The Catholic martyr of Islamic ultra-fundamentalist terrorism is honored by the city of Brampton. His process of canonization continues.
by Marco Respinti
To honor the legacy of Clement Shahbaz Bhatti (1968–2011) the city of Brampton, in Canada, has inaugurated a public park in his name. This is the second international recognition after the first street in the world was entitled to him on May 19, 2012, in Foggia, Italy. This happened while USCIRF, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, was releasing a detailed report on religious liberty in Pakistan.
As the report documents, the situation is going from bad to worse. One of the most critical aspects is what is commonly called the “law against blasphemy.” In fact, blasphemy is sanctioned by several sections of the Pakistan’s Penal Code. We can regard blasphemy as an uncivilized attitude, which offends the sentiment of religious communities and is not protected as free speech. Public blasphemy may be in itself a violation of religious liberty. However, the norms against blasphemy included in the Pakistani Penal Code are a different matter. Blasphemy is punished with the death penalty, and the statutes make it extremely easy to fabricate false charges supported only by a handful of biased witnesses.
The case of Clement Shahbaz Bhatti is exemplary. He joined the Pakistan People’s Party in 2002 and was first elected to the country’s National Assembly in 2008. Bhatti was a Catholic, and the Pakistani Constitution reserves a small number of seats in the national and some provincial assemblies to religious minorities. In November 2008, he was appointed the first Federal Minister for Minorities, the only Christian minister in the cabinet.
Bhatti was assassinated on March 2, 2011, by Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, a Pakistani terrorist ultra-fundamentalist Islamic group ideologically close to the Afghan Taliban and allied with them. The minister was falsely accused of having offended Prophet Muhammad because of his campaign against Pakistan’s laws on blasphemy. He advocated for justice for religious minorities and had spoken in favor of Aasiyah Naurīn Bibi, better known as Asia Bibi. Born in 1971, a Catholic and the mother of five, she had similarly been falsely accused of blasphemy, sentenced to death by hanging in November 2000, detained in a dark isolation cell, beaten and raped, and finally released in October 2018. She now lives in Canada with her family.
Bhatti soon raised to the status of a symbol. Many Christians regard him as the patron saint of religious liberty. “Soon after his death, a large community of different people, Christians, Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs, asked for his recognition,” Mobeen Shahid tells Bitter Winter. He teaches Philosophy at the Pontifical Urban University in Rome and is the founder of the Association of Pakistani Christians in Italy. A relatively large number of Pakistani Christians live in fact in Italy. The Italian diaspora has often taken the lead in advocating for religious liberty in Pakistan and involving the international institutions.
“The reactions to Bhatti’s assassination brought and bring together many people of different faiths,” Mobeen continues. “This is a clear public recognition for the mission the late Bhatti dedicated his whole life to, and even sacrificed it for.” Christians “immediately asked the church to list Bhatti’s name among the martyrs. Monsignor Joseph Arshad, Archbishop of Islamabad-Rawalpindi went one step further. In March 2016, he opened the process for his beatification and as a consequence Bhatti enjoys the title of ‘Servant of God.’ Fr. David John, who studied Canon Law, was appointed as the postulator by Msgr. Arshad,” Mobeen reports.
What Bhatti worked for, Mobeen insists, “was creating room for mutual respect among Pakistani citizens, acknowledging the equal dignity of everyone. Remembering him means defending human rights, calling for the respect of the Pakistani Constitution and the international treaties Pakistan signed.”
A homonymous Shahbaz Bhatti, the founder and chairman of Voice of the Voiceless International, an NGO registered in Italy (which confirms the importance of the Pakistani Christian diaspora in this country), told Bitter Winter that “the martyr Bhatti strongly believed in the vision of Muhammad Ali Jinnah [1876–1948], who wanted to ensure an enlightened and moderate Pakistan where every citizen could enjoy equal rights, opportunities and complete religious freedom.”
He recalls “a speech Bhatti gave in October 2009 at the annual conference of Christian Solidarity Worldwide in London. He summed up his life’s vocation in these words: ‘I live for religious freedom, and I am ready to die for this cause.’ He was devoted to many causes in pursuit of making Pakistan and the world a better place. He had dedicated his life to standing up and speaking out for marginalized and vulnerable minorities in Pakistan, and his legacy is still felt today. That’s why the Canadian authorities recognized Shahbaz Bhatti by naming a park after him, as a first step in fulfilling the legacy of his fight for religious freedom. As people in Canada become more aware of Bhatti’s sacrifice and legacy, they will be inspired to voice their support for religious freedom everywhere. His assassination was not just a loss to his family, to the Christian community, and to religious minorities, but to the whole Pakistani nation, which has been deprived of a cultivated, visionary and gifted leader, a modern-day martyr and a hero of the faith.”
Shahbaz Bhatti the martyr died but lives on. It should not be forgotten that Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer (1944–2011) was assassinated for similar reasons. He had also publicly supported Asia Bibi, and was similarly slaughtered on January 4, 2011, at Kohsar Market of Islamabad by Malik Mumtaz Hussein Qadri, a 26-year-old member of his security team. Unlike Bhatti, Taseer was a Muslim.