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Pakistan Christian schools strike after killings
AFP - Tuesday, August 4
KARACHI (AFP) - - Christian schools went on strike in Pakistan Monday to protest against the killing of seven Christians in bloody riots that heightened fears of widening unrest in the troubled country, officials said.
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An angry mob of Muslims torched 40 houses and a church in the remote village of Gojra in Pakistan's heartland province of Punjab, on Saturday.
Bishop Rafiq Masih of Hyderabad, who represents Christians in the southern province of Sindh and neighbouring insurgency-torn Baluchistan, said missionary schools across Pakistan were closed for three days in mourning.
"The government should do something to defeat extremist elements who want to create division in the society. Please protect minorities from such continuous persecution," he told AFP.
Saleem Michael, an official of the Catholic Board of Education in Pakistan's financial capital Karachi said the 62 schools it controlled, attended by around 50,000 students, were closed for three days.
"We believe in peace, so we are protesting against the Gojra tragedy in a peaceful manner," he told AFP.
The violence flared over alleged desecration of the Koran, which is punishable by death under blasphemy laws in Pakistan, although no executions have ever been carried out.
The law was introduced by former military ruler Zia ul-Haq, who passed tough Islamic legislation and whose rule from 1977-1988 was seen as a critical point in the development of extremist Islam in parts of Pakistan.
Two children -- a brother and sister aged six and 13 -- their parents and 75-year-old grandfather were burnt to death after the mob locked them inside a room of their house, Father Shabbir Bashir told AFP by telephone from Gojra.
"Five members of one family burnt to death, including innocent children and their parents. How we can feel safe and secure in such a country?" he said.
"They killed us. They ransacked our houses. They looted our homes. How we can feel protected?"
President Asif Ali Zardari has offered 500,000 rupees (6,000 dollars) in compensation to relatives for each person killed, federal minorities' affairs minister Shahbaz Bhatti told a news conference in Islamabad.
The government would also pay 300,000 rupees to those whose houses were torched, he said
"One hundred houses were torched, 100 more were looted, seven people were killed and several wounded," Bhatti said.
Christians, who make up less than three percent of Pakistan's 167 million population, and are generally impoverished and marginalised, claim the blasphemy laws are used as an excuse to victimise them.
"We demand the elimination -- through parliament or superior judiciary -- of the black (blasphemy) laws which are in violation of basic fundamental rights," said Church of Pakistan Bishop Sadiq Daniel of Karachi.
"No incident of blasphemy of Koranic verses occurred in Gojra and no Christian could ever think of doing this," he said.
Authorities deployed paramilitary rangers in the area and arrested dozens of suspects on Sunday but Christians said they still feel unprotected.
"The so-called champions of Islam are wrecking havoc with the religious minorities and are defaming Pakistan and Islam in the world," said Daniel.
A Christian lawmaker in North West Frontier Province, which borders Afghanistan in western Pakistan, voiced fears that Christians are no longer safe.
"We are now a target in Pakistan," Prince Javed told AFP.
"We are not refugees. This is our own country. We are Pakistanis by birth, so why they are attacking us?"
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has ordered an inquiry into the alleged desecration of the Koran and appealed to residents to remain calm in Gojra, 160 kilometres (100 miles) west of the Punjab provincial capital Lahore.
The unrest first flared late last month over the "desecration" of pages of a Koran, but the matter was thought to have been resolved amicably, police said.
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