On 24th September, the Lahore High Court (LHC) rejected a petition filed by a Christian man, Gulzar Masih, for the recovery of his underage daughter Chashman Kanwal who was allegedly forcibly converted to Islam and married to a Muslim man, Muhammad Usman. Masih, a rickshaw driver from Samanabad, Faisalabad, stated in court that his daughter…
Clerics and religious scholars have expressed serious reservations over the draft of the anti-forced conversion bill. At a meeting called by the Ministry of Religious Affairs they warned the ministry it cannot be implemented as it stands. Only Muslim stakeholders were invited to the meeting held in camera. Members of the National Commission for Minorities…
On 16th August 2021 two teenage Christian cousins from Warburton, District Nankana Sahib were kidnapped at gunpoint outside their house by local Muslim men. According to Mumtaz Bibi, the mother of Simran and aunt of Sheeza, on 11 August she went to attend the funeral of one of their relatives in Faisalabad with another family…
A Christian girl, Princey Masih, aged 14, from Haripur, has been recovered by the police and a court has sent her to a shelter home. According to her mother Noreen Masih, Princey is a student of 9th grade and has been missing since August 3. She had reported her daughter missing to the police and…
The National Assembly has passed a resolution condemning the attack on a Hindu temple in Punjab’s Rahim Yar Khan district. A mob of hundreds of people vandalised the temple and block the Sukkur-Multan Motorway. It came after a local court granted bail to a nine-year-old Hindu boy who was accused of urinating in a local…
Another Christian girl has been kidnapped and converted to Islam in Pakistan. Chashman Kanwal, 14, was kidnapped, forcibly converted to Islam and married to a Muslim man Muhammad Usman. According to Chashman’s father, Gulzar Inayat Masih, on July 27 he dropped his daughter at Government Secondary High School Samanabad, Faisalabad on his rickshaw. But until…
The government of Punjab has made learning the Quran compulsory for the students in schools and colleges. A notification was issued which stated that students of up to class 5 would get Naazrah Quran education, while the remaining pupils will be taught Quran with translation. The circular from the Punjab Curriculum and Textbook Board (PCTB)…
Members of the European Parliament have written to the EU’s ambassador of Pakistan calling for his help to release Shahzad Masih. The MEPs called for Masih’s immediate release and compensation on account of undue harassment and detention. They wrote to Zaheer Aslam Janjus seeking intervention the blasphemy case. The letter was endorsed by Jan Figel,…
The Ministry of Religious Affairs has opposed restrictions on religious conversion before the age of 18. It said that if someone 14 years old wants to convert to any religion, they could not be stopped. During a meeting of the Senate parliamentary committee on minorities’ rights the Minister for Religious Affairs, Noorul Haq Qadri said…
A Christian student of third grade, Suzaina (spellings shared by her mother) was raped at her school in Asif Town No.1 Lahore. Her father Shahzad Mukhtar, who works as a ward boy in the general hospital, Lahore, said on June 22 his daughter went to the SunJan Nagar School, Basic Education Trust, as usual, but…
