Tag: Pakistan

Pakistan’s first female Christian footballer

March 31, 2015 Pakistan Balochistan, Caste, Football, Karachi, Minorities, Pakistan, Women

Al Jazeera reports on the growing popularity of a young woman from Karachi who, as Pakistan’s first Christian women to play football for her country, is emerging as a voice against religious intolerance. Joyann Geraldine Thomas made her international debut in November 2014 at the age of 17, but the match barely . . . Read More

Asia Bibi made honorary Paris citizen

March 20, 2015 Pakistan Asia Bibi, Blasphemy, Pakistan, Prophet Muhammad, Women

Asia Bibi, the first Christian woman to be sentenced to death under Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, has been awarded an honorary citizenship of Paris by the city’s mayor, Anne Hidalgo. The mayor’s statement said receiving the award is a “rare distinction granted to the world’s most emblematic defenders of human rights. . . . Read More

100s attend funerals of Pakistan Christians

March 17, 2015 Pakistan Lahore, Pakistan, Taliban

Tight security surrounded the funerals in Lahore on Tuesday of Pakistan Christians killed by two Taliban suicide bomb attacks. Hundreds of Christians had to submit to security checks as they attended the funerals in Lahore’s biggest Christian neighbourhood. The bomb attacks on Sunday left 17 dead and more than 80 . . . Read More

Mass arrest of Thailand’s Christian asylum seekers

March 13, 2015 Asylum seekers, Bangkok, Children, Islamic extremism, Pakistan, Refugees, Southeast Asia, Thailand, UN

Thailand’s internal political pressures on its Bangkok UNHCR office has resulted in the arrest of at least 50 Pakistani Christian asylum seekers, a church leader there told World Watch Monitor. On March 7, the Chief of Pakistan’s Christian Congress wrote to the Thai Prime Minister, about arrests of those registered . . . Read More

Charges relaxed for murderer of Asia Bibi defender

March 9, 2015 Pakistan Asia Bibi, Blasphemy, Mumtaz Qadri, Pakistan, Prophet Muhammad, Salmaan Taseer, Women

When Mumtaz Qadri confessed to the 2011 murder of Pakistani politician Salman Taseer, he said he did it because the Punjab governor had supported a Christian woman, Aasiya Noreen (also known as Asia Bibi), facing the death penalty for blasphemy. Qadri, who was Taseer’s bodyguard, was himself sentenced to death, . . . Read More

Fixing Pakistan’s ‘broken’ blasphemy laws

March 8, 2015 Pakistan Asia Bibi, Blasphemy, Minorities, Pakistan, Pakistan Ulema Council, Rimsha Masih

Al-Jazeera at Pakistan’s volatile religious politics through the eyes of two Muslims trying to reform the country’s notorious anti-blasphemy laws. Attorney Saif-ul-Malook, for whom Aasiya Noreen (also known as Asia Bibi) is the latest of several clients he has defended against charges of offending Islam, lives in daily fear of an . . . Read More

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

February 21, 2015 Pakistan Charlie Hebdo, Jamaat-e-Islami, Karachi, Kasur, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Lahore, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Madrassas, Mardan, Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, Multan, Pakistan, Pashtun, Peshawar, Prophet Muhammad, Punjab, Rawalpindi, Sialkot, Taliban

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

Life in Islamabad’s Christian slum

February 11, 2015 Pakistan Blasphemy, Children, Education, Islamabad, Pakistan

A makeshift ‘tent city’ on the outskirts of Islamabad, which has become home to Christians who’ve left Pakistan’s capital city in fear after strings of blasphemy allegations and killings, is the subject of a new photo essay by the Associated Press. Christians are shown living in simple cement-block homes or . . . Read More

Launch of new commission to address persecution

February 4, 2015 Global News -- No Particular Country Asia Bibi, London, Pakistan, Religious freedom

Asia Bibi’s case was just one of those highlighted by today’s launch in London of the Religious Liberty Commission to address the persecution of Christians around the world. The commission, which is made up of Open Doors, Release International, Christian Solidarity Worldwide and the Evangelical Alliance will allow those working on . . . Read More

Threatened Asia Bibi family make fresh appeal

February 4, 2015 Pakistan Asia Bibi, Blasphemy, Pakistan

The husband of Asia Bibi, the Pakistani Christian woman on death row for nearly five years for blasphemy, has spoken about how the family’s lives are under constant threat. The law has “destroyed our lives”, Ashiq Masih told the BBC. “We get death threats. We can’t stay in one place . . . Read More

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