September 28, 2007

Extremists violently enforce Islamization in unruly northern district.

ISTANBUL – A Pakistani official in a northern district warned female teachers and students to don Islamic garb this week, citing threats from Taliban extremists active in the area.

The Pakistani Executive District Officer (EDO) issued a notice requiring female students in Swat district to wear burqas, an outer garment cloaking nearly the entire body, according to an article on Tuesday (September 25) in regional newspaper Daily Mashriq.

Christians in the Afghan-border region 120 miles north of Peshawar say that extremists from the Taliban movement, which ruled most of Afghanistan from 1995 to 2001, have targeted them in recent months.

Extremists in Swat have conducted a campaign of Islamization in the district against all things deemed un-Islamic since early July, when a government crackdown on militants at the Lal Masjid mosque in Islamabad triggered violent reactions nationwide.

“Due to continuous threatening letters from the Taliban directing female staff and students to wear burqas … the Executive District Officer has instructed [them] to comply with the orders,” the Daily Mashriq article stated.

The order to cover up under the full-body robe that leaves only the hands and eyes visible may affect Christians at the Catholic-run Public High School in Sangota.

The all-girls school had already closed down for a week this month after being threatened with suicide attacks for supposedly converting students to Christianity.

Swat EDO Ghulam Akhbar was not available for comment when contacted by telephone, and a colleague could not confirm the existence of the circular ordering burqa attire. But a Swat representative in the provincial assembly said yesterday that Akhbar had denied issuing the notice, though the officer had told female students to cover up.

“He has said verbally to the schools that you must use burqas,” Mutahida Majlis-i-Amal politician Hussain Ahmad told Compass, minutes after speaking with Akhbar.

Apostolic Carmelite sisters in charge of Sangota Public High School refused to comment on the issue. Diocesan Bishop Anthony Lobo was unavailable when contacted by Compass.

Suicide Bomb Threats

The all-girls school re-opened its doors on September 17 after a threat letter from Muslim extremists forced it to shut down for a week.

Entitled “Red Notice for Public School Sangota, (The Factory of Englishmen),” the September 8 letter accused the nuns of involving students in adultery, according to a Union of Catholic News for Asia (UCAN) article.

The Urdu-language note said that Christian teachers were converting Muslim students, who make up more than 99 percent of the schools 950 students, to Christianity. The Catholic Church’s National Commission for Justice and Peace reported that the extremists also told parents to withdraw their girls and place them in Islamic schools.