Bangladesh PM says anyone who offends Islam will be prosecuted

Sheikh Hasina (Getty)
Bangladesh’s prime minister has pledged that anyone who offends Islam or its prophet will be prosecuted. Sheikh Hasina said the religion of Bangladesh “is Islam. Anyone who pronounces offensive comments against it, or against the Prophet Muhammad, will be prosecuted according to the law,” as reported by Asia News. Her . . . Read More

70 years after Pakistan’s founding, what PM’s recent ousting means for minorities

70th Annual General Assembly Debate
  

Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, Prime Minister of Pakistan, addresses the general debate of the General Assembly’s seventieth session.

30 September 2015

United Nations, New York

Photo # 646792

UN Photo/Cia Pak
Pakistan celebrates its 70th birthday today (14 August). And there’s a new Prime Minister after Nawaz Sharif, founder of the largest political party, was disqualified by the apex court on 29 July on charges of not being “righteous” and “ameen”*. This Supreme Court decision about Sharif “will throw the governing . . . Read More

Pakistan PM premature in saying country will soon be ‘minority-friendly’

Pakistan PM premature in saying country will soon be ‘minority-friendly’
Pakistan’s Prime Minister has said “the day is not far off when Pakistan will internationally be known as a minority-friendly country”. Pakistani Christians hold candles at a rally in Lahore on 29 March, 2016, after a terrorist attack claimed the lives of more than 70 people celebrating Easter. Meanwhile, a . . . Read More

Report: Pakistan school textbooks riddled with religious ‘hate material’

A young girl does her school work in Karachi, Pakistan, in a 2011 photo.UN Photo / John Isaac / Flickr CC   A report by Pakistan’s National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP) says the government has failed to keep its promise to eradicate religious “hate material” from textbooks used . . . Read More

Repeal of Indian law banning ‘extremists’ in government

Catholic leaders in India are calling for a over an that prevents central government employees belonging to specific Hindu and Muslim groups. The faith-based law, dating back to 1966, bans membership of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Jamaat-e-Islami. Membership of , Narendra Modi, was not permitted for employees in central . . . Read More

After ‘Charlie’: latest incident of Pakistani Christians targeted by Muslim anger

Protests over their latest Charlie Hebdo cartoon depiction a weeping Prophet Mohammed holding a sign saying, 'I am Charlie', led to violence in the West African nation of Niger over the weekend January 18, 2015.

World Watch Monitor
The publication of Charlie Hebdo’s ‘memorial edition’, with its depiction of the Prophet Muhammad crying, sparked – in one or two countries – a violent backlash against Westerners in general and Christians in particular. It was notable in Niger, where 70 churches were destroyed, Algeria where police and protestors clashed, . . . Read More

Bail granted for pastors nearly mobbed for sharing their faith in Bangladesh

Bail granted for pastors nearly mobbed for sharing their faith in Bangladesh
Two Bangladeshi pastors have been released on bail today after having been arrested and nearly mobbed by about 200 Muslims who gathered to attack a Christian meeting they were leading in northern Bangladesh. Around noon on Nov 9, in a village in the northern district of Lalmonirhat, locals were outraged . . . Read More

Bangladesh — Islamist protest leaders arrested in wake of Dhaka siege

Bangladesh — Islamist protest leaders arrested in wake of Dhaka siege
Cattle market in Dhaka, pictured in 2008.W Jackson for World Watch Monitor   Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh on May 17 alleged that the opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), was responsible for a conspiracy to topple the government from power, using recent violent protests which have rocked . . . Read More

Bangladesh PM rejects Muslim demand for blasphemy law

Bangladesh PM rejects Muslim demand for blasphemy law
The Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has turned down the demand of radical Islamists to enact a blasphemy law to punish those who desecrate Islam and its prophet Muhammad. One hundred thousand activists belonging to Hefazat-e-Islam, an umbrella Islamic organization, had earlier rallied on 6th April in the capital Dhaka . . . Read More