Pakistan

Authorities in Pakistan beat and arrested a Christian on Tuesday (March 16) for allegedly making blasphemous comments on social media and later tortured him into confessing guilt, sources said.

A Church of Pakistan lay pastor was gunned down and a priest wounded by unknown assailants as the leaders drove home from a worship service on Sunday (Jan. 30) in the northwestern Pakistan city of Peshawar, sources said.

The abduction and forced conversion of Christian girls in Pakistan continued with impunity as another minor was separated from her parents the first week of the year, sources said.

A judge changed a Christian’s life prison term under Pakistan’s blasphemy laws into the death sentence last week, while the Pakistan Supreme Court granted historic bail to another Christian held on similar charges, sources said.

A court in Pakistan on Wednesday (Dec. 22) handed custody of a 14-year-old girl back to her Christian parents after she testified that she wished to return to them from a shelter home, sources said.

A Christian in Pakistan incarcerated for nearly 10 years on a false blasphemy conviction was released from prison on Nov. 13 after a high court acquitted him, but quietly to avoid Islamist outrage, his attorney said.

In an unprecedented court decision in Pakistan kept secret for two months to avoid Islamist backlash, a trial court judge granted bail to two Christian nurses charged with “defiling the Koran,” their attorney said.

Police in Pakistan have found a 14-year-old Christian girl who was allegedly kidnapped and forced to marry and convert to Islam, but a court on Thursday rejected her family’s attempt to recover her, ruling that Islam gives mental capacity more importance than age in such cases.

A preacher in Pakistan has been jailed and her family is in hiding after she was charged with insulting Islam and its prophet.

According to sources, on Monday, radical Muslims dawning high-powered weapons in an area of Lahore, Pakistan, opened fire at the homes of Christians, wounding a pregnant woman and at least three other people.