Secularism does little to protect us from Islamic extremism

You might expect that the murder of Christians would excite particular horror in countries of Christian heritage. Yet almost the opposite seems to be true. Even amid the current slew of Islamist barbarities, the killing of 72 people, 29 of them children, on Easter Day in Lahore, stands out. So does the assault in Yemen in which nuns were murdered and a priest was kidnapped and then, apparently, crucified on Good Friday. But the coverage tends to downplay such stories — there has been much less about Lahore than Brussels, though more than twice as many died — or at least their religious element.

The BBC correspondent in Lahore, Shazheb Jillani, was at pains to emphasise that the victims were not solely Christians but ‘simply Pakistani citizens enjoying a day out in the park with their children’, as if that made it worse.