A Pakistani high court has ordered the restoration of a police case against a Muslim man accused of abducting, forcibly converting and marrying a Christian girl, giving her family a new legal avenue to challenge a ruling that placed her in the man’s custody.
A married, 21-year-old Christian woman was shot dead inside her home in Rawalpindi last week by a Muslim neighbor whose advances she had rejected, reflecting an attitude among many Pakistan Muslims that crimes against Christians will go unpunished, sources said.
Christian leaders and attorneys this week welcomed a Lahore High Court ruling that says living in a marital relationship with a girl under 18 can constitute child abuse even if the minor purportedly consents.
Members of Congress have urged the Pakistani government to take steps to protect an 18-year-old Christian woman who her family says was abducted and forcibly converted to Islam.
Pakistan’s Supreme Court released details on the acquittal of three Muslims sentenced to death for the 2014 murder of a Christian couple they burned alive.
A court in Pakistan on Monday sentenced the first person to be convicted for anti-Christian violence in Jaranwala in August 2023, handing him 10 years in prison while acquitting 13 others due to flawed investigations, sources said.
Pakistan’s Supreme Court last week overturned the death sentences of the remaining three men convicted in the 2014 lynching of a Christian couple burned alive after being falsely accused of blasphemy, sources said.
More than two dozen Christian families were forced to flee their homes in Pakistan last week after allegations of blasphemy against a pastor living in the United States triggered fears of mob violence, sources said.
Three weeks after the kidnapping of Scripture Union Nigeria’s national general director in southeast Nigeria, he and seven other fellowship leaders remain missing.
A 61-year-old Catholic in Pakistan suffering from advanced dementia died on Wednesday after nearly a year in jail awaiting trial on a false blasphemy charge, sources said.
