The Voice of the suffering in Asia

“The Christian community has been terrorized and frightened by a small group of miscreants, who are intent on making them believe that Christians are second-class citizens of Pakistan. We ask the government to take strong measures to protect minorities and to implement policies that can help us become a more peaceful nation and create a better society.”

Many of the families spent the night in sugar cane fields – up to 1,000 people.” They had been running away, trying to find somewhere where they could rest. “Some of them went back to their homes desperate for something to eat but when they got home, they found everything destroyed – nothing to sit on, nothing to drink out of, not even a lightbulb.”

Christians from the Punjab town of Jaranwala, near Faisalabad, fled en masse as fanatics began throwing rocks and setting fire to buildings. The incident follows an accusation of blasphemy against a Christian cleaner accused of desecrating the Qur’an and insulting the Prophet of Islam.

Archbishop Lumon added that his community has been “cut off from the rest of the world” for the last three months, because of an “Internet and social media ban imposed by the government ever since communal violence erupted in the state.”

Of the assault itself, she recalled, “The mob wanted to kill me, but I kept praying to Jesus. I opened my eyes and felt that I saw angels, and from that moment on, I knew that I would be saved.”

And as has happened in similar cases previously, an offense against Muslims in Europe is having serious repercussions for Christian communities in Muslim-majority countries.