Royal commission on the abuse of disabled people to be announced soon

Michelle Grattan, University of Canberra

The Morrison government is about to establish a royal commission into violence and abuse of people with a disability.

The aim is to have the terms of reference finalised before the
election. The disability area is a shared one, so the royal commission would be set up jointly with the states and territories.

As of late Wednesday, Queensland, Victoria, NSW, South Australia and Tasmania had agreed to the inquiry; Western Australia and the two territories are expected to do so soon.

Scott Morrison, campaigning in Tasmania, flagged a very extensive
scope for the commission.

“I think it will be a royal commission of a similar size and standing as what we saw with institutional child sexual abuse. Let’s remember that went for four years. It had five commissioners,” he said.

There is no cost for the royal commission as yet and the federal
government wants the other governments to contribute. The child sexual abuse commission cost about A$500 million; the banking inquiry was around $75 million; the aged care one is set to cost about $100 million.

The disability sector has been pressing for the inquiry. Greens
senator Jordon Steele-John, who has a disability, has been one of the loudest voices. The opposition has promised a royal commission, and earlier this month parliament passed a motion calling for one. The Coalition opposed that motion in the Senate but voted for it in the lower house.

In a letter to state and territory leaders Morrison said the scope of the inquiry being proposed by disabled people and advocates “is broad, including mainstream services that are regulated by state and territory governments such as health, mental health and education services provided prior to the establishment of the NDIS.

“The cooperation and support of state and territory governments is therefore essential”.

Morrison said he was seeking views from the states and territories on the “most appropriate consultation pathways to progress” the commission, including through the Council of Australian Governments. This process should also consider cost sharing. “I am also seeking views on options to undertake meaningful consultation with the disability sector, to ensure that the perspectives of people with disability are incorporated and they are provided with appropriate support”.

The opposition accused Morrison of haggling with the states over the funding of the royal commission, saying that “Labor committed to a separate, dedicated and fully federally funded royal commission in May 2017”.

Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Sexist abuse has a long history in Australian politics – and takes us all to a dark place

With some foul-mouthed words to Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, Senator David Leyonhjelm has turned a debate about the safety of women into a sleazy political sideshow.
AAP/Mick Tsikas/Sam Mooy

Denis Muller, University of Melbourne

In one foul-mouthed phrase, Senator David Leyonhjelm has turned a debate about the safety of women into a sleazy political sideshow.

Claiming – without a shred of factual support – that he had interpreted Senator Sarah Hanson-Young as having said words to the effect of “all men are rapists”, Leyonhjelm called across the chamber that she should “stop shagging men”. Confronted by her afterwards, he told her to “fuck off”.

It is one more example of the debasement of political debate in Australia, aided and abetted by elements of the media, in this case Sky News. Its Outsiders panel of Rowan Dean and Ross Cameron gave Leyonhjelm a platform on which he repeated his offensive remarks, and sat back obligingly while he did so.

Only when the network was deluged with complaints did Cameron apologise for the pair of them, and the network took its own action – suspending not Dean and Cameron but the nameless and faceless young female producer who put up a caption at the foot of the screen bearing Leyonhjelm’s words.

---

Read more:
Madonna or whore; frigid or a slut: why women are still bearing the brunt of sexual slurs

---

Sexism and sexual innuendo are nothing new in politics. Cheryl Kernot, one-time leader of the Australian Democrats who had an affair with Labor’s Foreign Affairs Minister Gareth Evans and defected to Labor in the late 1990s, was the butt of some crude slanging on the floor of the parliament.

But since June 24, 2010, when Julia Gillard deposed Kevin Rudd as Labor Prime Minister, these phenomena seem to have got palpably worse.

The reasons are necessarily speculative, but over the intervening eight years there have been a series of developments that might help to explain it.

One has been the explosive arrival of social media and its adoption as a tool of propaganda by all who want to make themselves heard, regardless of taste, harm or substance. Facebook, launched in 2004, went global in 2006, the same year that Twitter was launched. YouTube appeared in 2005, Instagram in 2010 (acquired by Facebook in 2012) and Snapchat in 2011.

Whatever benefits they have brought – and there are many – they have also brought trolling.

During the prime ministership of Julia Gillard, a vast amount of trolling was directed at her. It was gross in its extremism and vulgarity. Much of it was crude pornography. There was incitement to violence and unbridled misogyny. Research by Anne Summers for her 2012 Human Rights and Social Justice Lecture at the University of Newcastle, revealed just how vile this online assault became.

The poison seeped out into the wider public discourse, where inevitably elements of the mainstream media magnified it.

Notable contributors to this were commercial radio talkback shock jocks Alan Jones, Ray Hadley and Chris Smith. Their depictions of, and remarks about, Gillard were disgustingly offensive. Not only were they sexist, extremist and malicious, but in Jones’s case involved encouragement of the idea that the prime minister should be dumped at sea.

And then, of course, there was the infamous question about the sexual orientation of the prime minister’s partner.

Portrayals of Gillard by other elements of the mainstream media, especially the newspapers, were generally less grotesque, but raised important ethical issues just the same.

The most common, and in some ways the most difficult to pin down, concerned the passively neutral way in which they covered the grossly disrespectful public attacks on her, just as Dean and Cameron did on Sunday.

An egregious example was the coverage of the rally outside Parliament House in 2011 when the leader of the opposition, Tony Abbott, gave legitimacy to sentiments such as “ditch the witch” and “bitch” by allowing himself to be photographed in front of placards bearing those words.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott addresses a crowd in front of crude signs referring to Prime Minister Julia Gillard in March, 2011.
AAP/Alan Porritt

A more recent development, also made possible by the internet, has been the rise of the #metoo movement, in which women who previously felt powerless to speak out about sexual harassment are now doing so, bringing down some powerful men such as Harvey Weinstein in the process.

This has produced a backlash consisting of a complicated mix of male dubiety about the exact nature of sexual harassment and irritation by some feminists at what they see as an apparent weakening of women’s agency.

The fact there is a backlash at all doubtless encourages those who wish to say that attention to sexual harassment is overdone, and we should get back to a bit of good old-fashioned slagging of the kind epitomised by Leyonhjelm’s remarks.

A further factor might be that the boundaries of privacy have shifted, so sexual references that would have been deemed off-limits a decade ago are now shared on social media. Perhaps this is having a desensitising effect on standards of public taste.

Trends in public standards influence editorial decision-making. Stories are published that previously might not have been, or might have been toned down.

---

Read more:
View from The Hill: Parliament should care about its reputation even if Leyonhjelm doesn’t value his

---

As professional mass media try to keep pace with developments in social media, editors may feel they will be left behind if they don’t swiftly adapt to these changing mores and become more libertarian in their decision-making.

In these ways, boundaries in public taste and decency shift over time. However, Leyonhjelm has clearly put himself beyond the pale. Sky News obviously recognised this and felt an apology was necessary, even if Leyonhjelm himself does not.

Meanwhile, it is sobering to reflect on the worst consequences of disrespectful attitudes to women. The shocking rape and murder of Eurydice Dixon in Melbourne last month – which gave rise to the debate in which Leyonhjelm made his disgraceful interjection – has rightly led to an outpouring of community outrage and grief.

The 2018 report of the Australian Domestic and Family Violence Death Review Network, which draws on data from all the coroners’ courts in Australia, stated that between July 1, 2010 and June 30, 2014 there were 152 intimate partner homicides across Australia that followed an identifiable history of domestic violence.

Of these, 121, or 79.6%, were women killed by men.

Denis Muller, Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Advancing Journalism, University of Melbourne

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

No Don Burke, there is no link between autism and harassing behaviour

Andrew Whitehouse, University of Western Australia

Allegations that Don Burke indecently assaulted and bullied staff during his time hosting Burke’s Backyard were heinous enough. But in an interview with A Current Affair last night, he created another victim: the autism community.

In the interview, Burke claimed that he has Asperger’s syndrome:

I haven’t been medically diagnosed but I’ve worked it out, what it is, and it’s a terrible failing.

I have difficulty looking anyone in the eye. I can look in the lense, but I have real difficulty looking anyone in the eye … it’s a typical thing. And I miss all their body language and often the subtle signs that people give to you like, ‘Back off, that’s enough’, I don’t see that.

I suffer from a terrible problem with that, of not seeing … and no-one can understand how you can’t see it. But you don’t.

In examining Burke’s comments, it’s helpful to separate “excuse” from “explanation”. It’s clear there is no excuse for humiliation, bullying and harassment. Nevertheless, reasonable explanations can still underlie inexcusable behaviour.

Burke sought to use Asperger’s syndrome as that explanation. Whether or not Burke would meet criteria for Asperger’s syndrome is not the issue. The problem is that the statements he made about Asperger’s syndrome are utterly false and have an impact far beyond his own circumstance.

Remind me, what is Asperger’s syndrome?

Asperger’s syndrome is part of the autism spectrum, and is characterised by difficulties with social interaction and communication.

Autism spectrum conditions are diagnosed by a team of clinical experts, often including a specially trained medical doctor, a psychologist and a speech pathologist. While autism is a heritable condition (it “runs” in families), we currently don’t know enough about the genetic factors underlying the condition and so we diagnose based on observable behaviours.

---

Read more: The difficulties doctors face in diagnosing autism

---

A defining characteristic of autism (and Asperger’s syndrome) is differences in social behaviours, such as difficulties initiating or maintaining social interaction with others. However, these social difficulties bear no relevance to a lack of empathy for others, which, of course, underlies bullying and harassing behaviour.

Empathy comes in two forms – cognitive empathy (ability to recognise others’ emotions), and emotional empathy (ability to feel others’ emotions once that emotion has been recognised). There is strong research evidence that some individuals with autism may have challenges with cognitive empathy, but no evidence for difficulties with emotional empathy.

In essence, once there is understanding of what a person is feeling, people on the autism spectrum are often intensely empathetic.

More likely to be bullied than a bully

While the behaviours that characterise autism can create challenges in day-to-day life, there is no link between autism and the perpetration of bullying and harassment. Indeed, dozens of scientific studies have investigated this, and all evidence indicates that people on the autism spectrum are far more likely to be the victims of these behaviours than the other way around.

---

Read more: Why children with autism often fall victim to bullies

---

Burke’s statements create real and lasting damage. There is considerable research evidence showing the stigma that still surrounds autism, and the detrimental effects that stigma can have on people with the condition and their families.

I think about the young man with Asperger’s syndrome, who has fostered enormous courage to attend and enjoy school, and now has another target placed on his back.

I think about parents of newly diagnosed children, who are met with yet another jarring myth to swirl around their tired and worried minds. I think about how this may affect their view of the years that lie ahead of them. These years will come with great challenges, but also the greatest of joys.

I think about employers, who are just starting to understand the vast talents and economic benefits people on the autism spectrum bring to their workplace, and how even the smallest seeds of doubt can be fertilised by the public airing of patently false statements.

---

Read more: Why employing autistic people makes good business sense

---

I think about all of these people – the wonderful autism community – and how they would feel in being used as a punching bag yet again. The autism community frequently takes punches from media and public figures in an attempt to excuse or explain human behaviour.

Australia would do very well to not simply ignore Don Burke’s comments, but instead use the anger they generate to continue the path of cherishing and valuing the diversity that the autism community provides our society.

Andrew Whitehouse, Winthrop Professor, Telethon Kids Institute, University of Western Australia

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

China: Persecution News Update

The links below are to articles reporting on persecution and associated news from China (the most recent are at the top).

For more visit:
– http://www.voanews.com/content/china-ordains-new-catholic-bishop-amid-tensions/2902519.html
– http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-33783463
– http://www.ucanews.com/news/protests-over-chinas-cross-removals-gain-steam/74018
– http://www.chinaaid.org/2015/08/zhejiang-officials-secretly-remove.html
– http://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/china-olympics-07312015103401.html

China: Persecution News Update

The links below are to articles reporting on persecution news from China, including associated reports of human rights abuses (the most recent are at the top).

For more visit:
– http://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/china-churches-07272015103543.html
– http://www.chinaaid.org/2015/07/china-aid-president-testifies-at.html
– http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/23/us-china-rights-idUSKCN0PX0UN20150723
– http://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/china-lawyers-07212015140342.html
– https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/07/20/china-secretly-detained-lawyers-risk-torture
– http://www.chinaaid.org/2015/07/shaanxi-police-shut-down-summer-camp.html

C. J. Mahaney and Sovereign Grace Ministries Facing Lawsuit

The link below is to an article reporting on a lawsuit being brought against C.J. Mahaney and Sovereign Grace Ministries over alleged covering up of child sex abuse.

For more visit:
http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctliveblog/archives/2012/10/cj-mahaney-sovereign-grace-ministries-sued-for-concealing-child-sex-abuse.html

Vietnam: Human Rights Abuses

The abuse of human rights in Vietnam continues unabated.

For more visit:
http://www.christiantelegraph.com/issue15269.html

Revelations of Torture Spur Wife of Chinese Lawyer to Action

Christian human rights advocate Gao Zhisheng reveals further abuse.

DUBLIN, January 19 (CDN) — Geng He, wife of missing Christian lawyer Gao Zhisheng, is demanding answers from the Chinese government following new revelations of torture of her husband.

“This is the first time that I heard about the details,” Geng, now living in the United States, told Radio Free Asia last week. “My husband did not tell me – would not tell me – how he was tortured.”

After consulting with Geng, The Associated Press (AP) on Jan. 10 published an interview with Gao, an outspoken human rights campaigner, during his brief release from captivity last April, in which he revealed details of the torture he had suffered during the previous 14 months.

Speaking with the AP in a Beijing teahouse on April 7, closely watched by police, Gao described many forms of torture, including a period of 48 hours when he was stripped bare, beaten continually with handguns and subjected to other excruciating abuse.

The AP released the interview in advance of an official visit this week (Jan. 18-21) by Chinese President Hu Jintao to the United States, stating its hope that “publicizing his account will place renewed pressure on the government to disclose Gao’s whereabouts.”

Geng planned to travel to Washington this week to further highlight her husband’s case. At a U.S. State Department dinner at the White House tonight for Hu, she planned to wait outside to draw attention to Gao’s disappearance.

Gao had asked that his account not be made public unless he disappeared again or “made it to someplace safe like the U.S. or Europe,” according to the AP.

Initially seized by public security officials on Feb. 4, 2009, shortly after his wife and two children fled China to seek asylum in the United States, Gao was held virtually incommunicado for more than a year before police staged his brief reappearance in Beijing last April 6. (See http://www.compassdirect.org, “Christian Rights Activist Gao Zhisheng Released,” April 9, 2010.)

After speaking with the AP and other journalists, Gao made a supervised visit to his in-laws in northwestern Xinjiang Province. During that visit, he again vanished on April 20 while in the company of Chinese police, according to a report by The New York Times on April 30, 2009. He has not been seen or heard from since, but China watchers such as Bob Fu of the China Aid Association (CAA) believe he is “definitely in the hands of Chinese security forces.” (See http://www.compassdirect.org, “Human Rights
Lawyer Gao Zhisheng Missing Again,” May 7, 2010.)

 

New Account

In his interview with the AP, Gao explained that police had moved him from his birthplace of Yulin to Beijing, then back to Yulin, and from there to Urumqi, where the most excruciating moments of torture occurred.

Allowed out on an evening walk on Sept. 25, Gao was approached by several Uyghur men, members of a minority ethnic group who claimed to be part of a counterterrorism unit. They punched him in the stomach, handcuffed him and took him to the upstairs room of a building. There they tortured him for a full week, culminating in a period of 48 hours when they stripped him bare and “took turns beating him [with pistols] and did things he refused to describe,” the AP reported.

Gao said this was the darkest point in the 14 months since authorities had seized him in February 2009, and far worse than the torture during a previous disappearance in 2007. At that time, he said in a previous report, security officials gave electric shocks to his genitals and held burning cigarettes close to his eyes to cause temporary blindness.

When Gao in 2007 asked Beijing police why they didn’t put him in prison, they replied, “You’re not good enough for that. Whenever we want you to disappear, you’ll disappear,” according to the AP.

 

‘Words from the Heart’

Fu of CAA on Friday (Jan. 14) also called on the Chinese government to give an account of Gao’s whereabouts, besides imploring President Obama to address the fate of Gao and other prominent Chinese rights defenders during his meetings with Hu.

Fu also released a previously unpublished statement written by Gao on Jan. 1, 2009, shortly before his family’s escape from China, entitled “Words from the Heart.”

Carried out of China by Gao’s wife, the document claimed that authorities had invested a huge amount of manpower, physical resources and funds to silence him.

“Not only is it now extremely difficult for me to make my voice heard, but it is also extremely dangerous,” Gao wrote.

His faith, however, had enabled him to endure under pressure, he stated.

“I am optimistic by nature, and I am a Christian,” he wrote. “Even when I was tortured to near death, the pain was only in the physical body. A heart that is filled with God has no room to entertain pain and suffering.

Gao expressed concern for his wife and children, who had suffered greatly from police harassment. He said authorities even banned his daughter from attending school, another factor prompting the family’s flight to the United States.

Gao urged friends both inside and outside China to defend other human rights advocates imprisoned or harassed by the government, adding that “Heroes like Guo Feixiong … who sacrifice and risk their lives to defend religious freedom, are the true hope of China.”

He also urged that a network be established within China to report on “countless” abuses of human rights.

“The publication of this article will cause me to be kidnapped again,” Gao concluded. “Kidnappings are a normal part of my life now. If it comes again, then let it come!”

 

SIDEBAR

A Brief Biography of Gao Zhisheng

Gao was born in a hillside cave in Yulin, northern China, according to a brief biography written by David Kilgour of Media With Conscience (MWC). Since his parents were too poor to send him to school, he gained a basic education by listening outside the windows of the village classroom.

He then worked briefly as a coal miner before joining the People’s Liberation Army, where he met his future wife, Geng He, obtained a secondary education and became a member of the Communist Party.

Following his discharge from the army, Gao became a street vendor and self-studied to become a lawyer, passing the bar exam in 1994. China’s Ministry of Justice in 2001 named him one of the country’s 10 most remarkable lawyers, according to the MWC biography.

But as Gao began to represent farmers in land compensation cases, practitioners of the banned Falun Gong group and house church members, he quickly lost favor with authorities.

In 2005, after Gao wrote open letters to President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao calling for an end to the torture and execution of Falun Gong members, authorities closed down Gao’s law firm, revoked his license to practice law, and placed Gao, his wife and two children under 24-hour police surveillance, according to reports by the China Aid Association (CAA). Police even beat his then 13-year-old daughter, according to the CAA.

In response, Gao in December 2005 publicly resigned from the Communist Party and later declared that he was a Christian.

Weeks later, on Feb. 4, 2006, Gao and several other high profile Chinese activists launched a “Relay Hunger Strike for Human Rights,” in which ordinary Chinese citizens fasted for 24 hours in rotation across 29 provinces in China. The hunger strikes led to a wave of arrests.

Authorities then seized Gao on Aug. 15, 2006, and on Dec. 22, 2006 they gave him a three-year suspended sentence for subversion. Officials then placed Gao on probation for five years and allowed him to remain at home under strict surveillance.

Authorities again seized Gao in September 2007 after he wrote to the U.S. Congress expressing concern about human rights violations prior to the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. On his release in November 2007 Gao issued a statement via the CAA claiming that his captors had tortured him by applying electric shocks to his genitals and holding burning cigarettes close to his eyes. He added that he’d been threatened with death if he spoke about the torture.

Gao was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, 2008 and 2010 in recognition of his ongoing commitment to the advance of human rights in China, according to Kilgour’s report.

State agents abducted Gao on Feb. 4, 2009, shortly after his wife and children fled China to obtain asylum in the United States, and they held him virtually incommunicado for over a year. (See http://www.compassdirect.org, “Action Urged for Missing Rights Activist in China,” March 24, 2009.)

Perhaps as a response to international pressure, police staged a brief reappearance for Gao on April 6, 2010, CAA reported. But on April 20, during a closely-supervised visit to his in-laws in Urumqi, Xinjiang province, Gao again vanished and has not been seen or heard from since.

Chinese officials at every level have consistently denied knowledge of his current location.

Report from Compass Direct News

Pakistani Police Allegedly Make Threats after Murdering Christian

Officers warn Christians they could face false charges or death if they do not withdraw case.

KARACHI, Pakistan, January 18 (CDN) — Pakistani police are threatening the father of an 18-year-old Christian man whom officers raped, killed and threw into a sewer last week, according to area Christians.

Christian residents of Akhter Colony, Karachi who pulled the body of Waqas Gill from the sewer on Jan. 11 protested an alleged police cover-up by placing the corpse in the middle of a street and chanting slogans against officers of Mehmoodabad police station. They said local officers kidnapped and sodomized Gill before shooting him dead on Jan. 9.

The victim’s father, Pervez Gill, told Compass that four policemen on Jan. 6 abducted his son without a warrant and without making any charges. He said higher level police officials took notice of their Jan. 11 protest and reluctantly filed charges against the four policemen, two of them identified as Muhammad Amir Butt and Muhammad Adeel Khatak of the Mehmoodabad police station in Jamshaid Town, Karachi. The First Information Report is No. 38/11 under the murder laws of Section 302 of Pakistan Penal Code.

“Police are now threatening us and other Christians of Akhter Colony that we have to retract the charges,” Gill said, nearly in tears. “Police registered a case against the culprits, but they have not filed it under the proper parts of the section, which weakens the case, and police have done everything possible to save their fellow policemen.”

Gill said this police bias was the reason the other two officers named were still at large, with no action taken against them.

Local Christian protestors said Muslim policemen unduly delayed an autopsy to protect fellow officers, on the assumption that Christians were socially and financially weak in the predominantly Sunni Islamic country. After the Jan. 11 protest, however, an autopsy was undertaken and showed that Gill was subjected to sexual assault, tortured, shot dead with police revolver bullets and thrown into a waste drainage line, they said.

Sources said at least six other area Christian youths had been similarly killed.

“I don’t expect any justice from the investigating officers of the same police station whose police constables kidnapped, sodomized and snatched the life of my son,” Gill said.

He said that police have threatened to kill them or charge them with false crimes if they do not withdraw the charges against the officers. Under Pakistan’s “blasphemy” laws, insulting Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, is punishable by death.

Officers at the Mehmoodabad police station and other stations refused repeated requests for comment on the case.

Christians make up only 2.45 percent of the Pakistani population of 184.8 million, which is nearly 96 percent Muslim, according to Operation World.

Christian Legislator Tahir Naveed Chaudhary condemned the killing, stating that Sindh Province police have started to imitate Punjab Province police’s discrimination and delays in autopsies and filing of charges against those who attack Christians.

“Day by day, crimes against Christians are increasing, and rape or abuse of Christian women and girls has become a commonplace thing,” Chaudhary said. “Life of any of the Christians at any place in Pakistan is not safe.”

Report from Compass Direct News

Pakistani Muslim Tortures, Accuses Christian Who Refused Slavery

Land owner falsely charges young man with illicit sex, calls villagers to beat, burn him.

SARGODHA, Pakistan, October 29 (CDN) — A Muslim land owner in Pakistan this month subjected a 25-year-old Christian to burns and a series of humiliations, including falsely charging him with having sex with his own niece, because the Christian refused to work for him without pay.

Fayaz Masih is in jail with burns on his body after No. 115 Chitraan Wala village head Zafar Iqbal Ghuman and other villagers punished Masih for refusing to work as a slave in his fields, said the Rev. Yaqub Masih, a Pentecostal evangelist. The village is located in Nankana Sahib district, Punjab Province.

Sources said neither Fayaz Masih nor his family had taken any loans from Ghuman, and that they had no obligations to work off any debt for Ghuman as bonded laborers.

Yaqub Masih said the young man’s refusal to work in Ghuman’s fields infuriated the Muslim, who was accustomed to forcing Christians into slavery. He said Ghuman considered Masih’s refusal an act of disobedience by a “choohra,” the pejorative word for Christians in Pakistan.

On Oct. 3 Ghuman and 11 of his men abducted Masih from his home at gun-point and brought him to Ghuman’s farmhouse, according to Yaqub Masih and Yousaf Gill, both of nearby village No. 118 Chour Muslim. Gill is a former councilor of Union Council No. 30, and Yaqub Masih is an ordained pastor waiting for his denomination to assign him a church.

Fayaz Masih’s family members told Yaqub Masih that Ghuman was carrying a pistol, and that the 11 other men were brandishing rifles or carrying clubs, axes and bamboo sticks. They began beating Masih as they carried him away, calling him a choohra, Yaqub Masih said.   

Gill said that Ghuman’s farmhands tied Fayaz Masih’s hands and legs and asked him once more if he would work in Ghuman’s fields. When he again refused, Gill said, Ghuman summoned four barbers; three ran away, but he forced one, Muhammad Pervaiz, to shave Masih’s head, eyebrows, half of his mustache and half of his beard.

After they had rubbed charcoal on Masih’s face, Ghuman then announced that Masih had had relations with Masih’s 18-year-old niece, Sumeera, and called for everyone in the village to punish him. He and his men placed Masih on a frail, one-eyed donkey, Yaqub Masih and Gill said, and a mob of Muslim men and children surrounded him – beating tins, dancing and singing door-to-door while shouting anti-Christian slogans, yelling obscenities at him and other Christians, and encouraging villagers to beat him with their shoes and fill his mouth with human waste, Yaqub Masih said.

Some threw kerosene on Masih and alternately set him on fire and extinguished the flames, Gill said. He added that Muslims made a garland of old shoes from a pile of garbage and put it around Masih’s neck.

Yaqub Masih said the abuse became unbearable for the young man, and he collapsed and fell off the donkey.  

 

Police Ignore Court

Masih’s sister, Seema Bibi, told Compass that the accusation that Masih had had sex with her daughter Sumeera was utterly false. She said Ghuman made the allegation only to vent his fury at Masih for refusing to work for him.

Seema Bibi said that Ghuman told her daughter at gun-point to testify against Masih in court on Oct. 4. Sumeera surprised the Muslim land owner, however, saying under oath that Masih was innocent and that Ghuman had tried to force her to testify against her uncle. A judge ruled that Sumeera had not had illicit relations with Masih, and that therefore she was free to go home.

Her mother told Compass, however, that since then Ghuman has been issuing daily death threats to her family.

After Masih collapsed from the abuse, Yaqub Masih and Gill called local police. Police did not arrive until three hours later, at 3:30 p.m., they said, led by Deputy Superintendent of Police Shoiab Ahmed Kamboh and Inspector Muhammad Yaqub.

“They rebuked the Muslim villagers that they could have killed this Christian youth, and they told them to give him a bath at once and change his clothes, in order to reduce the evidence against them,” Gill said.

Family members of Masih said Kamboh and Inspector Yaqub arrested some of the leading figures within the mob, but soon thereafter they received a call to release every Muslim.

“Instead of taking the Muslim men into custody, they detained my brother, and he was taken to the police station,” Seema Bibi said.  

On Oct. 4 police sent Masih to District Headquarters Hospital Nankana Sahib for examination, where Dr. Naseer Ahmed directed Dr. Muhammad Shakeel to mention in the medical report how severely Ghuman and his farmhands had beaten him, Gill said. He said the medical report also stated that Masih had sustained burns and that his head, mustache, eyebrows and beard were shaved.

In spite of the court ruling that Masih had not had sex with his niece, police were coerced into registering a false charge of adultery under Article 376 of the Islamic statutes of the Pakistan Penal Code, First Information Report No. 361/10, at the Sangla Hill police station.

At press time Masih remained in Shiekhupura District Jail, said Gill. Gill also has received death threats from Ghuman, he said.

The 11 men who along with Ghuman abducted Masih and brought him to Ghuman’s farmhouse, according to Masih’s family, were Mehdi Hussain Shah and Maqsood Shah, armed with rifles; Muhammad Amin, Rana Saeed, Muhammad Osama and four others unidentified, all of them brandishing clubs; Muhammad Waqas, with an axe; and Ali Raza, bearing a bamboo stick and a club.

Report from Compass Direct News