in Iraq so far this year, with 271 people killed in attacks according to a government count.

 

A Baghdad court found four men guilty of “planning and preparing” an attack on the Syrian Catholic Church of Our Lady of Salvation last October in which 58 people were killed. The judge handed three perpetrators the death sentence and a 20-year jail term to another, according to The Associated Press. The men, whose names authorities did not release, have one month to appeal.

 

Last year’s attack was the deadliest one against the country’s Christians since Islamic extremists began targeting them in 2003. On Oct. 31, 2010, during evening mass, al Qaeda suicide bombers stormed the church building and held some 100 worshipers hostage for hours after detonating bombs in the neighborhood and gunning down two area policemen.

 

The militants sprayed the sanctuary with bullets and ordered a priest to call the Vatican to demand the release of Muslim women whom they claimed were held hostage by the Coptic Church in Egypt. When security forces stormed the building, the assailants started to kill hostages and eventually blew themselves up.

 

It is estimated that more than 50 percent of Iraq’s Christian community has fled the country since 2003. There are nearly 600,000 Christians left in Iraq.

 

www.compassdirect.org

 

END

 

Car Bomb in Northern Iraq Injures at least 20 People Outside Church Building

By Michael Ireland
Senior Correspondent, ASSIST News Service

BAGHDAD, IRAQ (ANS) -- A car bomb exploded outside a Catholic church in central Kirkuk, Iraq, early Tuesday, wounding at least 20 people, authorities said.

According to CNN, the attack took place in Kirkuk's Shatterlo neighborhood around 5:30 a.m. (10:30 p.m. Monday ET). The network cited a police official who spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

CNN said the wounded included staff from the Holy Family Church and people with homes nearby. The Interior Ministry stated 23 people were injured.

The CNN report said police told the network the explosion damaged the church and a number of nearby houses. Kirkuk is an ethnically-divided city located about 240 kilometers (150 miles) north of Baghdad.

In the past few years, extremists have carried out major attacks against churches. An October 31, 2010 attack on the Sayidat al-Nejat Cathedral, or Our Lady of Salvation Church, left 70 people dead and 75 wounded, including 51 congregants and two priests.

CNN said the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group that includes a number of Sunni Muslim extremist organizations and has ties to al Qaeda in Iraq, claimed responsibility for the Baghdad church siege.

CNN expalined that religious minorities, such as Christians and Yazidis, make up less than 5 percent of Iraq's population, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. Since 2003, attacks against these minorities by insurgents and religious extremists have driven more than half of the minorities out of the country, according to UNHCR statistics.

Ivana Kvesic, reporting for the Christian Post at www.christianpost.com , said that in a coordinated effort to generate fear among Iraqi Christians, the attack occurred in the ethnically- and religiously-diverse city of Kirkuk outside a Syrian Catholic Church on Tuesday around 6 a.m.

In an online report, The Christian Post said at least 23 people were wounded in the attack, mostly from surrounding homes. The church's parish leader, Imad Yalda, was inside the church during the bombing and was also among the wounded.

Following the attack, two other car bombs were also found outside Kirkuk's Christian Anglican Church and the Mar Gourgis church.

The bombs were defused by security forces prior to their explosion, the website said.

Kirkuk's Deputy Police Chief, Torhan Abdulrahman said of the attack, "It was a coordinated attack to target churches at the same time."

The Rev. Haithem Akram, of one of the targeted churches in today's attacks said, "The terrorists want to make us flee Iraq, but they will fail. We are staying in our country."

According to the Christian Post, Iraqi's Christian minority, formally standing at around 1.4 million, has been significantly downsizing its presence in the country since the ousting of Saddam Hussein in 2003, with close to 1 million having fled to other regions in Iraq or leaving the country to seek refuge.

The website explained that Christians in Iraq are targeted predominately by Sunni extremists who find Christians in the country to be "non-believers." Christian pastors in Iraq have spoken out against Christian persecution in their country arguing for more government support and protection.

Canon Andrew White, who leads the St. George's Anglican Church in Baghdad, has spoken out against the violence, but has also argued that the violence has only served to strengthen Christian unity in the country.

Violence directed at Iraq's Christian minority hit an all-time high last October when 52 people were killed and dozens wounded in an attack on Baghdad's Our Lady of Salvation Catholic Church.

The website said an al-Qaida affiliated group claimed responsibility for the attacks that saw gunmen and suicide bombers storm the church and kill worshipers.

It was the most deadly attack on Christians in Iraq since the 2003 U.S. invasion of the country.

The wesite said that today's attacks come on the same day that a Baghdad court convicted three Iraqis to death for their role in last year's church siege.

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** Michael Ireland is Senior Correspondent for ANS. He is an international British freelance journalist who was formerly a reporter with a London (United Kingdom) newspaper and has been a frequent contributor to UCB UK, a British Christian radio station. While in the UK, Michael traveled to Canada and the United States, Albania,Yugoslavia, Holland, Germany,and Czechoslovakia. He has reported for ANS from Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Israel, Jordan, China,and Russia. Michael's volunteer involvement with ASSIST News Service is a sponsored ministry department -- 'Michael Ireland Media Missionary' (MIMM) -- of A.C.T. International of P.O.Box 1649, Brentwood, TN 37024-1649, at: Artists in Christian Testimony (A.C.T.) International where you can donate online to support his stated mission of 'Truth Through Christian Journalism.' Michael is a member in good standing of the National Writers Union, Society of Professional Journalists, Religion Ne wswriters Association, Evangelical Press Association and International Press Association. If you have a news or feature story idea for Michael, please contact him at: ANS Senior Reporter