An uneasy calm returned Monday, October 15, to the village of Gowindhi, near Pakistan’s second largest city of Lahore, after a violent mob of Muslims “ransacked and desecrated” the local evangelical New Apostolic Faith church, rights investigators said.
Christians in northwest Pakistan on Sunday, May 13, worshiped amid heightened tensions after they received threatening letters warning them to shut their churches and convert to Islam within the next few days as anti-Christian violence spreads across Pakistan, officials confirmed to BosNewsLife.
A Christian woman accused of blasphemy against Islam has been released on bail but concerns remain over her safety amid death threats, a human rights official involved in the trial confirmed to BosNewsLife Friday, May 4.
Five Christians, including a 16-year-old boy, have been falsely accused of and charged with “blasphemy” against Muhammad on April 1 in Toba Tek Singh, Punjab, according to an April 6 report from Compass Direct.
Pakistani Muslim and Christian leaders are working to defuse tensions in a Punjab city after rumors of “blasphemy†sparked mob action against the Christian community this week.
Pakistani Christians continue to bear the brunt of the country’s blasphemy laws as yet another Christian man has been booked for allegedly tearing and setting ablaze the pages of the Quran, the Muslim holy book.
A Christian married mother with six children remained detained in a Pakistani jail Thursday, January 25, and could face the death penalty for allegedly insulting Islam, her supporters told BosNewsLife.
A Pakistani court last week acquitted a Christian “blasphemy†prisoner on grounds that the convict was mentally unstable, while another Christian facing the same accusation was released on bail.
Christians faced another tense night in Northern Nigeria late Friday, September 22, where authorities imposed a curfew after angry Muslim mobs burned 11 churches over what they called “blasphemy” against the Prophet Mohammad by a Christian woman, police and Christian investigators said.
A Muslim cleric has accused three Christians including a pastor of the village, 55/2 L, some 2 Kms from the city, of blaspheming the Quran, the Muslims holy book.
An ailing Christian evangelist serving a four-year prison sentence in Indonesia’s West Java province for allegedly defaming Islam has been abused in jail by Muslim militants, Christian investigators said Thursday, August 17.
A Pakistani “blasphemy” suspect has appealed for asylum in Holland after facing police torture and attacks by Muslim extremists for his controversial religious views.
Dutch Queen Beatrix was weighing her options late Friday, June 30, after the center-right government collapsed over an immigration row that was expected to also impact persecuted Christian converts seeking refuge in the Netherlands.
A Pakistani Christian has won a religious persecution award after spending eight years in prison on contested charges that he damaged a sign containing verses from the Quran.
More anti-Christian violence was expected in Pakistan Thursday, February 16, as deadly protests against published cartoons of Prophet Mohammad spread across the country.
School authorities closed a nursing institution here yesterday following the suspected kidnapping of a Christian student by Islamic militants on Friday (February 10).
Armed Islamic groups angered by cartoon drawings depicting the Prophet Muhammad in European media, threatened to attack churches and closed down the European Union Commission office in Gaza Thursday, February 2, as anger over the published caricatures spread across the Muslim world.
During Friday prayers last week in Pakistan’s Punjab province, Muslim clerics flanked by government officials demanded the public execution of a Christian accused of blasphemy.
The Rev. K.K. Alavi, called “one of the bravest Christians in India,” is the son of a staunch Islamic cleric.
A mob of 200 Muslim protestors ransacked at least 16 homes of Christians in Lahore on Saturday, September 10, after a drug addict disrupted an Islamic service. Younis Masih, 35, was accused of insulting the Muslim prophet Mohammed.