SECOND EDITORIAL: Kudos to the Christian and Jewish church!

From Pakistan News
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\01\30\story_30-1-2007_pg3_1

In the United States a number of people said to be related to the leader of Pakistan’s Jama’at al-Dawa either face deportation or are under the threat of deportation. One is his alleged brother (he denies it) Muhammad Masud, the imam of a Boston mosque, while Mahmood Hamid and Abdul Hannan, also clerics, are under a shadow because of their alleged familial connections with the leader of Jama’at al-Dawa.

Who has come to their defence? Deacon Mike Iwanowicz, of Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church, Rabbi Barry Starr of Temple Israel and the Rev Deborah Cayer of the Unitarian Church of Sharon. They have dismissed the family link as ‘guilt by association’ and defended the Muslim clerics. If the said Islamists are not deported they will owe their residence in the US to these Christians and Jews. Can we too come to the rescue of the Christian church in Pakistan when it is under threat from such laws as Blasphemy? Can some of us realise that it is wrong to burn down the churches — the last one was in Sangla Hill near Lahore — of our Christian citizens? *