Pakistan

A court in Bahawalpur, Pakistan on Tuesday (May 30) handed the death penalty to a 22-year-old Christian on an unsubstantiated conviction under the country’s blasphemy laws, sources said.

A Christian housecleaner in Pakistan was beaten and illegally confined for a week by her Muslim employers after she tried to leave her job due to pregnancy, she said.

Babar Sandhu Masih was resting after lunch on Thursday afternoon (May 18) when he heard a commotion outside his house in the Qurban Lines neighborhood of Lahore, Pakistan.

A court in Pakistan on Saturday (May 13) released on bail a Christian woman charged under a blasphemy statute that calls for life in prison, her attorney said.

A Christian widow and a Muslim gardener were arrested in Pakistan this month on blasphemy charges after they were accused of intentionally burning papers containing koranic verses, attorneys said.

A Catholic who spent more than three years in jail on a baseless blasphemy charge had to pay an exorbitant amount of bail for release this month, just one example of gross injustices against him and other Christians, his attorney said.

Arif Gill said he lost hope of finding his 15-year-old daughter – abducted by a 60-year-old Muslim who forcibly married her and converted her to Islam – until police in Pakistan finally registered a case after nearly two months.

A Muslim landowner in Pakistan on Monday (Feb. 6) beat a Catholic farm laborer to death, claiming he had stolen oranges from his orchard, the victim’s family said.

A Muslim in Karachi, Pakistan, on Wednesday (February 1) threw acid on a 19-year-old Christian woman for refusing his pressure to enter into a relationship and convert to Islam, sources said.

At least 59 people were killed and some 170 were injured when a suicide bomber detonated a bomb inside a crowded mosque in Peshawar, Pakistan, on Monday. Twenty-seven police officers were among those killed.