Law center urges prosecutions for 'scores' of deaths
Mobs have been lynching and murdering innocent people and looting and burning homes and businesses because of false claims of blasphemy and it needs to stop, a new petition is demanding of the United Nations.
The European Center for Law and Justice has filed a petition with the U.N.'s Special Rapporteurs seeking prosecutions in Pakistan for those responsible for the attacks and killings of Christians.
"We have expressed in the strongest terms possible that the Pakistani government must prosecute acts of violence based upon religion," said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the organization, as well as the U.S.-based American Center for Law and Justice.
"Christians are being singled out and murdered because of their faith. Only when the Pakistani government effectively prosecutes those responsible for the acts of violence will attacks against Christians end," he said.
WND reported just days ago on Muslims torching 50 homes and a church and murdering Christians in the Pakistani city of Gojra.
A report from the Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement, or CLAAS, revealed the assault happened during a protest by thousands of Muslim Islamists, including members of banned militant groups.
According to Compass Direct News, more than 500 Islamic extremists looted and set fire to another 60 homes in response to the same rumor of desecration of the Quran only two days earlier in the village of Korian.
Authorities said the violence erupted even though there was no proof that "blasphemy" took place.
"The 'blasphemy laws' that encourage the Muslim-on-Christian violence are not only abhorrent, but violate the principle of the universality of religious freedom, which is proclaimed to be an international human rights standard by Pakistan itself," Sekulow said.
The ECLJ is seeking for the U.N. to call on Pakistan to prosecute those guilty of the deadly attacks on Christians, which have claimed the lives of at least 60 Christians in recent years.