The Horror of Being Christian in Muslim Pakistan: Just One Month

by Raymond Ibrahim • June 25, 2023 at 5:30 am

"[T]here was absolutely no case. There was no proof against Noman, and none of the witnesses produced by police could corroborate the blasphemy allegation against him.... This is murder of justice." — Lazar Allah Rakha, lawyer for Norman Masih, a 22-year-old Christian man, sentenced to death for "blasphemy", Morning Star News, May 31, 2023,
"Several people have been lynched over false accusations of blasphemy in Pakistan. At least 57 cases of alleged blasphemy were reported in Pakistan between Jan. 1 and May 10 [2023], while four blasphemy suspects were lynched or extrajudicially killed during the same period..." — Morning Star News, May 22, 2023
"The blasphemy laws have been consistently misused to settle personal disputes, persecute minority groups, and incite mob violence and hatred. We demand prompt action and a collective effort by the government to address these human rights violations." — Retired Justice Nasira Javaid Iqbal, Morning Star News, May 22, 2023.
[A] Muslim policeman, hired to protect a Catholic school run by the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, instead attacked the school and murdered two young girls. — British Asian Christian Association, May 16, 2023.
"[T]he incident [murder] has been officially blamed on the 'mental health' of the man, without investigating his possible relations with Muslim extremist groups." — bitterwinter.org, June 1, 2023.
"[W]hy this horrific terrorist event occurred at the missionary school is due to a hatred of education for women, in radicalised Pakistan." — British Asian Christian Association, May 16, 2023.
In yet another incident... a Muslim family — with the aid of police — beat, tortured, and illegally confined a Christian house-cleaner, soon after she tried to resign due to pregnancy.... When her husband, rickshaw driver Gulfam Masih, went to police to report her missing, officers arrested him instead.... Asma [the cleaner] reported her illegal confinement and beating to police, but officers dismissed her complaint without even bothering to question her. Angered that she had the temerity to report them, the Muslim family registered a theft charge against Asma and her husband, which police did take very seriously. — Morning Star News, May 26, 2023.
"Many poor Christians are victimized through false allegations, including blasphemy, if they choose to discontinue working for their Muslim employers. The pattern is quite similar when you examine such cases.... The Muslim family used its influence to discharge Asma's complaint against her torture and then registered a false [report] against the couple to 'teach them a lesson.'" — Imran Sahotra, the Christian Awakening Movement, Morning Star News, May 26, 2023.
"Eventually the mob disappeared... shouting threats of death and the rape of Christian boys and girls if they continued to pursue the police...." — British Asian Christian Association, May 26, 2023.
"It must be terrifying... to have suffered such a brazen attack, knowing the next one is days away and the authorities meant to protect you have no desire to help...." — Juliet Chowdhry, Trustee for British Asian Christian Association, May 26, 2023.
"The mindset of a whole nation must be changed—empowered Muslims must be taught to respect the minorities living amongst them." — Juliet Chowdhry, Trustee for British Asian Christian Association, May 26, 2023.

Last month, a Muslim family in Pakistan — with the aid of police — beat, tortured, and illegally confined a Christian house-cleaner for eight days, soon after she tried to resign due to pregnancy. (Image source: iStock. Image is illustrative and does not represent any person in the article.)

The persecution of Christians in Pakistan — whether at the hands of judges and police, or mobs and rapist gangs — continues to worsen, as evidenced by one fully documented month, that of May 2023.

On May 30, for instance, a Pakistani court sentenced Noman Masih, a 22-year-old Christian man, to death for "blasphemy" (in keeping with Pakistan's blasphemy statutes, Section 295-C of the Penal Code, which calls for the death penalty for anyone convicted of insulting Muhammad, the prophet of Islam).

Immediately after the sentencing, the accused's lawyer, Lazar Allah Rakha, said:

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The Myth of End of Oil and Regime Change

by Amir Taheri • June 25, 2023 at 4:00 am

The world isn't running out of oil and alternative energies remain more of a promise....
The latest use of oil as a political weapon has come with the embargo imposed by Western powers on Russia. This time, too, the politicization of oil has led to unintended, but no less political, consequences. Russia is forced to sell its oil to China at a sweetheart price that helps the Chinese economy avoid the recession that pundits predicted. India, too, is benefiting from cheap Russian oil by cutting its energy costs while also making a killing by selling part of that same oil to Europeans at real market prices.
The current leadership elite in Western democracies, most notably in the United States, is made of mediocre individuals who lord it over the nation thanks to prosperity secured by cheap oil and innovations made by gifted people operating on their own. Thus, there is a disconnect between the few that control the government, and thanks to their power, a big chunk of the national economy, and the many who end up paying the price of errors made by the few.

(Image source: iStock)

"Let's not politicize oil!" How many times have you heard that admonition?

It was first coined in the late 19th century, when oil was beginning to emerge as the key lubricant of a modern industrial society. Having started as a new venture by private entrepreneurs, what took shape as the oil industry soon attracted the attention of all major industrial nations. By the early 20th century most of them had set up their national, that is to say state-owned, oil companies, thus making oil political while insisting that it shouldn't be politicized. (The US alone didn't and still doesn't have a state-owned oil company.) From the start, the biography of oil has included another theme: fear of the world running out of oil. In the 1930s a report prepared for the British admiralty warned that oil may become "a scarce resource" within a couple of decades.

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