Pakistani Christians laud election reform

Church leaders in Pakistan have hailed the scrapping of electoral rules that they say discriminate against Christians and other religious minorities. The Pakistani government has announced that it is abolishing the Separate Election System (SES), which allowed Christians and other religious minorities to vote only for candidates of their own faith.

"We are no longer second-class citizens; we are now full-fledged citizens of Pakistan," said Bishop Samuel Pervez, president of the National Council of Churches of Pakistan, speaking by telephone from the NCCP's offices in Lahore. "This has been a longstanding demand of the Christian community," he said of a package of measures announced January 16, well ahead of the general elections scheduled for October.

Pervez also said that Christians have "certainly benefited" from the declared determination of Pakistan's president to deal with terrorist and militant Muslim groups that the president claimed were "exploiting religion for vested interests."

Two years ago, pressure from Muslim fundamentalists forced President Pervez Musharraf to backtrack on a promise to amend a law on blasphemy against Islam which is strongly criticized by Christians and other religious minorities in Pakistan. "Now the situation is different," Pervez said. "These groups have been banned and most of the leaders are behind bars. So there will be no protests this time."

COPYRIGHT 2002 The Christian Century Foundation
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning