A senior police official in Pakistan acknowledged that security forces failed in their duty to protect the victims of anti-Christian violence in Gojra one year ago. The senior official spoke to 2,500 people gathered on Aug. 1 to mark the first anniversary of some of Pakistan’s worst anti-Christian violence. Addressing the crowds in the Punjabi city of Gojra, prominent local Muslims deplored the mob violence that left eight people dead and described the culprits as unworthy to be called Muslims. Amid tight security and a high police presence, Bishop Joseph Coutts of Faisalabad presided at a memorial Mass held at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Gojra. The bishop lit candles for each of those who died in the violence, including a family of seven killed in their home. On Aug. 1, 2009, a rumor that Christians had been seen desecrating the Koran sparked an Islamist armed attack on the Christian quarter of Gojra and the burning of more than 50 homes.
Pakistani Security Failed Christians
Show Comments (
)
Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.
The latest from america
This week, a music festival returns to the Chiquitos missions in Bolivia, which the Jesuits established between 1691 and 1760. The story of the Jesuit "reductions" was made popular by the 1986 film ‘The Mission.’
The world can change for the better only when people are out in the world, “not lying on the couch,” Pope Francis told some 6,000 Italian schoolchildren.
Our theology of relics tells us something beautiful and profound not only about God but about what we believe about materiality itself.
"3 Body Problem" is an imaginative Netflix adaptation of Cixin Liu's trilogy of sci-fi novels—and yet is mostly true to the books.