Snipers to be deployed at churches for Christmas

The bulk of Pakistan's tiny Christian community live in and around Lahore, where police say there are 433 churches.

LAHORE: Snipers and hundreds of extra police will be deployed at churches this Christmas to prevent possible attacks on the persecuted Christian minority, police said Wednesday.

The bulk of Pakistan's tiny Christian community live in and around Lahore, where police said there were 433 churches.

"We will deploy 2,500 policemen, including sharp shooters, to provide security to them at Christmas," Nayab Haider, a police spokesman, told AFP.

Lahore has suffered a series of attacks blamed on Taliban and al Qaeda-linked militants, part of a nationwide campaign of violence that has killed more than 4,700 people since July 2007.

"We have placed 38 churches in category A, which are most sensitive, and among them, 20 are even more sensitive as we expect foreigners to visit these churches on Christmas Eve," Haider said.

Traffic would be banned outside these churches, and each one assigned seven policemen and a sniper, he added.

"Police will also install walk-through gates at the entrance of all churches to be manned by security staff," Haider said.

He denied there was any specific threat to Christians at Christmas but said precautions were being taken on a "general threat perception".

Only three percent of Pakistan's 174 million people are estimated to be non-Muslim. The Vatican has said Pakistani Christians are often victims of violence and discrimination.

On Tuesday, the Masihi Foundation, a human rights group, warned that a Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy last year is in a "very frail" physical and mental state.

Aasia Bibi, 46, was sentenced to death in November 2010 after drinking water from a well reserved for Muslims and allegedly making derogatory remarks about the Prophet Mohammed (pbuh). Her appeal at the High Court in Lahore is ongoing.

Pope Benedict XVI and the international community have condemned her conviction and have asked for her to be pardoned.