Bombs in Nigerian Christian district kill at least 12

Boko Haram suspected

Police say 12 people are dead after multiple explosions on Monday night that rocked the Christian Sabon Gari area of Kano State in northern Nigeria, despite continuing government efforts to restore peace.

No group has claimed responsibility for the July 29 blasts, but it is widely believed that the outlawed violent Islamic sect Boko Haram may be responsible for the attacks in which the official number of victims is being disputed by some residents.

There is no record of reprisal attacks. Security personnel have cordoned off the area.

The federal government has, however, given the Presidential Committee on Dialogue and Peaceful Resolution of Security Challenges in the North an additional two months to bring about peace in the northern parts of the country.

The Chairman of the Committee and Minister for Special Duties, Kabiru Tanimu Turaki, who announced the extension on Tuesday, lamented the Kano blast, noting it was sad some people who do not wish the country well are bent on prolonging the security crisis in the north.

Kano, the commercial nerve centre of Northern Nigeria, has a predominantly Muslim population but the Sabon Gari area is populated mainly by Christians from southern parts of the country.

In March, Boko Haram claimed responsibility for suicide blasts at a bus park in the same district that killed at least 22 people.

The military Joint Task Force spokesperson, Capt. Ikedichi Iweha, confirmed the incident, and said preliminary investigations are underway.

Chief Michael Tobias Idika, President of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, a cultural group for southeast Nigerians living in Kano, issued a statement saying terrorists had attacked the Sabon Gari area at about 9.30 p.m., and had planted Improvised Explosive Devices that exploded almost simultaneously, affecting various houses.

“At 41 New Road, the Christ Salvation Pentecostal Church was also bombed at the peak of evening worship,” Idika’s statement read. In contrast to the police confirmation of 12 fatalities, “Ohanaeze’s account can confirm 39 deaths in New Road and six in Igbo/Enugu Road; and also unspecified numbers of people who got injured.’’

The group called for better security in northern Nigeria.

The state Governor, Rabi’u Musa Kwnkwaso who visited the scene of the incident on Tuesday morning, condemned the  multiple bomb blasts, describing them as devastating and an attack on the whole of Nigeria.

“This attack on Sabon Gari is an attack on Nigeria because Muslims and Christians are involved. Several people of different ethnic extraction have either lost their lives or are critically injured. Whoever did this thing targeted Nigeria”, Kwankwaso said.

The Muslim umbrella body in the north, Jama'atu Nasril Islam, on Monday raised an alarm of what it called a grand design to push the entire North, and by extension all of Nigeria, into deeper crisis.

In a statement signed by its Secretary General, Dr Khalid Aliyu Abubakar, JNI wondered why the killing of innocent people has continued unabated, especially in the north:

"We strongly condemn the inhuman and ungodly act in its totality as it is reprehensible, and we equally call for calm and restraint. As it has always been our prayers, whatsoever is the intent/motive of the perpetrators of these contemptible acts, they will never succeed, insha'Allah [God-willing].’’

The pan-northern socio-political organisation Arewa Consultative Forum also pleaded with those behind the attacks to disarm in the interest of the country.

In India, a familiar pattern of pressure on Christians

News briefs: Incidents for May and June

In vast and diverse India, Christians often live freely. Yet India ranks among the 50 countries where life as a Christian is most difficult, according to Open Doors International, a global ministry that serves Christians who are pressured because of their faith. The country is No. 31 on Open Doors' 2013 World Watch List, largely because of a streak of Hindu nationalism, or Hindutva, that envisions India as a purely Hindu state.

Each month, numerous reports surface of provincial Hindutva militants breaking up prayer meetings, intimidating pastors, assaulting worshippers, and chasing Christian families from their homes and villages. The dates, locations and names change, but many of the elements remain: Christians are accused of forcing Hindus to convert; church buildings are damaged; area church leaders intervene; police often provide little protection. The incidents reported here, for May and June, contain more of the same.

Hindutva has a political base in India's right-wing, nationalist Bharatiya Janta Party, or BJP. It is the No. 2 party in the national assembly and holds or shares power in seven of India's 28 states, comprising about 15 per cent of India's population. "This ideology . . . has firm root and strong support in many government structures as in the police," the World Watch List says.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, an advisory body to the U.S. Congress, notes the Indian government has created programs intended to prevent religious intimidation. But it also says the country's overburdened courts, rife with "political corruption, and religious bias, particularly at the state and local levels," rarely punish Hindutva aggression.

The result, the commission says, is a "climate of impunity," especially in states with anti-conversion laws. Five Indian states, three of them BJP-controlled, have passed laws placing restrictions on religious conversions.

"While intended to reduce forced conversions and decrease communal violence, states with these laws have higher incidents of intimidation, harassment, and violence against religious minorities, particularly Christians, than states that do not," the commission's 2013 annual report claims.

Incidents in May and June, listed by state:

Karnataka

May 15: Hindu nationalists rally in Pakshirajapura, accusing Pastor Steven Suresh of forcefully converting members of the nomadic Hikki Pikki Adivasi tribe to Christianity and insulting Hindu gods. Police arrest Suresh and 11 other Christians. Pastor Shiibu of Indian Evangelical Church tells World Watch Monitor the new converts were forbidden to draw water from the town well, and denied government-subsidised staples such as rice and sugar.

June 26: In Narasipura, a crowd burns Zion Church, beats the pastor and five church members, following repeated calls to stop holding worship services, according to the pastor, named Annaiah. Three days later, the temporary shed built to replace the church is also burned. Police tell Hindus to stop disturbing the church, and tell Christians to stop holding meetings and to pray at home.

Odisha

May 21: Hindutva extremists attack Kati Singh in Bhalukasai village after he refuses to contribute to the local Hindu festivals. Singh is injured and admitted to Nilgiri Government Hospital. According to the All India Christian Council, Singh files a complaint with police, who turn aside his petition and ask Singh to make a festival donation.

June 12: The third day of a three-day meeting of pastors and church leaders conducted by Independent Pentecostal Church in Canalpada is disrupted when a crowd barges in, accusing organisers of forceful conversion, according to one of the guest speakers, Rev. Suratmahat Samal. Some of the intruders use motorcycles to chase several meeting participants as they leave the session in an auto-rickshaw. The rickshaw overturns, injuring eight.

Uttar Pradesh

June 10: Returning home from a visit to a church member in Sonari, Pastor Ram Prakash from the Prakash Healing Society's Church is stopped by a group, which threatens to kill him if he doesn't stop holding worship meetings in the area, according to the Evangelical Fellowship of India. Prakash tells World Watch Monitor that the church member, named Raghu, "has been visiting our church for the past two years and I went to his house as he invited me to pray for him and his family." The militants threaten to burn Raghu's house. Prakash files a complaint with police, with no response.

Manipur

June 10: Some residents of Kongpal assault Pastor A. Shyam and damage the newly built Victory Church of India, according to the Evangelical Fellowship of India. They complain the church, completed in May, is an insult because it is built adjacent to an historic site.

Tamil Nadu

June 9: Pastor Ram Chandra is beaten by Hindu attackers after he prays for a sick man, according to Pastor C.V Chacko of the Indian Pentecostal Church. Chacko tells World Watch Monitor that the man's wife and children asked Chandra to pray with them, and that protesters massed at the family's home, setting upon Chandra as he left the house.

Maharashtra

May 5: A mob of about 20 enters Maranatha Worship Centre in Pimpri village during services, menaces the 50 assembled parishioners assembled for evening prayer, and orders the priest to leave town and close the church, according to the Catholic Christian Secular Forum. The priest, Fr. Wilson Patole, suffers a swollen eye and other bruises.

May 23: Intruders barge into the Sarfabad house of Gyaneshwar Kurwade as they are gathered for an evening family prayer. The intruders assault Kurwade and his son, Shrikrishana, saying they don't want Christian activity in the area. The victims report the assault to police, but no action is taken.

June 6: State police in Pandherwani file a First Information Report against local Christians after Hindus accuse them of forceful conversion. Sudharkar Mavli, field coordinator for Indian Evangelical Mission, tells World Watch Monitor that some of Hindus in the town have assaulted Christians, destroyed a house, seized farmland, and have ordered Christians to leave the village.

Andhra Pradesh

June 4: In Thukkuguda, Hindu extremists attack a Telegu pastors meeting, hurl verbal abuse at their faith and caste, and beat them with sticks, according to Pastor Bhagati Timothy. Four pastors suffer significant injuries and are taken to the hospital. Police register a First Information Report against the attackers. No arrests have yet been made.

June 10: A Hindu mob, assisted by Dhanjiy Reddy, a local government official, demolishes Christ Church in Gutta Begumpet, making good on a year of insistence that Pastor Paul Viswas stop church services. At the intervention of area church elders, Reddy is transferred to a different area.

Tripura

April 28: Angry Hindus in Twirisa interrupt worship meetings on April 14, 21 and 28, threatening "dire consequence" if the meetings don't stop, Nabin Zamatia tells World Watch Monitor. On April 28, the meetings stop. "There are about 40 church members and some are very fearful of the extremists' threats now," Zamatia says. "My family and a few other families went to another village to worship Christ."

May 23: Tapas Bin, 35, is murdered in Twirisa village. Area church leader T. Honathan tells World Watch Monitor that after Bin had married a local woman, his Hindu father had been pressuring him to abandon Christianity. Church officials claim the killing was religiously motivated. Police disagree, though at times have provided conflicting assessments.

Kerala

June 5: Eight Hindutva extremists attack Church of God Full Gospel India Pastor Vijayan M. and his wife in Edathar, as they return home from a visit to a believer who had fallen sick, according to the All India Christian Council. The couple is knocked off their scooter, and in the ensuing assault suffer injuries that require care at Palakkad District Hospital. Local Christian leaders file a police complaint.

Gujarat

May 14: Rajubhai R. Bhuriyaand and his family, assembled in their Bilwani village home for the evening family devotion, are assaulted by a group of about 20 drunken villagers who accuse the family of forceful conversion. Five injured members of the family are admitted in Dahod Government Hospital.

Chhattisgarh

May 3: Police arrest four pastors in Bhelwa Baddhara after they are accused of forceful conversion. The Evangelical Fellowship of India reports that pastors Mani Munda, Vishnu Kerketta, Ashok Idaigo, and Rajgopal Munda, from the Power of Saviour Ministry in Sundargarh, Odisha, were visiting the house of a believer when police arrived and took them to the police station for questioning. Ten local Christians tell police they became believers of their own free will. Police charge the pastors with continuing an assembly that has been ordered to disperse, and release the men on bail.

After 12 years, Turkey closes the door on American church volunteer

Pastor detects an official ‘discomfort with foreign Christians’

By Damaris Kremida

Jerry Mattix makes a presentation on Luke in an undated photo

After 12 years serving a church in Turkey voluntarily and peacefully, Jerry Mattix suddenly is on the country’s blacklist.

Officially, the government has deemed Mattix a threat to national security. Yet the police have told him he is “welcome” to apply for a visa.

Such is the perplexing state of affairs in Turkey’s southeast province of Diyarbakir, where Mattix and several other once-welcome Christian foreigners have become personae non gratae.

In April and June, Turkey denied Mattix, a U.S. citizen, a religious-worker visa. When he and his family tried June 7to re-enter the country, they were turned away. 

He and his family had lived in Diyarbakir for over a decade, helping the local church. Mattix also has authored several books, in Turkish, explaining Christianity.

“What exactly they cite as my crime that is so threatening to national security I do not know,” Mattix told World Watch Monitor from the United Kingdom, “but I can only guess that it has to do with the fact that I have been serving the local Turkish churches all these years.”

Diyarbakir is known for its diverse mix of Turks of Kurdish, Arab and Syrian ethnic background. It also is located near the epicenter of ongoing clashes between Turkish military and Kurdish rebels, and not far from Turkey’s border with Syria, over which thousands of Syrian refugees have fled, overwhelming local authorities. These issues have made the region politically sensitive for Turkey’s ruling AK Party, which is trying to marry democratic principles with modern Islam. 

Mattix and his family are not the only ones who have discovered their welcome has worn out.  In the past two years, at least six other foreign-born families have either been deported or denied renewals of their residency permits.

“Sadly, this is not just a personal vendetta on the part of the government,” Mattix said. “Several other Christian workers in our region and connected to our church have been forced to leave in the last year.”

Since May, when protests against the ruling government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan erupted in Istanbul’s Gezi Park, some foreign nationals have expressed apprehension about the government’s view of them. Turkish authorities arrested seven foreign nationals June 5, on suspicion of helping to provoke the riots, which sparked demonstrations nationwide, Hurriyet Daily News reported .

For their part, churches in southeastern Turkey say they’ve been deprived of their right to obtain help and support from foreigners.

The 2010 charter granting association status to the Protestant church in Diyarbakir specified it could employ local or foreign clergy or religious workers on a paid or volunteer basis for the purpose of educating its members. Turkey’s constitution, furthermore, grants all citizens freedom to choose, study, and communicate their religion.

Ahmet Guvener, pastor of the Diyarbakir Protestant Church for the last 16 years, said losing Mattix has left them ill-equipped to do so.

“This is leaving us in a really difficult position,” he told World Watch Monitor, “because we don’t have a religious worker and in Turkey it is forbidden to train our own [Christian] theologians. We invite foreign Christian workers, but here we encounter serious residency problems and we are left at a loss as to what to do.”

The troubles for Mattix began in September 2012, when undercover police attended a Sunday-morning service at the church. Four months later, in January, Mattix was fined 679 Turkish lira (US $352) for “illegal work.” Diyarbakir Church was fined 6,795 lira ($3,530) for employing Mattix illegally.

“The police came and observed our service and in their internal police report said: ‘Jerry Ian Mattix preached for 30 minutes and then prayed.’ That was ‘work’ for them,” Guvener said.

A lawyer for the church and Mattix is appealing the fines, claiming Mattix is a self-supporting volunteer who has never been paid by the church for his ministry involvement.

For the last 12 years Mattix and his family have resided in Turkey under a long-term residency visa, as do most foreigners who are not employed with a formal work permit. Renewal of the residency visa was refused in November 2012, prompting his church sponsors to seek a religious-worker visa for him.

There are very few known cases of foreigners living in Turkey under religious-worker visas, although the law in theory permits churches to hire foreigners.

“We want Jerry as a religious worker to serve here, and though we applied for the appropriate visas for him, the authorities refused him” in April and June, Guvener said. “On top, they fined us (in January), which means the government had already made a decision.”

It wasn’t until Mattix tried to enter Turkey at Ataturk International Airport in June that he discovered from police that he had been officially blacklisted, on two counts. The first was his fine for “working,” which he had already paid. The second one alleged Mattix was involved in activities that threaten national security.

“In other words, they had declared me an enemy of the state, on a par with terrorists,” he said.

Mattix said he also learned that the second count against him had been placed March 29, prior to the government’s first denial of a religious-worker visa.

“For 12 years he never did anything but be a peaceful man,” pastor Guvener said. “But when he applied for the ‘religious worker’ status, the government had already decided he was a national threat to the point that they blacklisted him, with no chance of him returning to the country indefinitely.”

The church’s lawyer asked the government why Mattix had been blacklisted, denied a visa and denied entry to Turkey. In response, the police sent a letter that avoided those questions and invited the American to apply for an appropriate visa.

Mattix and Guvener said they believe the deportation of Christian foreigners could spread across the country.

“All in all it seems like a planned and systematic effort to root out foreign Christians who are ministering alongside local Turkish Christians, especially in the eastern provinces,” Mattix said.

“It is the easiest and most natural place to begin this purging,” he said, “because there are fewer foreigners in the eastern provinces and the region in general is rife with political tensions, which serve as ample justification for this type of cleansing.”

Guvener said he fears for the future of the local churches in the southeast.

“There is a discomfort with foreign Christians here, and slowly they will clean them out. In the end the churches in the east will become weak and scattered, because there are no mature Christian workers among us.”

There are an estimated 4,500 Protestant Christian Turks living in Turkey, concentrated mostly in Istanbul.  The church in Diyarbakir claims 80 members who are converts to Christianity. It is located in a traditionally Christian district of Diyarbakir, on the same street as the Syrian Orthodox community's Virgin Mary Church. Today about 2,000 Syriac Christians still reside in their traditional homelands in the southeast. More than 15,000 others have moved to Istanbul in recent decades. The city was once also home to a bustling Armenian community.

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©2013 World Watch Monitor

The Son of Kenneth Bae, a U.S. citizen imprisoned in a North Korean Special Labor Camp, has launched a petition to have his father freed

By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries

LYNNWOOD, WA (ANS) -- Jonathan Bae, the son of Kenneth Bea, an American citizen and a committed Christian, who is imprisoned in a North Korea (DPRK) labor camp, has launched a petition to the President Barack Obama and his Administration to help free his father.

In a message posted at http://www.change.org/petitions/amnesty-for-my-father-kenneth-bae-a-u-s-citizen-imprisoned-in-a-north-korean-special-labor-camp, he wrote, "My father Kenneth Bae, an American citizen, is being imprisoned in a North Korea (DPRK) labor camp. Please sign my petition to free him now.

Kenneth Bae before his imprisonment

"My father-like any other American father-was working hard to provide for his family. Through his tour company that he started, he was able to show the natural beauty of North Korea to many. My father was arrested on November 3, 2012 while working as a tour operator in Rason (Rajin-Sonbong), one of North Korea's special economic zones for foreign investors. My father is a good man with the biggest heart for the people and nation of North Korea, and now he has been sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for what the DPRK identified as anti-government activities.

"On July 3, 2013, the eve of two important events-America's Independence Day and my grandfather's 70th birthday-a video of my father was released from the North Korean labor camp. My family was shocked to see him! He had lost a significant amount of weight, and his time in prison has clearly taken a toll on his health-and this was only two months into his 15-year sentence. The video showed my father working eight hours of physical labor in the fields, plowing and farming six days a week. He has chronic health conditions, including diabetes, heart problems and back pain, which require close monitoring and medical treatment. We don't know how quickly his health will deteriorate and how much longer his body can withstand the impact of the labor camp.

"In my father's prison interview, he asked for help from the United States government. He tells us that the only way to bring him home will be for the United States government to take more proactive action to secure Special Amnesty from the DPRK. My father had hopes of being home to celebrate his father's 70th birthday, which was on the Fourth of July. I can only imagine that his hope now is to make it through another day, one day at a time until he is finally reunited with his family.

"My family and I have hopes, too. We have been distraught by my father's deteriorating health and his sentence of hard labor. However, we have not given up hope because we have faith in our government to represent and protect American citizens here and abroad."

He said, "Please sign my petition asking the Obama Administration to pursue every course of possible action, without delay, to secure Special Amnesty for my father and allow him to come home to his family and friends."

He said that the petition would be delivered to:
The President of the United States
The U.S. Senate
The U.S. House of Representatives
Secretary of State John Kerry

"Please pursue every course of possible action, without delay, to secure Special Amnesty for my father and allow him to come home to his family and friends," he concluded.

At the time of writing, some 4,000 people have signed the petition.

Pastor’s Daughter in Nigeria Allegedly Kidnapped, Forced to Convert to Islam

Sharia court in Niger state backs alleged abduction of 24-year-old woman

By Jeremy Reynalds
Senior Correspondent for ASSIST News Service

JOS, NIGERIA (ANS) -- A Muslim leader in central Nigeria has reportedly abducted a pastor's daughter and forced her to convert to Islam with the backing of a sharia (Islamic law) court.

Pastor Raymond Uzoechina of the Redeemed Christian Church of God in Abuja. (Morning Star News photo)

According to a story by Morning Star News, Raymond Uzoechina, a pastor with the Redeemed Christian Church of God in Abuja, told the news service by phone that the emir or Muslim leader of the Nupe ethnic group in Bida, Niger state, Alhaji Yahaya Abubakar, abducted his daughter.

That was soon after Charity Raymond Uzoechina, 24, went to the town in February to study at the Federal Polytechnic-Bida.

After his daughter's friends notified him that she was missing, he discovered where she was as he made inquiries in the town on March 1.

Pastor Uzoechina told Morning Star News he didn’t hear of his daughter’s whereabouts from the emir's aides as the town emirate has claimed.

“After a painstaking search, we found out that she was being held captive in the palace of the Etsu Nupe, the (ethnic Nupe) Muslim leader of the town of Bida,” Pastor Uzoechina said.

He added, “I went to the palace, and the Muslim leader told me that my daughter is now a Muslim and that she is under his custody. When I demanded to take her away, the Muslim leader said he would not release her because he said she has been entrusted under his care by an Islamic court, the sharia court in the town of Bida.”

Charity Raymond Uzoechina

He denied a Nigerian press report in which he was misquoted as saying he was able to see his daughter at the emir's quarters onMarch 2.

“Even when we went there, he did not allow us to see her - he only confirmed she is at the palace on the orders of the Islamic court,” Pastor Uzoechina told Morning Star News.

After seeking legal assistance, he was invited back to the Muslim leader's quarters the week of March 4, he said. During this second visit, only his wife was allowed to see their daughter, and they were not allowed to talk, Pastor Uzoechina said.

“They showed me some documents from the Islamic court requesting that my daughter be kept in the palace,” Morning Star News reported he said.

The pastor denied the Muslim leader's version of the second meeting. In a media release, the Bida emirate claimed Pastor Uzoechina met with his daughter and Abubakar, and that she refused to go home with her father out of fear that he would harm her. Pastor Uzoechina insisted to Morning Star News that the emir refused to let him see his daughter.

Niger is one of 12 states in Nigeria that have adopted sharia. Nine states in northern Nigeria instituted sharia in 2000-2001, and three others - Kaduna, Gombe and Niger - established it only in some areas. Niger adopted sharia in parts of the state in January 2007.

The pentecostal pastor said he went to the sharia court in Bida to seek justice.

“I engaged the services of an attorney to ask them to bring her to the court so that my attorney can cross-examine her, but they refused to do so,” Morning Star News reported Pastor Uzoechina said. “I also reported the matter to the police, and she has not been rescued from the enclave six months after I lodged the complaint.”

Police told him the case was already decided by an established Islamic court, and that he should seek legal assistance to challenge the competence of the Islamic court to keep his non-Muslim daughter, he said.

Morning Star News said Abubakar, the Muslim leader, claims he has legal grounds for keeping Pastor Uzoechina's daughter in his custody. The sharia court reportedly ruled that it had put her under the “protection” of the Muslim leader, because the pastor's daughter had converted to Islam of her own volition and allegedly said she was afraid her father could kill her.

Strongly denying that his daughter could fear he would harm her, the pastor questions why the Muslim leader's quarters should be a place of “protection.” He also wonders why she should not be released to police if there were a genuine fear that he would harm her, and why his attorney has not been allowed to question her.

Pastor Uzoechina's attorney, Anthony Agbonlahor, in March reportedly petitioned a non-Islamic court, the chief judge of Niger state, for the release of the young woman but has yet to receive a response.

Agbonlahor filed a complaint with the judge about the conduct of Justice Abdulkadir Idris of Sharia Court 1, reportedly upset that the Islamic court failed to notify the pastor of the decisive hearing.

“The case was filed on March 4,” Morning Star News reported the attorney said in his complaint. “The case was heard March 4 and judgment delivered on the same day. In fact, judgment was also executed on the same date. The question is: why the urgency?”

Pastor Uzoechina said his lawyer has also gone to the sharia court to challenge its jurisdiction over the matter; the Islamic court was expected to issue a ruling on Aug. 1.

“This Muslim leader changed the name of my daughter to Aisha, an Islamic name,” he said. “I am sure that my daughter will never embrace Islam. She is being held against her wish and forced into a religion that is alien to us. Charity can never abandon the Christian faith for Islam.”

Pastor Uzoechina said he understands that other Christian girls and women are being held captive at Abubakar's home and forcibly converted to Islam.

“Apart from my daughter, there are so many other Christian girls also that have been kidnaped and are being held at the palace,” Morning Star News reported he said. “There is need for the police to rescue these Christian girls in that Islamic enclave.”

Ayo Oritsejafor, president of the Christian Association of Nigeria, said CAN is involved in trying to resolve the case.

“Our attention has been called to this problem, and we have taken it up with the leadership of the Muslim community,” Morning Star News reported he said. “It is unfortunate that this is happening.”

Christians make up 51.3 percent of Nigeria's population of 158.2 million and live mainly in the south, while Muslims account for 45 percent and live mainly in the north. But those practicing indigenous religions may be as high as 10 percent of the total population, according to Operation World, so the percentages of Christians and Muslims may be less.

For more information visit Morning Star News at http://morningstarnews.org

Pakistan's double standards over Asia Bibi and Aafia Siddiqui

By Sheraz Khan
Special to ASSIST News Service

CAITHNESS, SCOTLAND, UK (ANS) -- The continuing incarceration of Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian mother of five who was accused of blasphemy in 2009 does not appear to trouble the majority of Pakistan's Muslims who unfortunately view her death by hanging as a befitting punishment for the "crime" she denies doing.

Asia Bibi

The Pakistani government says it is up to the High Court to schedule her appeal hearing, but it appears that the court is delaying, by design, any proceedings in this regard and anti-Asia Bibi sentiment in the country remains as virulent as it was when the blasphemy accusations were first made against the poor farm hand.

The sad reality is that, four years down the road, she continues to languish in a prison away from her husband and children. Paradoxically, the people of Pakistan are the first to violently react to any incident they perceive as unjust toward Muslims, regardless of where such an incident takes place.

In September 2010, Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani Muslim neuroscientist, was sentenced in the Manhattan (New York) federal court to 86 years in prison for the attempted murder and assault of U.S. nationals and U.S. officers and employees in Afghanistan.

Islamists since then have held rallies in Pakistan in favor of Aafia Siddiqui and Fauzia Siddiqui, her sister, has advocated for her release in the Pakistan electronic media as well as in public rallies.

Dr. Aafia Siddiqui

In 2010, Pakistan requested the U.S. to extradite Aafia Siddiqui. It was suggested recently in the media that the extradition or hand over of Aafia to Pakistan in exchange for Dr. Shakil Afridi, was imminent prompting a U.S. foreign office spokesperson on Thursday, July 25, to dispel any such suggestion.

Dr. Afridi is a Pakistani physician who helped the CIA run a fake vaccine program in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in order to confirm Osama bin Laden's presence in the city by obtaining DNA samples. Details of the doctor's activities emerged during the Pakistani investigation of the deadly raid on Bin Laden's residence. He was arrested from Torkham border while trying to escape the country days after the raid. On May 23, 2012, Shakil Afridi was sentenced to 33 years imprisonment for treason, initially believed to be in connection with the Bin Laden raid but later revealed to be due to ties with a local Islamist warlord Mangal Bagh. Lawyers appealed against the verdict on June 1, 2012.

In November 2010. Pope Benedict XVI's call for clemency for Ms. Bibi provoked strident criticism from Pakistani politicians and Islamists across the world who saw the plea for mercy as an interference in Pakistan's internal affairs. Some even questioned the Pope's integrity by citing his silence over Ms. Siddiqui's release. Demanding the Pope to intervene on behalf of Dr. Siddiqui, per se, is absurd and to suggest that the former Pope should have done so since he called for Ms. Bibi's release is not only totally unjustifiable it is ignorance on a grand scale.

Salman Taseer, right, Governor of Pakistani Punjab Province, talks to reporters after meeting with Asia Bibi, left, at a prison in Sheikhupura near Lahore, Pakistan, in a Nov. 20, 2010 file photo. He was later assassinated

In 2011 Shahbaz Bhatti, the Pakistani Christian minister of minorities and Punjab governor, Salman Taseer, a moderate Muslim, were assassinated for advocating Ms. Bibi's release and, as the world was coming to terms with these atrocities, the governor's assassin was festooned with garlands on the streets of Islamabad.

The predilection of Pakistan's government, and most of the Muslims in Pakistan (and across the Muslim world) for Ms. Aafia Siddiqui, contrasted with the torrent of hatred for Asia Bibi, deeply troubles me.

As Ms. Bibi's fate hangs in the balance, the focus of the international community aimed at securing her release, has shifted from Pakistan's outgoing President Asif Ali Zardari, whose five year term ends in September 2013, to Mr. Nawaz Sharif who made history by being elected for the third term as Prime Minister after the elections of May 2013.

Some analysts in Pakistan claim that the politics of Nawaz Sharif and his brother Shahbaz Sharif, the Chief Minister of Punjab, have matured after years of exile in Saudi Arabia. It remains to be seen if the maturity attributed to the Sharif's is reflected in policies aimed at minorities and whether or not the "now wiser" Sharif's take measures to ensure minorities' inclusion in the social, political and cultural fabric of Pakistani society.

Supporters of All Pakistan Minorities Alliance chant during a rally calling for an end to the blasphemy laws and the release of Asia Bibi

Not many from amongst the Pakistani Christians, and other minorities, benefited from Shahbaz Sharif's free laptops distribution scheme he launched in the end of January 2012.

Mr. Shahbaz Sharif failed to show up in Gojra, a small town in the province of Punjab, which made international headlines after eight Christians were burnt alive over blasphemy rumors in 2009, in the wake of two recent incidents there.

On July 20, 2013, a disabled Christian man and his wife were arrested over sending a "blasphemous text" and, on July 13, a Gojra court gave life imprisonment and a fine of 200,000 Pakistani rupees (US$ 1,980) to Sajjad Masih, the Christian, who was accused of having committed blasphemy. Was Mr. Sharif waiting for the simmering tension to turn into communal violence or was he afraid that his presence in Gojra would antagonize Islamists?

Whatever his reasons for not visiting Gojra, his apparent apathetic gesture toward minorities suggests that he only sees fit to visit minorities during the election season and, as his party's presidential nominee, does not require the public votes of the minorities on July 30, so the likelihood of his visit to a minority area is highly unlikely.

As the Sharif's are drooling in anticipation of their nominee's presidential victory, Chrristian and minority leaders in Pakistan fear a resurgence of 2009 like violence in Gojra.