"We are fully aware about the anxiety of the government and importance of the case and the proceedings…" the judge heading the 11 member Supreme Court bench, Javed Iqbal, said in comments obtained by BosNewsLife.
There were doubts Saturday, November 3, whether it would be possible for the court to make an independent decision: Television channels said that Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, whose earlier dismissal in March marked the beginning of a slide in Musharraf’s popularity, had been told his services were "no longer required."
Independent news channels were apparently forced off the air, while telephone lines were cut. Army vehicles could be seen taking up positions on key roads in Islamabad and surrounding the Supreme Court, where several top judges are believed to be located.
SUICIDE ATTACKS
The move followed a series of suicide attacks on official and military targets in recent weeks, which also killed several Christians.
US-based rights group International Christian Concern with website www.persecution.org told BosNewsLife that two Catholic Christian sanitary workers, two men identified only as Masih, 40, and Masih, 20, were shot and killed in recent weeks by Muslim neighbors near a ‘Madrassa’, a seminary for Islamic teachings. They were apparently killed because they refused to convert to Islam and asked money after they ended their work of clearing out the gutter near a mosque.
More details were not immediately available, however, there has been an ongoing battle with Islamic militants in northwestern Pakistan’s Swat Valley, where minority Christians have been in the cross fire, BosNewsLife established.
CHRISTIANS THREATENED
Christians are threatened in Swat Valley and other regions by Muslim militants angry about alleged Christian support for President Musharraf and the United States-led war on terrorism.
However several Pakistani Christian leaders and other officials have distanced themselves from Musharraf, saying he has not done enough to protect the Christian minority.
In one of the latest incidents there, Muslim militants reportedly threatened to bomb a Christian family for refusing to convert to Islam in Swat Valley, where followers of Muslim cleric Maulana Fazlullah have worked to enforce Islamic law (sharia), prompting clashes with government troops this week.
The cleric launched an illegal FM radio station urging a holy war. He is seeking to impose strict Islamic code in the scenic valley which lies close to Pakistan ‘s lawless tribal belt bordering Afghanistan.
FAMILY PRAYERS
The Christian family threatened by the militants reportedly prayed all night for safety as a Muslim neighbor, a close friend, spent the night in their front room as a token of solidarity.
Earlier in Swat Valley a Catholic-run public high school in Sangota, in the Swat Valley, was attacked by a group calling itself Janisaran-i-Islam, or ‘Sacrifices of Islam’ for
allegedly “forcibly converting students” and “encouraging un-Islamic behavior.”
Worried parents pulled their daughters from the school, which was forced to shut down. It has reportedly re-opened, however only half of all non Muslim students are apparently planning to come back fearing new attacks, investigators said.
Already thousands of civilians are reported to be fleeing the region amid a showdown between the security forces and the Taliban-style movement nicknamed "Mullah Radio".
GOVERNMENT CONTROVERSY
Elizabeth Kendal, a researcher and writer with the influential World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission (WEA RLC) told BosNewsLife that Musharraf was partly to blame for the crisis and the related “unprecedented persecution” of Christians. "Heavy troop losses and plummeting troop morale has led President Musharraf to strike "peace deals" with [militant groups] Taliban and al-Qaeda affiliates in several regions” of Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), she said.
"In all areas under Taliban and al-Qaeda control a policy of zero tolerance towards everything "non-Islamic" is being violently imposed," Kendal added.
The army said troops had killed up to 60 militants in clashes in recent days which were triggered by a suspected suicide bombing last week. The militants have also killed civilians and decapitated policemen and soldiers, news reports said.
Muslim extremists have also attacked Christians elsewhere, including in Punjab province, BosNewsLife established. Influential Muslim leaders and militants occupied and destroyed St Joseph ’s Catholic Church in the Caritas Town area of Lahore, Pakistan’s second largest city, local Christians said.
‘LAND MAFIA’
A "land mafia occupied the church on September 12 and desecrated it by looting” the church, confiscating Bibles "and completely demolishing the church," the Punjab coordinator of advocacy group All Pakistan Minorities Alliance (APMA), Khalid Gill, told BosNewsLife.
Among other items stolen were 20,000 bricks, 900 tiles, iron windows, doors and even the main gate of the church, Gill said. There have been similar attacks reported in other parts of Pakistan.
In one apparently more hopeful sign Muslims who attacked a Pakistani church and declared religious war against Christians from mosque minarets apologized for their actions, human rights workers reportedly said. The threats included demands that Christians of Gowindh, a Punjabi village of 10,000, convert to Islam or "be prepared to fight or die." Muslims ended their boycott against trading with the 300 Christians.
However for now these remain isolated incidents and Saturday’s state of emergency raised fears of more violence in the coming days.
