Vatican City: The Vatican condemned as 'unspeakable' the murder on Wednesday of a Catholic Pakistani government minister opposed to an Islamic blasphemy law, and called for an end to the persecution of Christians.
The attack was a 'new act of violence of a terrible gravity', said papal spokesman Federico Lombardi after minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti was shot dead in broad daylight in a residential area of Islamabad.
"To our prayers for the victim, our condemnation of the act of unspeakable violence, our closeness to the Pakistani Christians subject to hate, we add an appeal concerning the dramatic urgency of the defence of religious freedom and of Christians who are suffering from violence and persecution," he added.
In comments to reporters, Lombardi also stressed the need to defend religious freedom and end persecution of Christians in Pakistan.
Bhatti, a member of Pakistan's tiny Christian community, had been a vocal opponent of the country's blasphemy law despite receiving death threats following the murder of another politician opposed to the law.
He headed the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance and was also chairman of the Christian Liberation Front. Only around three per cent of Pakistan's population of 167 million are estimated to be non-Muslim.
On January 4, the liberal governor of Punjab province, Salman Taseer, a senior figure in the main ruling Pakistan People's Party, was shot dead by one of his own police bodyguards outside an Islamabad coffee shop.
Lombardi stressed that Bhatti had been the 'first Catholic to occupy the post of religious minorities minister'.
Bhatti met Pope Benedict XVI in September and 'gave testimony of his efforts to have religious communities in his country live together peacefully'.
The 42-year-old politician was gunned down in broad daylight, police said.
His attackers sprayed at least 25 bullets at his car after he came out of his mother's home.
Islamabad police chief Wajid Durrani told reporters the minister had been provided with proper security, but his security detail was not with him when the attack happened.
Pakistan's law against blaspheming Islam carries the death penalty.
While no one has ever been sent to the gallows for the crime, activists say the law is used to exploit others from personal enmity or because of business disputes.
Religious groups held protests in several Pakistani cities after Punjab governor Taseer had vowed to amend the law.
Calling Taseer's killing a 'tragic assassination' Benedict XVI had urged Pakistani authorities to repeal the blasphemy law, underlining that it left the door open to injustice and violence against religious minorities.
Controversy over the legislation flared after a Christian mother of five, Aasia Bibi, was sentenced to hang last year for having allegedly made derogatory remarks about the Prophet Mohammed.
Politicians and conservative clerics have been at loggerheads over whether Bibi should be pardoned. But following Taseer's death, the government has made it clear it does not support reform of the blasphemy law.