Channelling the hopes and fears of Pakistan’s Christians

Christian TV channels give a voice to the minority group, which finds itself the target of extremists - but they are not without their detractors.

Pakistani Christians hold candles as they stage a rally in Lahore. AFP / ARIF ALI

Saleem Iqbal arrives at the house of Ehtesham Obaid, a young medical student from the village of Sahiwal outside of Lahore who has just aced his exams. Obaid seems nervous: for him and his family, being interviewed by Iqbal and his evangelical Christian television channel, Isaac TV, is seen as a great honour for a community that feels increasingly threatened in Pakistan.

“In this school, we have about a thousand medical students and of those, six of us are Christian. As a minority, we face many challenges, but it is my belief that if we are true to our religion and work hard, then we can be successful,” says Obaid who is in his 20s and attends the Services Institute of Medical Sciences (SIMS) in Lahore, one of the largest medical schools in the country.

Iqbal’s show is called “Pride of the Nation” and is funded by the Eternal Life Ministry. Televangelist Christian movements have formed hundreds of churches in the working-class areas of Lahore, where the Christian community is heavily represented. Iqbal’s TV studio is hidden away in Kot Lokhpat, employs about 50 people and tries to provide positive stories at a difficult time. At least 22 Christians and more than 60 were injured in a suicide blast at the popular Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park on Easter Sunday. Seventy-four people died, and Jamaat Ul Ahrar, an offshoot of the Pakistani Taliban with links to ISIL, said it specifically targeted Christians, though many Muslims were also killed. It reinforces how the minority community has become a target for religious extremists.

Iqbal was celebrating Easter Sunday when he started to receive phone calls that an attack had occurred.

“We started to visit all the hospitals, gather our own data and tried to connect the community,” says Iqbal, who didn’t sleep for days afterward.

Last year, Jamaat Ul Ahrar took responsibility for another attack on two churches in Youhanabad, an area of Lahore that is home to 100,000 working-class Christians. In response, mobs took to the streets and lynched two people they suspected of being responsible. Another attack in Lahore in 2013 saw hundreds of Christian homes torched.

Pakistani Christians make up about 1.6 per cent of the country’s population of 180 million and they are the second-largest minority after Hindus. But they are often the country’s poorest, with many working menial jobs. It was the killing of Shahbaz Bhatti, an outspoken Christian minister for minorities and human rights, by the Taliban in 2011 that was a particular setback. Bhatti had managed to mobilise the community under the umbrella organisation, The All Pakistan Minorities Alliance, and called for reform of the country’s blasphemy law. Now, Christians are often the target of radical extremists who claim they are trying to undermine the country and are allies of the West.

The Catholic church has the largest following in Pakistan, followed by denominations such as the Pentecostals. All fund local TV channels.

But their influence is contested and not everyone agrees that these TV channels inculcate a tolerant atmosphere. Asher John, news editor of the English daily Pakistan Today, says the absence of political leadership since the death of Bhatti has created a vacuum. This, he believes, has been filled by evangelical TV channels that often articulate a right-wing viewpoint.

“Channels such as Isaac TV have strong reach and they also target a lot of the female demographic.” He said that the channel belonged to the Pentecostal faith.

Cecil Chaudhry of the National Commission for Justice and Peace, a Catholic human-rights organisation, says that these channels do not influence the national debate. And the shows should do more to get their message out to the Muslim mainstream media.

“The question is: how do we get these stories out to the majority side where there is more recognition and ultimately a respect for all other religions is developed. The true value will come when they can reach a broad audience,” says Chaudhry.

Iqbal is sceptical of such claims, suggesting that the national media is not interested. In a country where minorities are often under stress, he says that it’s unlikely someone like Obaid would ever have been noticed. But through his show, at least his community will have something to rejoice around.

“We want mainstream media to cover our community but no one told his story,” says Iqbal.

“The feedback we have got from such shows is overwhelming. People in the community have something to be proud of because of such children. I tell their stories. I wish the wider media could, too.”

Sher Ali Khan is a journalist based in Lahore.