After a gap of 16 years, killings of the minority Pandit Hindus in Kashmir have resumed, raising concerns about the safety of the minority group
Hindus are Pakistan’s largest non-Muslim community, accounting for two to four percent of the country’s population.But Human Rights activists and International Human Rights Organizations appealed time and again that Pakistan’s goverment must respect the Hindu community’s right to freedom of religion and belief, including the right to build temples to practise it
The Pakistani police have registered a complaint about the kidnapping of another Christian student from Lahore in order to force her into an Islamic marriage. Mehwish Bibi, a student at the Women’s College in the city of Gujranwala, left her home at 8.10 am on February 18, to go to college but she never returned home
With a sensational about-face, the police registered case no. 74/21 against the Christian woman Tabitha Nazir Gill, according to article 295 C of the Pakistani Penal Code, that is, for “having used derogatory comments pronounced or written, directly or indirectly, which offend the name of Muhammad or the other prophets”. It is one of the articles of the infamous blasphemy law that makes so many victims in Pakistan and that is frequently abused and brought up for personal revenge
The merciless murder of Abida and Sajida is a tragedy that shows how the lives of religious minorities in Pakistan are held by a thread or is worthless. Rape, kidnappings, forced conversions and even murders of young Christian girls are worrying phenomena
We appreciate the government’s renewed commitment to the protection of Pakistan’s religious minorities, especially the protection of those falsely accused and the protection of innocent underage girls trapped in forced conversions and forced marriages. The initiative of the Government Office for Interreligious Harmony will certainly strengthen peace and harmony between people of various religions and will lead people of religious minorities not to live in fear “
: The judicial battle continues in the case of Arzoo Raja, the kidnapped Catholic girl, forcefully converted to Islam, forced to marry Islamic last October, then freed by the police and now living in a family home, under the control of social workers
A recent surge in blasphemy cases against has raised concerns among human rights groups. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has reported more than 40 cases of blasphemy in Pakistan in the month of August alone
As reported to Fides by local sources, the case, which occurred in the large metropolis of Karachi, concerns, in particular, the Catholic community of Saint Anthony parish. Arzoo’s family lives in “Quarter 8 City”, of the Railway Colony, in the western part of the city of Karachi
A Senate committee in Pakistan rejected a bill calling for the protection of religious minorities and their rights which therefore will not be scheduled in the Senate’s proceedings and will not be debated or voted. As Agenzia Fides learns, the draft law, called “Protection of Rights of Minorities Bill, 2020” was presented in September by Senator Javed Abbasi, a member of the Pakistan Muslim League-N