Pakistan

Sixty-eight lawyers in Punjab have all been charged with blasphemy after participating in a series of protests against a senior Pakistani police official, according to International Christian Concern.

Every year in Pakistan, an estimated 1,000 girls and young women are kidnapped, forced to convert to Islam and then married to Muslim men, according to Barnabas Aid.

Rights groups have decried the death sentence handed down to one Christian man after more than 100 Muslims who destroyed his neighborhood were freed on bail.

A Pakistani Christian under a death sentence for blasphemy was released Friday on appeal by the Lahore High Court.

Unidentified gunmen shot and killed a policeman guarding a Peshawar Pentecostal church Tuesday, according to the Pakistan Christian Post.

The president of the Pakistan Christian Congress expressed concerns about the delays in processing hundreds of Pakistani Christian refugees in Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Thailand and Hong Kong who have been waiting years for decisions on their asylum applications while living under deplorable conditions, according to the Pakistan Christian Post.

The president of Pakistan’s Christian Congress said Christians don’t have equal rights despite claims to the contrary made by Pakistan’s prime minister before the UN General Assembly Friday, according to the Pakistan Christian Post.

As the Prime Minister of Pakistan was addressing the UN General Assembly Friday, more than one hundred Pakistani Christians at the UN Plaza were protesting the bombing of All Saints Anglican Church by Islamic extremists, according to the Pakistan Christian Post.

Coming on the heels of a murderous attack by militant Islamists on an upscale mall in Nairobi, Kenya, a pair of suicide bombers blew themselves up outside the entrance of an historic Anglican church nestled within the walled city of Peshawar, Pakistan on Sunday, January 22, just as services were ending, killing 78 Christians and wounding more than 100 others.

Protesters carried banners stating: “Pakistan is a Living Hell for Hindus, Sikhs and Christians” near the Pakistan Consulate in New York City Wednesday in support of all the victims of religious bigotry, hate and intolerance in that notorious Islamic nation.

Last week in Faisalabad, Christian and Muslim activists laid down guidelines for the creation of a new interfaith network to curb any abuses arising from Pakistan’s notorious blasphemy laws, according to AsiaNews.

Suspected Islamic militants attacked a Pentecostal church in northwestern Pakistan killing a security guard and shooting at the building before leaving the scene, local officials and Christians told Worthy News.

A Christian mother of five who was sentenced to death for blasphemy was suddenly moved from Sheikhupura District Jail to Multan Jail last month without any prior notice from Punjab prison authorities, according to the Pakistan Christian Post.

The chief lawyer defending Christian women who were reportedly sexually abused by activists of Pakistan’s ruling party said Monday, June 24, that Muslim militants have threatened to kill him if he and his legal team continue with this case or others, including attacks on a Christian neighborhood and rape.