Scottish Catholic Observer

Their bodies were burned at the brick kiln where they worked in the town of Kot Radha Kishan in Punjab province. So far they have only been identified the victims only as Shama and Shehzad.

Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy laws have seen many Christians found guilty of desecrating the Qur’an or of blasphemy and the laws are often misused to settle personal scores.

Senior police officials and government ministers have now arrived in the town to investigate the killings.

In May, gunmen in the city of Multan shot dead a lawyer, Rashid Rehman, who had been defending a university lecturer accused of blasphemy. And last month a Pakistani court upheld the death penalty for Asia Bibi, a Christian woman convicted of blasphemy in 2010—a case that sparked a global outcry.

Global rights watchdog Amnesty International in a statement urged the Pakistani authorities to bring to justice those responsible.

“This vicious mob killing is just the latest manifestation of the threat of vigilante violence which anyone can face in Pakistan after a blasphemy accusation—although religious minorities are disproportionately vulnerable,” David Griffiths, Amnesty’s deputy Asia Pacific director, said. “Those responsible must be brought to justice and the Pakistani authorities have to ensure at-risk communities are proactively given the protection they need.”

Former Punjab Governor Salman Taseer and the federal Minister for Minority Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti, a Catholic, were assassinated in 2011 for speaking out against the controversial laws.

Yesterday’s the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) released itsReligious Freedom in the World Report 2014 report in the UK which found Pakistan to have one the worst rates of religious persecution in the world.

—Read more on ACN report in this Friday’s SCO and at www.religion-freedom-report.org

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