Pakistan: Muslims Apologize for Attack on Chrurch

Another attack on a church in Pakistan. It's all right, though - they apologized:-

Muslims who attacked a Pakistani church and declared religious war against Christians from mosque minarets have apologized for their actions, human rights workers said.

. . .

No charges have been brought against the 300 Punjabi Muslim villagers who vandalized the New Apostolic Church at 6 a.m. October 10. The mob broke church windows, threw dung on its walls and cut wires to the church’s loudspeaker.

But subsequent threats against Gowindh’s Christians were even more serious than the initial attack, Mehboob Khan of the HRCP told Compass.

Following these acts of vandalism, Muslim clerics called for jihad, Islamic holy war, against the Christian “infidels.” The clerics issued the call from the town’s eight mosques, Khan said.

Another HRCP worker who visited the village, located east of Lahore on the Indian border, said that the threats had included demands for Christians to convert to Islam.

“Become Muslims or be prepared to fight or die,” the clerics announced from the mosque loudspeakers, HRCP member Nadeem Anthony said. “This was the first time it happened, which is why the villagers were so scared.”

This story contains several common elements: the violence being incited from Mosques, a declaration of religious war and the choice to convert, fight or die. They then imposed a bocott of the Christians:-

“Christians couldn’t get anything from Muslims’ shops,” Gowindh Christian leader Sattar Masih told Sharing Life Ministries Pakistan, a Christian rights group that visited the area. “They couldn’t go to the doctor as the doctors were Muslims.”

And then the perpetrators escape any criminal action by apologizing:-

The incident is consistent with the ongoing pattern of isolated church attacks in Pakistan where perpetrators later apologize and avoid facing charges.

Several Christians were injured and Christian literature was destroyed when Muslim villagers attacked a church north of Faisalabad in June. The congregation had obtained permission from the village government to use a loudspeaker to broadcast evangelistic meetings they were planning to hold the night of the attack.

In a similar out-of-court settlement, the attackers apologized but were not charged for the violence.

In May in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province town of Charsadda, two madrassah (Muslim seminary) students confessed to having authored anonymous threats against Christians. At least 50 Christians had fled Charsadda after they received a letter telling them to convert to Islam or face suicide bombing. But the Christian community chose not to press charges and on June 4 officially forgave the two students, who said the threats had been a prank.

Christians make up approximately 1.5 percent of Pakistan’s population, according to the U.S. State Department’s 2007 Report on International Religious Freedom.

I'm willing to forgive these villagers, even if their apology is not sincere. However, the problem seem to be escalating. If someone was punished, it might discourage further attacks.