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ESCAPE OF PASTOR ARTHUR FROM
Dr. Stephen Gill
========================================================================
I met Pastor Arthur on September 23 in
2001. At that time I was Vice President
of the Christian Association of South Asians.
The organization asked me to attend a
meeting of its local chapter in Hamilton, Ontario. After
the meeting, I stayed with
the family of Dr. Rupee,
a Christian from Maharashtra State of India. He was
a minister of a church. As it is
my practice, I asked Dr.
Rupwate to introduce
me to South
Asian Christians. He mentioned
Pastor S. Arthur, a name that sounded
familiar, but I could not
recall how I became familiarized
with him. The more I tried to
scratch my memory, the more the name grew distant.
At the breakfast table it began to emerge
slowly that S. Arthur was persecuted in Pakistan for converting a Muslim girl,
RM. Both names had come to my
attention during my research about minorities, particularly about Christians. I had
wanted to visit Pakistan to study the situations more closely. The suicide of Bishop John Joseph was the
responsible factor for triggering my interest further.
Dr. Rupwate scheduled our meeting with Rev. Arthur over
a buffet in a Chinese restaurant. I like Chinese buffets because for a person
like me who cannot identify Chinese
foods by name, a buffet is the answer. I
knew I was not going to be hungry for lunch, because normally I do not eat my
breakfast. However, I ate at the
Rupwates because of their love and the appetizing smell of the preparation. I
was anxious to meet Rev. Arthur, because he was a person who could give me
first hand knowledge of his persecution and how Pakistan was growing
increasingly more intolerant toward minorities.
In our brief meeting at lunch, I came to know that Rev.
Arthur had worked with a church in
Pakistan. In his congregation, he had
SK, a Christian girl, who was a classmate and friend of RM, a Muslim girl from
Shahdra, Lahore, Pakistan. Both girls were in their early twenties and in the
second year in a local college.
SK introduced RM to Christianity. When RM
showed her keenness in Christianity, SK introduced her to Pastor Arthur for
additional understanding. Somehow, the
parents of RM came to know about the new interest of their daughter. They told
her to stop going to church and to stop
seeing SK. When RM refused, they
designed to deal with their daughter in another way. They found a man and forced her to marry him.
The idea was to keep RM in a Muslim atmosphere. RM refused to marry the man
mainly because she was a Christian at that time. When
their pressure failed, they
confined her movements to the bounds of her home. Meanwhile they continued their preparations
for her wedding.
RM
found means to escape. Her father and brothers and other relatives went
to the house of SK, her Christian friend, and then to the home of Pastor Arthur
to find the whereabouts of RM. They accused him of converting young people, luring them with money and a
promise to send them to foreign countries. His activities, they said, were
against Pakistan and also against the Muslim religion. They blamed the
Pastor for abducting the girl. They
also said that the Pastor was a spy, especially of the UK government. They told him that it was his responsibility
to produce the girl. If he failed to
produce the girl before that evening, they would take away his daughters by
force.
The pastor tried to convince them he did not know anything about their
daughter RM and he was innocent. Boiling
in madness, those Muslims did not want to listen to any reasoning. They gave repeated warnings to the pastor.
They lived about two or three kilometers from his house.
In the evening, Pastor Arthur went to the house
of RM to sympathize with her parents and to know if they were able to get any
news about their daughter. It was just a courtesy visit about seven in the
evening during the summer month of June in 1997. The front yard of their house was crowded
with people. He saw the Christian girl SK, her mother, father
and the older sister all tied with iron chains to a tree that was in the middle
of the yard. Their faces were swollen and they had visible bruises all
over. They looked tired, helpless and
some bearded men were beating them.
The pastor
became speechless at the unexpected sight. As he tried to recover from that state of his
shock, four or five people, also bearded, rushed with sticks, iron rods and
started hitting him. The pastor had a copy of the Bible in one hand. They snatched the Bible and threw it
aside. He lost his conscious.
They dragged him into a room in another
location. There was a man in white
clothes who was a clerk at the local police station. He thundered to ask the pastor the whereabouts of RM. He told the pastor that he would be killed
and no one will ever come to know that. He used filthy words, slapped and
insulted him further. While beating, he
demanded the girl. He said RM was his
sister, and if the pastor did not produce the girl immediately, the whole
family of the pastor will be killed.
Later the pastor came to know that he was in the house of M.B. Tarrar, a local transport businessman who was
a relative of the Muslim girl RM.
Feeling weak and giddy, the pastor fell on
the ground. They began to kick him.
They covered his eyes with a piece of cloth and took him to the police
station. The officer on duty, sub inspector Mohammed Younis, removed the cloth
from his eyes. He demanded RM from him,
shouting at the top of his voice that RM
was his daughter and the pastor should produce the girl at once if he
wanted his life and also the life of his family spared. His eyes were red with fury. He also insulted the pastor. After that he
asked the relatives of RM to take the pastor away for interrogation, adding
not to leave him alone until he told the truth.
They
covered the eyes of Pastor Arthur again
and pushed him
into a car. They drove for about fifteen minutes to
a place where they threw him inside a room. They removed the cover from his
eyes and left. Glancing around, the pastor shivered to see sticks, iron rods
and a bed. Weak, thirsty and confused, he kneeled down and began to pray. He was perspiring profusely. He was in that
state when the door opened with a bang.
They were furious. They removed
his clothes in a rage and started beating him,
kicking him all over and using abusive language. They broke four of his
ribs. He was kept for three days in
that dark room without water and food and without his clothes.
During those three days, they dragged the
pastor to different places to trace RM.
They went also to the relatives of the pastor, thinking she might be
hiding there. From one place they found
his wife, daughters and children. They insulted and hit them and then took them to the
police station for interrogation. They
were kept for about six hours and then let go, but they kept the pastor. They had a special slipper with nails to
hit his hips. One police officer stood on
his body and the other kept hitting him till he lost his conscious. They locked
him up in a criminal cell.
Meanwhile, his children passed on the
information to their friends in England. Those friends in England started
putting pressure on police officers through influential persons. As a result of
the pressure, the police registered a First Information Report, shortly called
FIR, against the pastor. It was a formal complaint. His wife managed to collect twenty thousand
rupees to bribe the police. Police demanded forty thousand to arrest his son
and not to beat him. She came up with
the extra twenty thousand rupees. In
spite of that bribe, the police kept torturing the pastor, often putting him upside down. They also arrested
his son and tortured him as well. They put father and his son upside down from
a tree that was in the center of the yard of the police station.
These insanities continued for about
sixteen days. During this time they were able to trace out RM. She was in a woman shelter. She told the
police and also the court that the pastor and his son and SK were innocent. She
had left her home of her own accord. The
reason that she gave for her disappearance was the forced marriage that her
parents had arranged. She said that she
was a Christian for which no one ever compelled her.
On the basis of her statement, the pastor
and his son were released. They were
released also because they bribed the police with forty thousand rupees. In addition to this huge sum, they paid
around thirty thousand rupees to the court. Due to the bribe and lack of
evidence as well as the statement of RM, they were let go.
When they reached home, they came to know
through a member of their church that RM was killed with a gun and that they
were proceeding toward the house of the pastor to kill them. The Arthurs were
advised to run away from their house. To
do that they divided their family and escaped to different places, hiding wherever they could.
For about seven months they kept
hiding in different houses at different locations, ending up in Karachi that is a seaport located in the
province of Sindh.
It was about twenty
hours journey by train from Punjab. For a family
to hide within
Pakistan with limited
financial resources and with the help of a tiny minority of
frightened Christians was not
that easy. It was
not possible to
hide in other provinces for lack
of Christian population. In the province of Blouchistan, there
were hardly any
Christians. In the North
West Frontier Province, they could be noticed easily
because of the nearness of the location, and because of the different language and culture.
Karachi
seemed to be a
better place to hide because of its population
of Christians although they were only
three percent and their churches had been attacked.
Karachi, Pakistan=s largest
city that teemed with activities, has the population of around eleven
million. Situated on the Arabian Sea,
it is the capital of the province of Sindh. It is the
major financial and manufacturing center,
and is also a site of violence
among political, religious and ethnic groups.
Afflicted with fear, the Arthurs traveled
at night with the
hope of getting lost in the populated jungle of Karachi. They were
exhausted with heat, lack of
rest, hunger, tortures and the demon of fear of the approaching death by those Muslims if they find them out. Wounded
in mind and body,
they caught buses and
trains under the cover of darkness.
Those who have been to Karachi in
summer know that during the day it has scorching heat and in the night it swarms
with hot winds and mosquitoes, and people need special protection to have a comfortable
sleep. The Arthurs did
not have the comfort of a home for months. The
entire family had only one concern. That
concern was to escape the grip of those inhumans.
That escape depended on a miracle.
That miracle happened on November 28 in
1997. His church was affiliated with a
church in England. His children informed
the minister of that congregation over the phone about
the arrest and tortures. That church
worked to take them out of
Pakistan with the help of a lord in the House of Commons. On November 28 in 1997,
the Arthurs
were able to come to England. The Arthurs stayed in London for a couple of days. It was
again a miracle to land in Canada where they
did not know anyone.
Shortly after his arrival in Canada,
Pastor Arthur started a church called HACC that means truth. Now he pastors a congregation of Christians from the
subcontinent of India and Pakistan. His
whole family is involved with the ministry. They often arrange gatherings and gospel singing. They entertain church goers every third Sunday with food. They work with non Christians also. Their home is
open for anyone
anytime. Their ministry does not
tire them. He says the miraculous escape
from Pakistan is the second birth for him and his family. He is
first thankful to God and secondly
to the Christian Reformed Church
and also the Canadian Government for the
experience of this new birth.
He says
he was fortunate to escape from
the clutches of those fanatics. Not
everyone is fortunate. There are
several who have been killed or are
living under threats without any hope.
One example is SK
who was tortured with her family
and is still under the threat for sharing her Christian creed with her
Muslim friend RM.
Rev.
Arthur has tried in every possible way to get SK
out of Pakistan. The Christian
Reformed Church, her main sponsor, is
also trying, but the Canadian High
Commission in Pakistan is not issuing her a visa. She has been rejected three times for
asylum. Her case is tied with the case
of the pastor. The pastor and his family were able to come out but
SK and her family are still suffering back in Pakistan. When she goes to the Canadian High
Commission in Islamabad
for a visa, she is turned
down with one excuse
or the other. She is deeply
frustrated and has lost the
balance of her thinking. She
and her parents and other members of her family are in hiding. They cannot work anywhereB they have lost the
peace of the night. Their home has been
put to fire. They have been living under
the shadow of threats
and fear. One may ask why SK is not allowed to come out of that
shadow in Pakistan? Why
she is not receiving a visa when a church is taking responsibility to look after,
including her fare?
In the case of SK , there will
not be any burden on society because a church has taken the responsibility for
her. The fanatics who have killed their own daughter, can
easily kill SK and her family. She has became so desperate that she once
sprinkled kerosene on her clothes and
was ready to burn herself. The Pastor phoned to dissuade her from suicide.
He advised her from Canada to
have faith in God who will find a way to get
her out.
When
SK was in
custody, police forced
the pastor to touch her private parts. When he refused,
they hit the pastor. He remembers the evening when he saw
her tied
to a tree in
the front of the house of those Muslims. She was crying. While recounting those
tortures, the pastor often got
lost somewhere, perhaps thinking
of their past and rescue. She was in
police custody for about ten
months. Here women are often abused. There are several
reports including the reports of human
rights groups, about abuses of women in
police custody. Women from
minority groups are more vulnerable. The
women who have been implicated in
the blasphemy laws are even more vulnerable.
SK
suffers from nightmares and expects any time to be killed. She is not
normal anymore. She must be about twenty-four
years old in 2003. She was
attending a college with RM for a
university degree before the days of
her persecution. Her formal education
has gone and so are her dreams. She
often gets up in the night from her sleep and shouts as if there
were bearded men around
to rape her. She depends on
others for finances. Who would marry her
in that plight ? She has no future in that nation. Even
her parents and brother and sisters
suffer. They are also under
constant fear. There is no freedom for them. The land where they were born and
where their ancestors have been buried has become an open prison
for them.
The church and home of Rev. Arthur in Pakistan have been illegally possessed by a
group of zealots. All the signs and
boards of the church have gone. His
relatives have been attacked. They are
also living in hiding. Whenever he meets a person, he asks to find ways to help SK. He has written several letters to the
government of Pakistan without any
result. Pakistan is a nation that is beset with the clouds of bribery and
religious bigotry at every level of government. The Government of Pakistan is silent. So is the Government of
Canada. Churches are silent. So is
humanity.
On July 1,
2003, I wrote a letter
to the President of Pakistan, General
Pervez Musharraf,
to support the
petition Rev. Arthur
made to him on December 12 of
2002. The petition was to
regain the property of his church from a
Muslim group that had grabbed the
property forcefully. I mentioned
in my letter
that Rev. Arthur
was the church minister of the
Gospel of Jesus Christ in Shahdra, Lahore.
Part of this location
was the residence of pastor
Arthur and his family. He
inherited this property
from his ancestors who had lived
in the land long before Pakistan came into existence and that his ancestors did
not come from abroad as several Pakistanis have. I added in that letter
that Rev. Arthur had to flee that land
of his ancestors because of his
persecution for performing his duties as a pastor. The magnitude of his agonies began to mount when a Muslim girl, RM, was brought to him by SK , a member of his congregation, for
additional understanding of Jesus.
The parents and relatives of RM
got hold of Rev.
Arthur and tortured him and later they handed him to police who tortured
him further, breaking some of his ribs.
Rev. Arthur and his family took refuge in Canada.
The
80-year-old mother-in-law of Rev.
Arthur looked after the property for a
while, living with her son and family in
the house that is attached to the church.
When the group of Muhammad Bashir Joya tried to kill her
son, they had to hide out of the village for the protection of
their lives and also of his family. The
group threatened to kill the brother-in law of Rev. Arthur.
On April 18
in 2001, Rev. Arthur phoned
Muhammad Bashir
Joya and his
son Muhammad Jahangir from
Canada to request
them to give the church back to
his congregation. Both were rude and
used threatening language, refusing to give the church back. Later Muhammad Bashir Joya and his group tried
to kill the brother-in-law of Rev.
Arthur. He was able to escape with
one wound on his ankle from a gunshot. Terrified, he is hiding himself moving from
place to place. The congregation was
silenced with threats.
Rev. Arthur
mailed copies of his petition to several government authorities in
Pakistan, including the Deputy
Superintendent of Police of Ferozwala Circuit and
Superintendent of Police of District Sheikhupura of Panjab for action.
But nothing happened. On October 3,
2001, he sent a
letter to Mr. Iftikhar A. Irain,
Consulate General of Pakistan in Toronto, asking for his assistance to receive his church and dwelling back. Nothing happened
again. The lives of his relatives and congregation in Pakistan
remain in danger and the church is still
under the illegal possession of Muhammad Bashir Joya and his son
Muhammad Jahangir. The members of the
church meet for
prayers in private houses
under the constant fear from Muhammad
Bashir Joya and his
group.
This incident
of grabbing the property of a church
is not the
first nor the last. One weapon that land grabbers use
is the sword
of the blasphemy laws. One example
where they have used this
weapon is Ayub Masih who languished in a death cell for years. He
is alleged to have told his accuser to read Solomon Rushdie.
The day a case was registered against Ayub Masih for this
flimsy fabricated reason, Christian families from that village
ran to other places to save their lives. Ayub Masih was arrested, tortured by the police and
the home and
belongings of the family were transferred to his accuser.
Years later, a defence attorney
told Pakistan=s Supreme
Court that Ayub Masih was a victim
of a plot to grab his land. The court
agreed and ordered Masih to be released.
The tragic episode of Rev. Arthur reveals
another book of shame in the library
of torture of Christians in Pakistan. The first chapter in this book of shame
was RM, that young
Muslim girl who has lost her life in the hands of
her real brother.
This tragedy was
acted on the stage of the
blasphemy laws that sharpen
the sword of
terrorism.
The blasphemy
laws of Pakistan, claim to be based on
the Islamic creed,
prescribe a sentence of a few
months and a fine of a few thousand
rupees for those who blaspheme against God. But these laws prescribe death by hanging
to those who blaspheme against Prophet Mohammed. There
is no other sentence for them, except a death
sentence. For fanatics, apostasy is an
insult to Prophet Mohammed and therefore an apostate is sentenced to death
if the matter goes to court. In most
cases, the apostate goes through a long line of tortures, losing his or her
life at the hands of the mob or relatives, including parents. Several leaders of Pakistan, including a high court judge, have encouraged people to kill
blasphemers on the spot. The death of RM
is an outcome of these
laws. RM met her tragic end because she
expressed her right to accept a path that was different from the path of
her parents and of the majority class.
Her right was
denied to her through a
drastic action that blew out the
candle of her life. RM, an enlightened
Muslim student of
second year in a college,
was kept under lock and key by her parents when they came to know that
she had accepted Christ. Somehow she
managed to escape. A couple of days after that RM was found and
killed by her older brother for
changing her path. The tragic episode does not end here.
RM was introduced to Christ by her
girl friend SK who was her classmate at a
local college and a member of the
congregation of Rev. Arthur. The parents and relatives of RM dragged the
parents and sister of SK to
the front of the yard
of a house, chained
and tortured them, keeping them hungry
and thirsty in scorching
heat of June when the sun shines with its full
fury. There was no one around to help those defenceless souls. Later
SK, the Christian girl of around twenty two years old, was handed to police who badly abused her
sexually. Due to hopelessness and
inhuman treatment, she has become a vegetable.