The Catholic Church in Pakistan has presented a series of demands to the government, calling for a fair and thorough investigation into the beatings and burning of a young Christian couple accused of desecrating the Quran.

In a so-called Charter of Demands sent to top government officials on Monday, church leaders said they were seeking to curb the misuse of Pakistan’s blasphemy law against religious minorities.

The charter also urges the government to act on the misuse of mosques to incite violence and calls for training police to protect victims of violence.

“The brutal burning to death of a Christian couple working as bonded labor at the brick kiln is a grim reminder that intolerance in the name of religion in Pakistan has escalated beyond rule of law,” said the document submitted by Archbishop Joseph Coutts of Karachi, president of Pakistan Catholic Bishops’ Conference.

“The situation has now reached beyond the application of laws for justice … crowds and police are repeatedly setting precedents for street justice, which violates the constitution,” said the document, which was sent to President Mamnoon Hussain, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Supreme Court Chief Justice Nasir-ul-Mulk.

The Major Superiors Leadership Conference, representing Catholic religious communities in Pakistan, also signed the charter.

A mob estimated at more than 1,000 people tortured and burned alive Shahzad Masih, 28, and his pregnant wife, Shama Bibi, 24, parents of three young children, on November 4 at the brick kiln where they worked in Punjab province. Police said the size of the crowd prevented them from protecting the couple…Read More

Source and Original Content by Catholic Herald

A Syrian Muslim refugee aided by the Catholic relief agency Caritas Jordan now volunteers to help other refugees, saying the agency staff makes him feel like “a brother.”

“Being a volunteer in Caritas is an honor that I will take until death,” said Amer Fahd Al Naser, 38. “I’m really, really happy that I’m delivering the Caritas message, the Caritas Mission, as a Muslim.”

He credits Caritas with helping him survive the difficulties of being a refugee.

Al Naser now lives with his wife Noor, their two sons, his sister and his mother in an apartment in the Jordanian city of Al Zarqa.

It was not always this way.

Al Naser keeps on his cell phone a video of his neighborhood in Homs, Syria. It shows desolated buildings with walls blown out by explosions. The streets are lined with drab rubble.

“This district used to have 200,000 persons. Now no one is here,” he told CNA and a group of reporters Oct. 27.

His home district was a center of opposition to President Bashar Al Assad. It became the target of military action in 2011 after a violent crackdown on anti-government protests spiraled into a major conflict that has killed over 191,000 and displaced millions of people from their homes.

Al Naser and his family fled the home where had been born. They went first to Damascus, where they stayed in the Palestinian refugee camp Yermouk.

“Even in the camp, we had bombs as well,” he said…Read More

Source and Original Content by CNA

Senior Muslim, Christian and Jewish leaders condemned violence by jihadi militants such as Islamic State (IS) at a Saudi-backed conference on Wednesday in a rare display of inter-faith unity aimed at promoting tolerance and diversity.

Islamic State has caused international alarm by capturing large expanses of Iraq and Syria, declaring a Sunni “caliphate” straddling their borders and massacring those they deem apostates and infidel, like Shi’ite Muslims and Christians.

“Some organisations that are affiliated with Islam are perpetrating some actions in the name of jihad. This is not Islam at all,” said Abdullah bin Abdulmuhsen Al Turki, secretary-general of the Muslim World League.

“This is why we wish to deplore and strongly condemn this behaviour, which we see as against Islam,” he told an audience including the Muslim grand muftis of Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan; top representatives of several churches, Rabbi David Rosen of the American Jewish Committee, and diplomats.

Nizar bin Obaid Madani, Saudi minister of state for foreign affairs, decried the emergence of factions in the Middle East “that use terrorism and violence in the name of religion. They are wreaking havoc. They are killing and destroying everything.

“Those who have embraced terrorism unfortunately attribute everything they do, every oppression they practise, to Islam. Islam has nothing to do with them,” he said.

The conference called for countering the messages of jihadi militants on social media used to lure recruits, and for leadership courses in schools, houses of worship and the broader community to spread the principles of diversity and tolerance.

The conference was organised by the King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz International Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue (KAICIID), which is sponsored by Saudi Arabia.

KAICIID has come under intense scrutiny in Austria since it opened in 2012 to fanfare. Critics say the center has done little to promote religious dialogue at a time when 150 jihadis have left Austria to fight in the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia itself enforces a strict Islamic code and bans non-Muslim religious practice. But as the birthplace of Islam and a champion of conservative Sunni doctrine, the country is an important ally for Western countries battling Islamic State and a symbolic target for the militant group itself.

Source and Content by Christian Today