Fifteen Year-Old Christian Boy Murdered in Pakistan

Pakistani Christians attend mass in Lahore, January 1, 2014
A fifteen-year-old Christian has just been killed by his classmates in their schoolroom. His crime? Refusing to convert to Islam.
In Pakistan, Islam is the official State religion and over 97% of the population adheres to it, while Catholics represent less than 1% of the population. It isn’t safe to be a Christian in this Muslim land: openly wearing a cross or owning a Bible is enough to trigger reprisals often encouraged by the civil authorities.
Christians in this country are persecuted by Islamic organizations, by crowds that fall upon them with unchecked violence, and by the growing Islamization of Pakistani society which isolates them and excludes them from the rest of the population.
A Death at the Hand of Classmates
What happened on August 30, 2017 speaks volumes. Sharon Masih, a 15-year-old Christian living in the village of Chak-461, to the south of Faisalabad, was taken aside by his classmates, who asked him to deny Christ and convert to Islam, and when he refused, they began to beat him and kick him. The young man finally fell to the ground unconscious.
His death was confirmed at the hospital of Burewala, where he was taken, reports Fides, the Vatican missionary press agency. The first elements reported by the investigation reveal that this was not the first time the teenager had suffered moral and physical bullying for his faith. The murder was committed on the premises of the school, and the perpetrators have been charged with homicide.
“The violence begins in the classroom, where the textbooks used starting in elementary school instill hatred and intolerance towards non-Muslims in the hearts of the students,” Anjum James Paul, president of the Pakistan Minorities Teachers’ Association, declared to Fides.
The professor also explained:
... on one hand, the textbooks used in public schools promote Islam, Muslims, and Islamic culture and civilization, and on the other, they do not hesitate to promote contempt and hatred for non-Muslim religions, non-Muslims, and non-Muslim cultures and civilizations. This has obvious negative consequences on the minds of children and young people; it encourages violence and destroys peaceful coexistence.
Sources: fides/ cath.ch / FSSPX.News – 9/9/2017