Crimes against humanity of the worst kind go systematically unpunished in developing nations such as Pakistan because Muslim extremists commit them in the name of Allah against unbelievers including Christians. In Australia, some of these crimes would attract a life sentence in jail. We are talking about rape, gang rape, property destruction, robbery, anything, really, right up to wholesale murder. Many of such crimes become unpunishable in some of the Muslim countries that have introduced Shariah Law (Muslim Law). That law overrides the secular law as enforced by police. These terrible crimes cause heartbreaking, life-destroying sufferings among Christians, even in the year 2020, while the world stands by.

**Houses and cars of Christians burnt, already some years ago, by 'victorious Muslim extremists' in Pakistan. See FIRE No 70, August 2017.**

Millions of Muslims in numerous Asian and African Muslim countries tolerate such crimes. Whole legal systems and many governments become complicit because in orthodox Muslim thinking, not just in the minds of extremists, a person who revokes the Muslim Faith, by that very act, has surrendered his life and all rights. That person, though alive, has died. That person is already considered dead. [Please note that most Muslims living in Western countries no longer share views of this kind.]

AFA has copies of authentic, legal documents as well as video evidence speaking of atrocities committed against Christians in Pakistan at this time. The whole world should rise in horror but it does not. Even large sections of the Christian community are uninformed and do little about advocacy and awareness raising. These are the days of interfaith dialogue, not of witness.

Musa is a young women who was abducted from her home and forcibly married to a Muslim boy on 25 April 2020. Before that she had been gang raped by 3-4 men. Musa managed to flee and rejoin her family who as a result had to flee with her and go into hiding where they are right now, that is, in hiding. In the meantime they have lost everything, home and property. Their house was set alight. Musa is a niece of a Pakistani Christian brother who himself fled to Bangkok now seeking asylum in a Western country and who is supported by AFA. Musa is a fictional name and her photo is intentionally blurred to hide her identity as to not to endanger her nor her uncle who even in Bangkok does not feel safe.

In Pakistan the whole family lives in fear for their lives. “They want to kill us all. They demand from us to give back to them our daughter Musa. Otherwise they will do to our other girls what they did to Musa. And they took a video of the gang rape and ‘promised’ to let that video go viral on the internet if they don’t get Musa back.”

Can you image a worse fate than all of that? The family was not even Muslim before but had always been Christian. But they suffer all this because Musa’s father was a nephew a bishop who had baptized a Muslim family of four at their own request. That was his crime worthy of death!

The big Picture – the Organizations that can help

AFA often is in daily contact with Pakistani asylum seekers in Bangkok. Pastor August knows some of them personally. However, we find ourselves helpless. We send financial support to Thailand, and via Thailand to Pakistan if necessary, but we can’t help in a big way. We are also consulting with the Jesuit Refugee Service (Catholic) that is doing really great work in this area. They affirm the plight of those people in Bangkok and the misery they live in. We speak the same language but they too have limited resources. We all know that the UNHCR (UN refugee agency) is ‘hopeless’ as one of the Jesuit priests said, hopeless in the way they deal with asylum seekers. AFA also tried to engage the Barnabas Fund (a large Protestant Aid group for persecuted Christians) whose work we respect but found this group most disappointing as well. Contrary to their own claims, they have been found doing little or nothing for the many Christian refugees in Bangkok. The Thai churches generally do little. A group called LifeRaft is good and helpful but at the end of the day few people care, and those Pakistanis in Bangkok (hundreds!) keep living in misery and at times near-despair. Pray, brothers and sisters!

Asia Focus Australia - Faith and Love in ACTION!