Compass Direct News, a Christian news agency investigating reports of persecution, said the Christians ended their action last week after Punjab authorities permitted them to resume religious services.
Staff members at Rawalpindi ’s Adiala Central Jail agreed on March 22 to reopen a laundry room that had held Christian services until authorities filled it with new inmates earlier this month, Sohail Johnson of Sharing Life Ministries Pakistan (SLMP) was quoted as saying.
Adiala Deputy Superintendent Noor ul Haq Hassan reportedly denied that Christians had been refused access to their worship room or that a hunger strike had taken place.
INMATES "OVERFLOW"
He said an overflow of inmates had been kept in the room’s “vicinity,” creating "the misunderstanding" that the Christians would not be allowed to go there for prayer. Compass Direct News added.
Hassan confirmed however that officials had "the legal right" to use a jail mosque or church to detain prisoners during an emergency.
Christian investigators maintained that the believers had had not been able to use the prayer room for over a week when they began their hunger strike on March 21.
Overcrowding remains one of the biggest problems at Adiala Central Jail, where 5,343 prisoners are packed into space meant for 1,996 people, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan reportedly said. Just roughly 160 of them are believed to be Christians.
RECOGNIZING DEMANDS
Jail staff members apparently yielded to Christian inmates’ demands after several Christian and minority rights groups publicized the hunger strike with a protest in front of the Lahore press club on March 22.
"We showed hand cards and banners and shouted slogans: ‘Please allow the Christian prisoners to have religious freedom,’" Johnson reportedly said. “We also called for the jail superintendent to be suspended."
Christian inmates apparently told their families that authorities apologized later that evening, saying that because of the protest in Lahore, the inspector general and home secretary were pushing them to resolve the issue quickly.
Led by prisoner Safdar Chaudry and two others identified only as Babar and Zaheer, 160 Christians were said to have ended their protest fast with a church service and meal just before midnight on March 22.
ENDING STRIKE
The prisoners apparently agreed to end their strike on conditions that they be allowed to resume use of the church, and that jail staff open the kitchen and cook them a fresh meal.
"Jail Superintendent Mirza Shahid Saleem Baig told them, ‘If you move an application for a place for a church building, I will give you a plot of land to build on,’" Johnson told Compass. "‘Right now you are meeting in a laundry hall, and if a new superintendent comes after I leave, he may give you the same problem.’"
Of 31 jails in the Punjab province, Johnson said that only one, Kot Lakhpat Central Jail in Lahore , has a small chapel built on its grounds. Adiala Central Jail has a mosque and several masjids (Muslim prayer rooms).
Last fall the Punjab inspector general of prisons reportedly rejected an attempt to construct Christian prayer rooms in each of the province’s prisons.
INSENSITIVE STAFF
"In a number of countries, prison staff remain insensitive to the spiritual needs of prisoners," United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief Asma Jahangir said in a speech in Geneva this week.
Jahangir, a Pakistani citizen, mentioned in her March 27 speech before the UN Human Rights Council that, "certain religious practices are disallowed in detention centers."
She reportedly urged on governments to ensure jail staff to respect religious rights.
