The Los Angeles Times is reporting that gunmen killed Pakistan’s only Christian cabinet member Wednesday in a hail of bullets outside his house in Islamabad.
“The assassination of Shahbaz Bhatti, the country’s minority affairs minister, underscored the reach of extremism in a Muslim, nuclear-armed country founded on the principles of minority inclusion, as well as the government’s inability to protect its minorities,” the Times reports.
An Islamic Republic, Pakistan is #11 on the Open Doors World Watch List—and this is not the first government assassination in 2011.
In January, Compass Direct reported the murder of Punjab Province Governor Salman Taseer in broad daylight. Taseer was the most vocal supporter for Asia Noreen, the first Christian woman sentenced to death in Pakistan on blasphemy charges. Islamist forces condemned Taseer for supporting Noreen before murdering him.
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