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Churches rejected a call to form a Christian enclave

By the editorial team

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Church officials in Pakistan on 03.02.09 rejected a call for the creation of an enclave exclusively for the country's Christian minority in a predominantly Muslim-majority nation.

"This demand is sheer nonsense and ridiculous," said Victor Azariah, Secretary General of the National Council of Churches in Pakistan. The statement was in response to a proposal raised by Nazir S. Bhatti, editor of the Pakistan Christian Post website, which is coordinated from the US.

"Christians are very much a part of the country and we do not want to live in isolation from others," said Azariah, whose organization represents four Protestant denominations in Pakistan.

Earlier, another ecumenical group, the Christian Organizations for Social Work in Pakistan, had condemned the claim as a conspiracy to divide the country.

Bhatti said from Philadelphia that "Christians in Pakistan are treated as second-class citizens. They have to live with discrimination and harassment in all aspects of life."

"This [demand] is stupid and meaningless," said Peter Jacob, administrative secretary of the National Commission for Justice and Peace of the Catholic Church, according to ENI. "History shows that nations and provinces created because of religion are always problematic," Jacob said.