Observers linked the departure of governor Ali Mohammad Jan Orakzai to his apparent inability to end continuing violence linked to Islamist guerrillas hiding in remote, mountainous villages near the Afghan border.
Last month, at least three Christians were killed in "cross firing" between the Pakistani military and militants in NWFP, where individual believers and churches have also received death threats from extremists, BosNewsLife learned.
In addition the General Secretary of the Churches of Pakistan, Dr. Rejinald Humayun, was kidnapped in December. His whereabouts remained unknown Saturday, January 5. Christian rights activists said they had been hopeful that former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto could help to end the attacks against Christians, but there hopes were dashed last month, December 27, when she was assassinated.
PROBE URGED
On Saturday, January 5, her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, wrote in The Washington Post that a probe into the killing conducted by Pakistan’s government will have no credibility. He said, "one does not put the fox in charge of the henhouse." Zardari urged the United States and Britain to support his call for a United Nations investigation. A team of British anti-terror officers from Scotland Yard examined the scene of the attack on Bhutto in Rawalpindi Saturday, January 5.
It came after an emotional week for her supporters in the city of Sargodha, in Punjab province, where Christian and other rights activists remembered what they called "the martyr of democracy."
The Christian-leaning advocacy group Rays of Development, Organization (ROD) (www.raysofdevelopment.ofg) and officials of other organizations and candidates in upcoming elections lit candles, prayed and addressed supporters. "The death of Benazir Bhutto is the death of Human Rights. An attack on her is an attack on democracy and freedom in Pakistan" said ROD Chairman Ferhan Mazher in an interview with BosNewsLife.
HOPE LOST
Her death, he said, "created a vacuum that can not be filled," adding that "the hope of equality and freedom for the religious and ethnic minorities has gone away." He stressed she had promised in her party’s manifesto "to repeal all the discriminatory laws" including the controversial blasphemy legislation of the country, which led to the imprisonment of Christians across Pakistan on charges of "insulting Islam."
Mazher also condemned President Pervez Musharraf’s decision to delay the general election by six weeks to February 18.
Musharraf has defended the decision, saying it was in the interest of the country. The upcoming ballot would be "free, fair and transparent," he said on national television Thursday, January 3. (With BosNewslife’s Chief International Correspondent Stefan J. Bos).
