Hope turns to hell for Pakistani Christians seeking safety in Thailand

Karachi: On April 22, 2009, dozens of armed men attacked a Christian neighbourhood in Taiser Town. Irfan Masih, an 11-year-old child was killed and several other Christians were severely injured in the attack. Their properties were ransacked and damaged.

The attackers also daubed pro-Taliban graffiti on walls in the area. After the attack, the Christian community there lived in fear for months but the authorities did not take any steps for their security.

Finally, some of its residents decide to migrate and after few months of the attack, over 30 families, almost all of them were Pentecostal Christians, left for Thailand.

Iqbal Masih is one of them. He sold his house in Taiser Town for a cheap price and paid Rs0.5 million to an agent through a priest for visas and tickets for him and his family.

Although Iqbal and his family no longer fear for their lives after reaching Thailand, they face other fears - arrest, hunger, unemployment, and the possibility of forced deportation to Pakistan.

“They [Iqbal and family] are now stuck in Thailand,” said Javed Masih, Iqbal’s elder brother who still lives in Taiser Town.

“They have been living in traumatising conditions there and are totally dependent on churches for food and shelter.”

Like Iqbal, thousands of Pakistani Christian refugees fleeing to Thailand have seen their hopes dashed after being forced to live in harsh conditions there.

Although the exact figure is unavailable, Pakistani Christian rights activists estimate over 4,000 Christians from different parts of the country have sought asylum in Thailand. Thirty-five percent of them lived in various Christian populated localities of Karachi including Essa Nagri, Taiser Town, Korangi, Nasir Colony, Akhtar Colony, and Junejo Town.

On July 3, Zahid Farooq, a Karachi-based Christian rights activist, in a Human Rights Commission of Pakistan’s expert group meeting on communities vulnerable because of their beliefs, highlighted the sufferings of the Pakistani Christian refugees in Thailand. “Around 4,000 Pakistan Christians who had fled religious persecution are stuck there for the last two years,” Farooq told The News.

He said the Pakistani government and civil society groups should intervene into the matter and assist the refugees as most of them now want to return to Pakistan.

The recent rise in violent attacks, especially suicide bombings, on Christians in Pakistan have forced many community members mostly belonging to the middle and upper classes to flee the country, Christian leaders said.

One of the reasons why they prefer Thailand is that it is easy to enter the country on a short-term tourist visa.

Michael Javed, a former lawmaker and a non-Muslim rights activist in Karachi, personally knows dozens of families, who after selling their properties for cheap prices and leaving their jobs, moved to Thailand over security concerns.

However, he said, these families were putting up with more miseries there.

“It’s like jumping out of the frying pan into the fire,” Javed added.

There is no refugees’ legislation in Thailand. Asylum seekers are considered illegal aliens under the immigration laws there.

“The agents don’t tell Pakistani Christians that it is not easy to get asylum in Thailand,” said a Federal Investigation Agency official in Karachi.

“After the expiry of their short-term tourist visas, they live without legal status and became vulnerable to the high-handedness of the law enforcement agencies, which regularly arrest them and force them to live in detention centres and jails,” he added.

Many Pakistani Christians, including women, have spent time in immigration detention centres for overstaying and media reports suggest some of them died because of deplorable conditions inside the cells there.

In January, Pervaiz Ghouri Masih, 53, died of a stroke inside a detention cell. In December, Samina Faisal passed away after authorities denied her proper medication for her heart condition, high blood pressure, and shrinking kidney.

It was reported in the daily Bangkok Post in April that over 200 people were kept in a single cell with only one or two toilets.

Thai authorities had also sent some Pakistani Christians to the central prison in Samut Prakan, where they have to wear heavy fetters, which injure their ankles when they try to move.

A February BBC documentary on the Pakistani Christians’ troubles, including secretly obtained video footage of the overcrowded detention centres, also showed the traumatising conditions they were kept in.

Since March 21, Thai authorities have denied several Christian organisations and individuals, who brought daily food and medicines for Pakistani Christians, access to the prisoners.

Javed said the community members were being defrauded by agents. “They were told that it was easier to move to North America and Europe from Thailand,” he added.

“They even had to pay Rs25,000 to officers at local police stations to get fake cases registered to strengthen their cases.”

However, Javed said reports were coming from Thailand that it had stopped Pakistani Christians from arriving there.