Tag: Pakistan

‘Pakistan’s Mother Theresa’ honoured with state funeral

August 18, 2017 Pakistan Catholics, Karachi, Pakistan, Sindh

For the first time in the recent history of Pakistan, a Christian, who is actually a German but adopted Pakistan has her homeland, is being honoured with a state funeral. Dr Ruth Pfau, who was 87, died on 10 August. Pakistan’s new Prime Minister, Shahid Abbasi, announced the state funeral . . . Read More

IS guilty of genocide, says US Secretary of State

August 17, 2017 Global News -- No Particular Country Afghanistan, Al-Shabaab, Andrew Brunson, Blasphemy, Donald Trump, Genocide, Iran, Iraq, Islamic extremism, Islamic State, Lord Alton, NATO, Pakistan, Qatar, Rex Tillerson, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Taliban, Turkey, USA, Wahhabism, Yemen

The US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has stressed that the actions of the Islamic State (IS) group against Christians, Yazidis and Shia Muslims constitute genocide, and also criticised America’s ally, Saudi Arabia, for religious freedom violations. Tillerson made his “genocide” comments in the preface to the State Department’s annual . . . Read More

Blasphemy laws violate human rights in 1/3 nations – USCIRF

August 15, 2017 Global News -- No Particular Country Blasphemy, Gojra, Iran, Joseph Colony, Lahore, Pakistan, Qatar, Somalia, Yemen

Over a third of the world’s countries have blasphemy laws that violate at least one internationally recognised human rights principle, according to a new report by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). Most blasphemy laws are “embedded in criminal codes” and are “vaguely worded”, with “unduly harsh penalties . . . 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

Indian bishop: Hindu nationalists fear ‘another 1947’

August 10, 2017 India BJP, Dharm Jagran Samiti, Hindu nationalism, India, Pakistan

Church in central India destroyed by Hindu extremists (2015). They fear that if Christians grow in number and influence, there will be another Pakistan. (Photo: Open Doors International)

It is concern for the unity and integrity of India and the overwhelming fear of another split like the 1947 partition of Pakistan and India that drives the agenda of the Hindu nationalist movement in India, says Bishop Joseph D’Souza. The bishop, founding president of the ecumenical All India Christian . . . 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

‘Risk of genocide’ linked with level of religious freedom

July 25, 2017 Global News -- No Particular Country Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Genocide, Houthis, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, UN, Yemen

The civil war in Yemen has displaced over 3 million people like this woman who is sitting under a makeshift shelter at a camp for internally displaced persons in the northern district of Abs in Yemen's Hajjah province, on July 23, 2017 (Photo: STRINGER/AFP/Getty Images)

Yemen is the country where the risk of genocide, or mass killing, rose most last year, says Minority Rights Group International (MRG) in its 2017 Peoples Under Threat index, which also includes a large number of countries in which it is most difficult to live as a Christian. Nine of . . . Read More

Secret ministry of Chinese missionaries in northern Iraq

July 19, 2017 Balochistan, China, Iraq, Islamic State, Lee Zingyang, Meng Lisi, Missionaries, Pakistan, Quetta

Cross on Dongguang Church against factory name. Shenyang, northeastern China. Shenyang is the capital and largest city of China’s northeast Liaoning Province. It was the site of the 17th-century Manchu capital Mukden, and the imposing Mukden Palace (Shenyang Imperial Palace) is a blend of Manchurian and Tibetan architectural styles. Mausoleums of Qing dynasty emperors can be found at Zhaoling Tomb, amid the pine forests and lakes of Beiling Park, and at Fuling Tomb in the city’s east. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)

A Christian from China’s underground Church says he feels safer working as a missionary in northern Iraq than he does at home. Such a perspective might seem somewhat surprising: but it says more about returning stability to parts of northern Iraq than it does about possible dangers in China. The South . . . 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

‘Change your image of India from a nice backpacking trip to Taj Mahal!’

June 26, 2017 Bhopal, BJP, Donald Trump, Europe, Hindu nationalism, India, Madhya Pradesh, Narendra Modi, Pakistan, Ram Nath Kovind, Saudi Arabia

India, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan top the list of countries where religious freedom is under pressure, according to the Annual Interim Report 2017 of the European Parliament Intergroup on Freedom of Religion or Belief and Religious Tolerance’s, presented in Brussels last week. “Forget the image of a nice backpacking trip . . . Read More

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