Tag: Punjab

Pakistani, 17, targeted by teacher and students, dies after beating on second day of high school

September 12, 2017 Pakistan Burewala, Caste, Gujranwala, Gujrat, Islamic extremism, Mardan, Pakistan, Punjab, Sharoon Masih, Vehari

The mother of a 17-year-old Christian beaten to death in his classroom, on his second day in high school, has told the police that her son was “hated because of his religion”. Sharoon Masih was on only his second day at MC Model High School in Vehari, Punjab when it . . . Read More

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

August 14, 2017 Pakistan Blasphemy, Divorce, Imran Khan, India, Islamic extremism, Jamaat-e-Islami, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, Mumtaz Qadri, Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan, Pakistan Muslim League, Pakistan Peoples Party, PTI, Punjab, Salmaan Taseer, Sindh, Taliban

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

Pakistani Christian’s mother says son killed for asking for an end to his slavery

July 27, 2017 Pakistan Bonded labourers, Faisalabad, Pakistan, Punjab, Sheikhupura

The mother of a Pakistani Christian found dead last week says her son, who was 32, had to be on call 24 hours a day to serve local landlords (to reduce a big loan to his family) and was killed for expressing a desire to escape his “debt trap”. On . . . Read More

Murdered pastor was told: stop preaching or we’ll kill you

July 21, 2017 India India, Ludhiana, Punjab

The son of a church leader shot dead in north-western India on Saturday (15 July) has revealed that his father had received threats that if he continued to preach, he would be killed. Alisha Masih, 22, who is also training to be a pastor, said his father, Sultan, who was . . . Read More

Pakistani Christian boy, 16, charged with blasphemy for discussing his faith

July 19, 2017 Pakistan Asia Bibi, Barelvi, Blasphemy, Gujrat, Lahore, Mardan, Pakistan, Punjab

A 16-year-old Pakistani Christian boy has been charged with blasphemy for talking with a colleague about his belief in Jesus, the second such incident in a month. Shahzad Masih, 16, a cleaner at a hospital in the city of Dinga (near the religiously conservative city of Gujrat), was arrested on . . . Read More

India: Christians in shock after pastor shot dead in ‘safe’ Punjab

July 17, 2017 India India, Ludhiana, Pentecostals, Punjab

The Christian community in Ludhiana, the largest city in India’s north-western state of Punjab, is in shock after a pastor was shot dead outside his Pentecostal church on Saturday evening (15 July). Sultan Masih, 47, who also ran a school for the poor, was gunned down by two people on . . . Read More

Divorce law for Pakistani Christians ‘modernised’

June 30, 2017 Pakistan Divorce, Imran Khan, Lahore, Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, PTI, Punjab

Pakistan’s High Court in Lahore has struck out an amendment in its Christian Divorce Act (1869), meaning Christians will now be able to divorce in a dignified way, without needing to resort to false accusations of adultery. Pakistan’s existing family laws – which are applicable to Christians only – are close . . . Read More

Archbishop of Canterbury: ‘Conservative attitudes can be passport for misogyny’

June 8, 2017 Global News -- No Particular Country Belgium, Boko Haram, Copts, Egypt, Islamic extremism, Justin Welby, Kidnapping, Nigeria, Pakistan, Punjab, Religious freedom, Trauma, Women

Women are often subject to discrimination and rejection due to social, legal and cultural norms, especially in patriarchal societies. (Photo: Open Doors International)

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has said that sometimes “[religiously] conservative attitudes are a passport for misogyny, while at other times they are simply inherited attitudes”. His comment came two days after a consultation about Christian women under pressure for their faith, where speakers noted that women living in highly . . . Read More

Prosecutor in Youhanabad lynching case found guilty of trying to convert 42 Christians

May 31, 2017 Pakistan Lahore, Punjab, Youhanabad

Location where a mob burnt alive two men in angry reaction to twin church suicide bomb attacks in Youhanabad, March 2015. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)

The Pakistani prosecutor who allegedly offered to release Christians in the Youhanabad lynching trial if they converted to Islam has been found guilty of proselytising, reports Dawn. Syed Anees Shah, the deputy district public prosecutor (DDPP), was suspended when the allegation came to light during a hearing in March 2017, . . . Read More

Pakistan: 3 months in prison for eating, drinking in public during Ramadan, $250 for providing food

May 26, 2017 Pakistan Gujrat, Islamic extremism, Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, Punjab, Ramadan, Sindh

As the Muslim holy month of Ramadan begins, religious minorities in Muslim-majority countries such as Pakistan have to be more careful about eating and drinking in public in the scorching heat: on the one hand, it can cost them physical public ire and physical violence; and on the other, in . . . Read More

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