Pak Christians flee to Thailand, still persecuted

Many Pakistani Christians have fled religious persecution in their own country. They are seeking asylum in Thailand, but persecution continues there also. Thailand, a country known for its hospitality to tourists, routinely arrests and detains asylum seekers. Some of the Christians are children. And they are held despite being UN-registered asylum seekers, whom the UN is under a duty to protect. On Sunday, the sound of the faithful in prayer and song bursts out of a small rented room where a congregation of more than 100 people have gathered for the mass. They would be risking their lives to worship like this in their homeland, where Islamist extremists force Christians to convert, or even kill them. Leading the prayers is Pastor Joshua, a Christian from Lahore, in what is officially known as the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Along with thousands of other Christians, he's had to flee to Thailand and still fears the people in Pakistan who punished him for converting from Islam to Christianity. "My bone was broken - the one right above the heart. And they tried to cut my arm off," he says. "My sister was murdered, she was burned alive, just because she spoke the word 'God'. They hate the word 'God' so much. She was burned for this reason alone." The Pakistani Christians head to Thailand because it's easy to enter the country on a short-term tourist visa and in Pakistan's hostile neighbourhood there are few safe options closer to hand. But there is hardly a welcome in Thailand. The country doesn't want asylum seekers from anywhere. It is not a signatory to the United Nations Refugee Convention, and anyone without a valid visa or a work permit risks being arrested, charged with illegal immigration and jailed.