From Reuters
by Katherine Houreld
(Reuters) – The spiritual leader of the world’s Anglicans urgedPakistan to treat all people equally on Wednesday during a trip designed to show his support for the embattled Christian community, saying many felt “under siege”.
The Archbishop of Canterbury arrived in Pakistan on Tuesday to meet Muslim and Anglican leaders at a time when Christians feel under attack from both authorities and their Muslim neighbours due to Pakistan’s oppressive blasphemy laws.
“There is a considerable sense of anxiety, of being under siege,” Justin Welby, a former oil executive, told Reuters outside a church in the eastern city of Lahore.
“There was a very clear sense that people were nervous about the misuse of the blasphemy law, as a sort of a tool of politics, a way of gaining attention, or as a mob thing,” he added, flanked by two Pakistani bishops.
He earlier told reporters: “Equality under the law is very important.”
Rights activists say a spike in the number of blasphemy cases in Pakistan is evidence of rising intolerance in the mainly Sunni Muslim South Asian state of 180 million people.
Blasphemy carries the death penalty in Pakistan and cases against both religious minorities and Muslims are rising.
