Tag: Sawan Masih

‘Extremists given a free hand’ – Human Rights Commission of Pakistan

April 16, 2018 Pakistan Asia Bibi, Balochistan, Blasphemy, Human rights, Islamabad, Islamic extremism, Islamic State, Minorities, Nadeem Masih, Pakistan, Patras Masih, Quetta, Religious freedom, Sajid Masih, Sawan Masih, UN

Pakistani Christians experience an increase in violence such as a suicide attack on the Bethel Methodist Church in Quetta in December last year that killed more than ten and injured dozens of people. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)

Two Pakistani Christians were killed and at least three injured in a drive-by shooting on Sunday (15 April) in Essa Nagri, a Christian-majority area in Quetta, capital of the impoverished Balochistan province in the southwest. The victims, aged 19 and 28, had just left a church service when they were . . . Read More

Pakistan Christian still on death row, five years after his ‘blasphemy’ sparked Joseph Colony attack

March 15, 2018 Pakistan Blasphemy, Faisalabad, Joseph Colony, Lahore, Pakistan, Sahiwal, Sawan Masih

At the fifth anniversary of the arson attack on a Christian neighbourhood in the Pakistani city of Lahore, the mother of the Christian man convicted of blaspheming against Islam – and so provoking the attack – says she still prays for his release. Sawan Masih*, a 30-year-old sanitation worker, was accused . . . Read More

Pakistan court acquits all suspects in 2013 arson of Christian neighbourhood

January 31, 2017 Pakistan Blasphemy, Gojra, Joseph Colony, Lahore, Punjab, Sawan Masih, Sweepers

A Pakistani anti-terrorism court on Saturday (28 Jan) acquitted every one of the more than 100 suspects accused of ransacking, looting and then burning a Christian neighbourhood in Lahore in March 2013. Pakistani Christians gather outside the Joseph Colony in Lahore on 10 March 2013, the day after more than . . . Read More

Asia Bibi’s last chance for freedom

July 22, 2015 Pakistan Asia Bibi, Blasphemy, Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, Multan, Prophet Muhammad, Sawan Masih, Shahbaz Bhatti, Sheikhupura

Pakistani Christian Aasiya Noreen (known as Asia Bibi) has been allowed to take her appeal against her death penalty for blasphemy to Pakistan’s Supreme Court in the capital, Islamabad. Until the Supreme Court reaches its final decision, Noreen cannot be executed. Commentators today have praised the Supreme Court for its courage to . . . Read More

Death sentence for Pakistan woman turned on technicality

November 19, 2014 Pakistan Asia Bibi, Blasphemy, Pakistan Ulema Council, Sawan Masih, Sheikhupura

The Pakistan court that a month ago said Aasiya Noreen, a Christian, must die for the crime of insulting Islam, based its ruling on a legal technicality that it now wants to eliminate. The Lahore High Court, an appeals court for Pakistan’s largest province, had decided Oct. 16 that it . . . Read More

Christian couple sentenced to death for ‘blasphemous’ texts

April 8, 2014 Pakistan Blasphemy, Gojra, Islamic extremism, Joseph Colony, Rawalpindi, Sawan Masih

Shaguftah Emmanuel, left, and her husband, Shafqat, in separate and undated photos.Contributed photos A Pakistani court has sentenced to death a Catholic couple convicted of blasphemy for insulting the Prophet Mohammed and the Qur’an. The sentence came a week after Sawan Masih, another Christian, was sentenced to death on . . . Read More

Pakistani Christian sentenced to death for blasphemy

March 27, 2014 Pakistan Blasphemy, Joseph Colony, Lahore, Pakistan, Pakistan Muslim League, Prophet Muhammad, Sawan Masih, USA

Lahore, Pakistan – A year after Muslims devastated the predominantly Christian Joseph Colony; the man at the center of the controversy has been sentenced to death for blasphemy because of claims that he insulted Islam’s prophet, Muhammad. Sawan Masih’s sentence, handed down March 27, is based on a conversation that . . . Read More

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