PAKISTAN: Arrest of human rights leader due to 'anti-Christian bias,' group says

By Anto Akkara, July 22, 2009 [Ecumenical News International, Bangalore, India] A church-supported human rights group in Pakistan has said the arrest of its director, who became embroiled in a complex case involving religious conversion, is rooted in a bias against Christians.

"This is not the first time that the court has showed prejudice when it comes to Muslim versus Christian," said the Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS) in a statement following the July 9 arrest of its founder-director Joseph Francis.

CLAAS said that over the years it had noted "several such cases in which the law was overlooked and justice was denied to victims on the basis of their religion, gender, political affiliation and social status."

The rights group, which often fights for the rights of religious minorities in Muslim-majority Pakistan, gave details of the case that had led to the arrest of its director.

After converting from Islam to Christianity in 2006, Mehboob Basharat and his family approached the Rev. Samuel Robert Azariah, Church of Pakistan bishop of Raiwind, for support. CLAAS said the Church of Pakistan, an ecumenical coalition and one of the Anglican Communion's 38 provinces, had engaged it to work with the family as they faced social boycotts by Muslims.

While he was staying in the church compound with his wife and two young children, Basharat eloped with a young Christian woman, whom he took to an Islamic school. There, the woman, who had originally been a Muslim, converted back to Islam and Basharat married her as his second wife.

Later, the woman fell out with her husband. Her Christian parents pleaded with Francis, the CLAAS leader, to keep her at his center's office for her safety.

Then, the husband Basharat, on the basis of his second wife having originally been a Muslim, is said to have persuaded a court to act against Francis, whom the husband alleged had forced the woman to convert to Christianity, and was now keeping her at the center against her will.

The court originally granted Francis bail in late 2006 but ordered his arrest on July 9, 2009 during a continuation of the hearing of the case. This came after Basharat had told the court Francis was violating the terms of his bail.

"This is a typical instance of a simple incident being blown out of proportion to harass a Christian," Kathreen Karamat, spokesperson for CLAAS, told Ecumenical News International on July 21. "We are trying our best to get him [Francis] released," said Karamat, adding that CLASS had appealed for others to take up the case of its director.

Peter Jacob, executive secretary of the Pakistan Roman Catholic Church's National Commission for Justice and Peace, told ENI, "Our sympathies are with Joseph Francis, who has been entrapped in a conversion case. We have to be extremely careful when self-declared converts approach us for help."

More than 95 percent of Pakistan's 176 million residents are Muslims.