A Christian persecution watchdog has warned that there will soon be a "great holocaust of Christians in Pakistan" as the country restarts executions for all prisoners condemned to death, a sentence often brought on by nothing more than an allegation of "blasphemy" against the Muslim prophet Muhammad.
"While the majority of those sentenced to death deserve capital punishment (murderers, rapists, drug dealers, etc), there are Christians currently in prison, and there will be more Christians in prison, for blasphemy laws," writes Theodore Shoebat at Shoebat.com, a website founded by his father, former Muslim terrorist Walid Shoebat.
Shoebat quotes a report from Russia Today about the end of the death penalty moratorium in Pakistan:
"It will begin executing criminals whose appeals have been exhausted, a spokesman said, reversing an earlier decision that only those convicted of terrorism would be executed."
According to Amnesty International, over 8,000 people are on death row in Pakistan, and convictions are highly unreliable in the country "whose criminal justice system is notorious."
With this ban lifted, Shoebat warns, more and more Christians found guilty for blasphemy will be killed by the Pakistani government.
"The current law in Pakistan is that those found guilty for blasphemy are to be sentenced to death (or given life in prison)," he writes. "This is all leading to the future systematic genocide of Christians that will be happening in Pakistan. We must work to help save Christian lives before the Muslims unleash their wave of cruelty and violence on the Christians and usher in the coming great holocaust of Christians in Pakistan."
In 2009, a Christian mother named Asia Bibi was accused of blasphemy and sentenced to death following a dispute with Muslim co-workers over drinking out of the same water bowl in a rural village in Punjab province. Despite repeated pleas to the Pakistani government to reconsider her case, Bibi currently remains in prison awaiting her trial.
Sadly, a majority of those accused of blasphemy "killed extrajudicially" by mobs, never facing a court or trial.
In November, the horrifying story emerged of the deaths of a pregnant Christian woman, Shama Bibi, 24, and her husband, Shahzad Masih, who were brutally murdered by a mob after being falsely accused of blasphemy.
"The mob beat them and broke their legs so they would not be able to flee," Javed Masseh, a spokesperson for the family, said in a statement issued late in 2014. "They were then held over an open kiln until their clothes caught fire. 'They picked them up by the arms and legs and held them over the brick kiln until their clothes caught fire. And then they threw them inside the furnace."
The report added, "The accuser went to the neighboring villages in the Kasur district and incited the Muslims against her and her husband." Ultimately "1,000-2,000 people from five nearby villages gathered" to kill the young couple.
According to a 2014 Gatestone report, the murderers were initially jailed, but eventually set free.
Father James Channan of the Peace Center of the Dominican Order in Pakistan explained, "Sadly, the leadership and media of the West do not even notice that three million Christians in Pakistan live in fear for their lives. While some international organizations are struggling to make blasphemy laws obsolete, the world's most powerful leaders have been mostly silent about these crimes."
Shoebat also posted a video interview with Farrukh Saif, a Christian activist in Pakistan who said he expects there soon will be "no Christianity left in Pakistan."
Citing a 1971 massacre in Bangladesh that claimed about 350,000 lives, Saif's video alleges, "The coming massacre of Christians by the Pakistan government and the jihadists will be far worse."
