Pakistan

LAHORE, Pakistan – In an attempted land-grab in southern Punjab Province, police and cohorts of a retired military official beat two Christian women and shot at Christians who came to help them on Friday (Nov. 25), area Christians told Compass.

About eight police officials led by Sub-Inspector Muhammad Arif of Kot Sarwar Shaheed police station, along with armed associates of a retired senior military officer, Air Marshal Maqbool Shah, arrived at the fields of Nazeer Masih in the Kot Addu area and ordered the six or seven women working there to leave, said area Christian rights advocate Waseem Shakir. The women included Nazeer’s wife, Martha Bibi, and daughter-in-law, Nasreen Bibi.

The men told the workers that they had come to take possession of the 12.5 acres that Nazeer Masih owns in Mauza Sadiqabad area of Muzaffargarh district, which they claimed had now been allotted by the Revenue Department to the Pakistan Army for distribution among retired officials. more >>

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – A Christian couple is facing false charges of theft after police in Abbottabad severely beat the pregnant woman and her husband for three days when they refused to confess, they told Compass.

Salma Emmanuel was taken to a hospital in critical condition on Nov. 7, the life of her unborn child also threatened, she said.

In Abbottabad, 50 kilometers (31 miles) northeast of Islamabad in the Hazara region of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, the 30-year-old Emmanuel and her husband, Emmanuel Rasheed, a 39-year-old TV repairman, said that they were inexplicably arrested after the Muslim woman who employed Emmanuel as a maid had allowed the Christian woman to temporarily store some of her jewelry at her employer’s house. more >>

A newly built church in the city of Karachi that can seat as many as 5,000 worshipers tells the story of tolerance and flourishing of faith in Pakistan that often gets lost in the routine coverage of Islamist violence in this Muslim-majority country.

It took 11 months for the Catholic Archdiocese of Karachi, the capital of southern Sindh Province, to complete the construction of Pakistan’s largest church, St. Peter’s, in Akhtar Colony. But there was no sign of opposition.

For the 2,100-square-foot building’s inauguration on Nov. 9, “the entire commercial lane shut down [voluntarily] for security,” reported Pakistan’s Express Tribune newspaper. Archbishop of Karachi Evarist Pinto arrived on a horse-drawn carriage for the opening ceremony, and thousands of people greeted him by throwing rose petals. more >>

KARACHI, Pakistan – An evangelist was shot dead here on Wednesday (Nov. 16) by an unidentified gunman in what his family believes was a radical Muslim group’s targeting of a Christian.

Zahid Jameel, 25, told Compass that his father, Jameel Saawan, and a helper were opening the doors of their cosmetics shop in the Gulshan-e-Iqbal area of Pakistan’s commercial hub of Karachi on Wednesday morning when a young man appeared and shot his father, first in the neck and then in the face.

The assassin fled on a motorcycle on which two people were waiting, keeping watch for him, Jameel said. more >>

The U.S. Government has a new weapon to fight terrorism: "Sesame Street."

According to The Associated Press, the U.S. is spending $20 million on a Pakistani version of "Sesame Street" that it hopes will fight Islamic radicalism by increasing tolerance.

"One of the key goals of the show in Pakistan is to increase tolerance toward groups like women and ethnic minorities," said Larry Dolan, who was the head education officer for the U.S. Agency for International Development in Pakistan until very recently. more >>

LAHORE, Pakistan – A Christian mother of five who was allegedly raped by two Muslims rejoiced after police in Pakistan’s Kasur district arrested a suspect and suspended an officer who had dismissed her complaints, but her solace was short-lived when her father collapsed and died Friday night (Sept. 30) after learning of her ordeal.

The 32-year-old woman and her husband, municipal worker Mushtaq Masih, told Compass by phone that they had lost hope of getting justice as they were facing threats from area Muslims to withdraw the case even as police were deliberately slow to investigate and arrest the accused.

Heartened after advocate pressure led to the arrest last week of one of the primary suspects in the case, the woman, whose name is withheld, went to visit her father late Friday night (Sept. 30). Up to that point she had not been able to bear informing her siblings and 70-year-old father, Gama Masih, about being raped on Sept. 15, but the family felt it was unwise to refrain further. more >>