Pakistani Christians protest over bloody church bombing

PESHAWAR - Agence France-Presse

Pakistani Christians protest against the suicide bombing in All Saints church in the northwestern city of Peshawar. A faction linked to the Pakistani Taliban claimed the attack soon after the bombs went off. AFP Photo

Angry Christians protested across Pakistan on Monday to demand better protection after a devastating double suicide bombing at a church killed more than 80 people.
 
The attack on All Saints church in the northwestern city of Peshawar after a service on Sunday is believed to be the deadliest ever to target Pakistan's small Christian minority.
 
Christians demonstrated in towns and cities around Pakistan, including Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi and Peshawar to protest against the violence and demand the authorities do more to protect them.
 
More than 600 protesters blocked a major highway in Islamabad for several hours during the Monday morning rush hour, burning tyres and causing long tailbacks, an AFP photographer said. Later around 2,000 people gathered to protest outside parliament.
 
In Peshawar, around 200 demonstrators took to the streets, smashing windows at the main Lady Reading hospital, where many of the victims were treated, and blocking the main Grand Trunk road.
 
In front of All Saints church, more than 100 people chanted slogans demanding justice and attacking the national government for failing to protect Christians.
 
And they had harsh words for cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan, whose Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party runs the provincial government in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
 
Protesters shouted abusive slogans against the cricketer turned politician, including chants of "Imran is a dog". "Imran Khan and his senior deputy have failed to protect Christians at their praying centres," Khalid Shahzad, who lost five family members in the attack, told AFP.
 
"The government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Imran Khan are just making slogans, there is nothing practical (to protect us). They do not have any sympathy for minorities." Protesters in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, blocked roads around the press club with rocks and burning tyres, while Lahore saw more than a dozen demonstrations.
 
The death toll from the blasts rose to 82 on Monday, according to medics, with around 130 in total wounded.
 
Senior Peshawar police official Najeeb-ur-Rehman said security around churches in the city would be stepped up, but survivors of the bombing spoke of their fears of further violence.
 
"We had very good relations with the Muslims -- there was no tension before that blast, but we fear that this is the beginning of a wave of violence against the Christians," Danish Yunas, a Christian driver wounded in the blast, told AFP.
 
The small and largely impoverished Christian community suffers discrimination in the overwhelmingly Muslim-majority nation but bombings against them are extremely rare.
 
The 400 or so worshippers were exchanging greetings after the service when the bombers struck, littering the church with blood, body parts and pages from the Bible.
 
The walls were pockmarked with ball bearings that had been packed into the bombs to cause maximum carnage in the busy church.
 
Sectarian violence between majority Sunni and minority Shiite Muslims is on the rise in Pakistan but Sunday's bombings will fuel fears the already beleaguered Christian community could be increasingly targeted.
 
A faction linked to the Pakistani Taliban on Sunday claimed the attack, saying it was to avenge US
drone strikes on Taliban and Al-Qaeda operatives in the country's tribal areas along the Afghan border.
 
But on Monday the main spokesman for the umbrella Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) group said they were not responsible.
 
"We haven't done this nor do we attack innocent people," Shahidullah Shahid, the main TTP spokesman told AFP by telephone from an undisclosed location.
 
"Whenever we carry out an attack we claim it, but the Taliban are not involved in this attack. It was an attempt to sabotage the atmosphere of the proposed peace talks." Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has called several times for peace talks with the Taliban and two weeks ago won backing from the country's main political parties.
 
But speaking in London late on Sunday he said the government was "unable to proceed further" with talks in the wake of the church attack.
 
Only around two percent of the Pakistan's 180 million population are Christian and the community complains of growing discrimination.
 
Pakistani Christians often lead a precarious existence, many living in slum-like "colonies" cheek-by-jowl with Muslims and fearful of allegations of blasphemy, a sensitive subject that can provoke outbursts of public violence.
 
In the town of Gojra in Punjab province in 2009, a mob burned 77 houses and killed seven people
after rumours that a copy of the Koran had been desecrated during a Christian marriage ceremony.
 
Rimsha Masih, a Christian girl who was arrested for alleged blasphemy last year, fled to Canada with her family in June after the charges were dropped.