Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered”. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Romans 8:35-37
Aslam Masih (2011)
Injustice and Illness
Aslam Masih, a young Christian man, was falsely accused of blasphemy by two Islamists in Pakistan. The pair registered a case against him under section 295-B of the Pakistan Penal Code, which carries a sentence of life imprisonment for desecration of the Quran. Despite there being no witnesses, Aslam was arrested in February 2010, the police having been pressured by the two accusers.
Aslam’s mental as well as his physical health deteriorated while he was in prison. He and others accused of blasphemy were kept in solitary confinement without access to a toilet, water or electricity. Aslam was also denied basic products such as soap, toothpaste and clean clothes. He had lost contact with his family, who did not visit him during his time in prison.
Aslam became very unwell, suffering from various diseases including tuberculosis and dengue fever, and failed to receive proper medical care in the jail hospital. The prison authorities initially refused to allow Aslam to go to an outside hospital for proper treatment for security reasons. He was eventually admitted to hospital in Lahore, but it was too late and he died on 9 September 2011, aged 30. A post-mortem found the cause of death to be dengue fever, which can be treated in Pakistan.
A number of Christians have lost their lives as either a direct or indirect result of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, which are often used against them. Some, like Aslam, have died in prison while others are killed by Muslim vigilantes.
Receive every inward and outward trouble, every disappointment, pain, uneasiness, temptation, darkness, and desolation, with both thy hands, as a true opportunity and blessed occasion of dying to self, and entering into a fuller fellowship with the self-denying, suffering Saviour. Look at no inward or outward trouble in any other view; reject every other thought about it; and then every kind of trial and distress will become the blessed day of thy prosperity. That state is best, which exerciseth the highest faith in, and the fullest resignation to God.
William Law (1686-1761)