Pakistan

The man who shot dead the governor of Punjab Province over his support for reform to blasphemy laws has been sentenced to death.

Mumtaz Qadri admitted killing Salman Taseer in January because of his support for changes to the controversial laws, which rights groups say are being misused to persecute Christians in the Muslim-majority country.

Qadri was Taseer’s personal bodyguard when he gunned down the minister near his home in Islamabad on January 4. more >>

A Christian teen was reportedly raped in Pakistan by three Muslim men while she was working, it emerged Tuesday and her case, according to an international advocacy group, is part of a troubling trend in which Muslim men use sexual assault as a weapon against Christian girls.

The International Christian Concern (ICC), an advocacy group, reported the event on their website Tuesday, after an investigation. Regional Manager for South Asia, Jonathan Racho, told The Christian Post that one of the organization’s reporters talked to the young woman in person.

The incident took place on Sept. 16, ICC has established. The 18-year-old girl, whose name was not revealed for security reasons, was working alone on a Muslim farm in the Village of Muphat Pura, in Kasur district. At 5 p.m. local time, three relatives of her Muslim employer came to her and allegedly raped her. more >>

A teenage Pakistani Christian girl has been accused of blasphemy after she accidentally misspelled a word in a poem about the Muslim prophet Muhammad during an examination.

The eighth grader, Faryal Bhatti, who attends a girls' high school in the Pakistan Ordnance Factories colony at Havelian, near Abbottabad, misspelled the word 'naat' (hymn) as 'laanat' (curse) when answering a question about a poem written in praise of Muhammad. The two words, written in Urdu, differ only with a coma and are, according to commentators, easy to confuse, especially for a young person.

The exam took place Thursday, Sept. 22. The teacher noticed the mistake while collecting the papers and beat Faryal as punishment, according to The Express Tribune, a Pakistani news outlet. more >>

LAHORE, Pakistan – A Christian mother of five was allegedly raped by two Muslim men in mid-September, and area Islamists are threatening to harm her family if charges against the suspects are not dropped, the woman and her husband told Compass.

On Sept. 15, the 32-year-old woman said, she was returning home to Mustafabad, in Punjab Province’s Kasur district, from a garment factory where she works. Two Muslims, identified only as 23-year-old Bhallu and 27-year-old Shera, along with an unidentified accomplice, allegedly abducted her at gunpoint, took her to an abandoned house in the area and raped her, she said.

Working late, she had reached the Mustafabad bus stop at 11:45 p.m. and had begun walking to her home five minutes away; the street was deserted, said the alleged victim, whose name is withheld. more >>

LAHORE, Pakistan – Dr. Tahira Saleem gave up her flourishing medical practice after she realized Pakistan needed a Bible college more than a stethoscope.

Saleem was a leading obstetrician and gynecologist who had a flourishing practice and also worked as a consultant for several private hospitals. She’d grown up with wealthy, talented medical professionals for parents, who were nominal Christians completely absorbed in their careers up until their premature deaths.

She had two brothers, but one day before her lay one dead brother – claimed by a massive heart attack at age 36. Six year later, her only surviving brother, just 30, lay dying before her eyes, gasping for breath after suffering a heart attack. He too breathed his last. more >>

A Christian man accused of blasphemy died in a Pakistani prison on Sept. 9, the International Christian Concern announced Tuesday.

Aslam Masih died of a “treatable disease” after officials denied him proper medical care, ICC reported.

He had reportedly died of Dengue virus, an infectious tropical disease. more >>