LONDON: The Archbishop of Canterbury has issued a blunt rebuke to Pakistan for failing to provide enough security to assassinated federal minister Shahbaz Bhatti, the only Christian minister in the PPP-led civilian set-up. The 42-year-old Roman Catholic, who didn’t have a single security guard on his side at the time of the attack, was sprayed with bullets outside his mother’s home in the capital by gunmen who later claimed to be Pakistani Taliban. Dr Rowan Williams used an article in the Times on Monday to call on the Pakistani government to urgently tackle the persecution of Christians in Pakistan by extremists and to stop the misuse of Blasphemy laws. Criticising the government for failing to do more to protect Bhatti, Williams wrote: “Shahbaz Bhatti knew what his chances of survival were. He was not protected by the government he so bravely served”. Calling Bhatti a martyr, he wrote that Bhatti was aware of threats to his life and spoke to the Archbishop of Canterbury during his visit last year but “did not allow himself to be diverted for a moment from his to justice for all”. He questioned: “How many minority Christian communities, law-abiding, peaceful and frequently profoundly disadvantaged, are similarly not protected by their government?” Dr Rowan Williams’ powerful intervention comes after Rehman Malik, the Interior Minister, openly blamed Shahbaz Bhatti for being careless and not taking security guards with him. Fears are increasing that the western Christian majority governments will conditions aid to Pakistani with practical steps for the safety of minorities, especially Christians. Any such move will further weaken the PPP government which, under President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, has abandoned any pretence of liberalism and has gone out of its way to appease the hardline religious extremists. The government’s own ministers have on-record used language, clearly aimed at pleasing the
religious right and to buy more time in power. But many churches, Christian organisations and Pakistani societies across England have planned public events in coming days to pay tributes to Bhatti and to condemn the Pakistani government for treating its only Christian minister, who fought the case of Pakistan with dedication, as an outsider. The most influential figure of the Church of England wrote that Bhatti’s murder means Pakistan has “taken a further step down this catastrophic road” to a breakdown in legal and political order. He argued that what is happening in Pakistan now is against the values of the Holy Book of Quran. Rowan Williams said that a just Muslim state would provide for the rights of minorities and called for a “rational debate” on the blasphemy laws, which are at the root of Bhatti’s murder as well as Salman Taseer’s, the high-profile Punjab governor killed by his own security guard. “If the state’s willingness to guarantee absolute security for minorities of every kind is a test of political maturity and durability, whatever the confessional background, Pakistan’s founding vision was a mature one,” he said. “The disdain shown for that vision by Bhatti’s killers is an offence against Islam as much as against Christianity in Pakistan.” In a reference to frightened liberal voices and people like Sherry Rehman, living under threat of fatwas, Williams added: “Many are anxious about Pakistan’s future for strategic reasons. But those of us who love Pakistan and its people are anxious for its soul as well as its political stability. It is heartbreaking to see those who count as friends living with the threat of being coerced ad menaced into silence and, ultimately, into a betrayal of themselves.”
