Pakistani bishops have called again for an end to discrimination in aid to the non-Muslim victims of recent flooding. A spokesman for the bishops' Commission for Justice and Peace said, "The discrimination in aid distribution is still taking place.... It’s time the government officially admitted it, speaking out with clear words of condemnation and implementing a strategy to avoid it."
A missionary priest, Fr. Robert McCulloch, told Fides "We continue to see and receive news on discrimination in the management of humanitarian aid, at the expense of Hindus and Christians from lower social classes. The poor are in rural areas, people have generally looked down upon, which today are not even considered worthy of concern."
But the most startling part of the Fides report is the testimony of two Pakistani Muslim intellectuals.
According to Junaid Khanzada, former president of the Press Association in Hyderabad, "Some government officials and Islamic fundamentalist organizations deliberately ignore the needs of the tribal Sindh. They are Christians and Hindus of the lower social classes; in Pakistan, they are classified as belonging to 'scheduled castes', in India called 'dalit'.... In many cases religion, rather than the actual needs, has become the criterion for giving aid."
Another resident of Hyderabad, Ishaq Pangrati, a member of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, told Fides "I am shocked and alarmed by the discrimination in the distribution of food to refugees, which I have seen with my own eyes in the Jati area, strongly affected by the floods."
Click here to read the bishops' statement, and keep it in mind when you're thinking about donating. Any organization that gives aid to or through the Pakistani government is disregarding strong evidence that donations are being diverted to corrupt government officials, with whatever's left at the bottom of the trough being used only to help Muslims.
Is this what you really want to happen to your charitable contributions? Give only through the Church or Christian charities.
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