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A nativity scene in Ilford has been “destroyed by idiots”.The British Pakistani Christian Association (BCPA) paid for and installed the statues to remind people in the High Road of the real meaning of Christmas. Yet, in an attack on Christianity, the Virgin Mary and Joseph have been smashed and the infant Jesus was decapitated. A local non-religious resident told the Ilford Recorder the incident was “religious desecration”. She said: “It is three days before Christmas and this happens”. Further saying, “Any other religion and there would be an outcry and it would have been fixed already. “It is a desecration...

Pakistan's top court on Wednesday acquitted a Christian woman who was sentenced to death in 2010 on blasphemy charges, a landmark ruling that could ignite mass protests or violence by hard-line Islamists. Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar announced the verdict to a packed courtroom and ordered Asia Bibi released. She has been held at an undisclosed location for security reasons and is expected to leave the country. The charges against Bibi date back to a hot day in 2009 when she went to get water for her and her fellow farmworkers. Two Muslim women refused to drink from a container...

Pakistan army chief hosts Christian leaders Army chief hails Father Joseph Coutts’ appointment as cardinal a ‘national honour’ Islamabad: In a first, Pakistan’s Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa hosted a banquet dinner on Monday for some of the country’s most senior Christian leaders, to celebrate the ‘honour’ bestowed on Pakistani priest Joseph Coutts. On June 28, Pope Francis appointed Coutts as cardinal in the Vatican City. General Bajwa hailed the appointment as a matter of ‘national pride’ that a Pakistani priest was awarded that unique honour by no one else but the leader of the...

If Christians had opened fire on Muslims leaving a mosque, which they would, of course, never do, there would be insistent and ongoing international coverage. But no one will take any particular note of this. It’s just another day in Pakistan. “At least 2 dead, 5 injured in attack on Christian community near church in Quetta,” by Syed Ali Shah, Dawn, April 15, 2018 (thanks to The Religion of Peace): At least two members of the Christian community were killed and five others injured in a firing incident near a church in Quetta, DawnNewsTV reported. DIG Quetta Abdur Razzaq Cheema...

Two suicide bombers attacked a church in Pakistan where hundreds of worshippers were attending service ahead of Christmas, killing at least nine people and injuring dozens of others, officials said. One of the suicide bombers was shot dead outside Bethel Memorial Methodist Church in Quetta, but the other assailant made it to the church's entrance hall as Sunday services opened, said Sarfaraz Bugti, home minister for the southwestern Baluchistan province. The gunman — who didn’t gain access to the main building — opened fire at the churchgoers before detonating his explosive vest. “There were nearly 400 people inside the church,...

A young Pakistani man killed while preventing a suicide bomber from entering a crowded church should be considered for canonization, according to Catholics marking the anniversary of a deadly terrorist attack carried out in Lahore on March 15 last year. Volunteer security guard Akash Bashir, 20, stopped the suicide bomber from entering St. John's Catholic Church and tackled him while being aware he wore a bomb vest. The attacker from a Taliban splinter group detonated the bomb, killing himself and Bashir outside the church. Father Francis Gulzar, the parish priest, said the first anniversary of the terrorist attack on two...

Close to 300 Muslim students armed with iron bars and sticks attacked a Christian boys' school in northern Pakistan, reportedly in retaliation to French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo's controversial drawings of the Muslim prophet Muhammad. The attack left four Christians injured. "It is very sad that Islamic radicals attack Pakistani Christians because of Charlie Hebdo. Christians condemn the blasphemous cartoons. It is a shame that even after 67 years since the birth of Pakistan, Christians have not yet been considered Pakistani citizens, but are seen as 'Western allies,'" Nasir Saeed, director of the NGO Center for Legal Aid Assistance &...

ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN -- Five Christian families have been freed after being held for more than two decades as slaves in a Muslim-run brick kiln in eastern Pakistan, Christian officials involved in the rescue operation told BosNewsLife. The Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS), a major advocacy and aid group, said it provided two vehicles for the May 6 raids at the brick kiln in the industrial city Wazirabad in Punjab province. Nasir Saeed, a CLAAS director, told BosNewsLife that "a total of eight" Christians were found working as slaves in the area, representing five families.

It was at 11.44am that time stood still at All Saints' Church. The clock on the wall is frozen at the very minute seven-year-old Shyam Emmanuel lost his parents. In that same moment, seven children were sent to their deaths along with 78 adults who had congregated outside the gleaming white walls of Peshawar's main Christian place of worship.

Two suicide bombers blew themselves up outside a Christian church in northwest Pakistan on Sunday, killing at least 72 people and wounding scores of others as they left services. The blast took place outside All Saints Church, which dates to the mid-1800s and is the oldest Christian church in Peshawar. Sunday’s attack occurred around 11 a.m., as more than 600 worshippers were leaving church grounds. According to security officials, the twin bombers detonated near the gate of the church, sending body parts and debris through the air. Sunday’s bombing may be the worst attack against Christians worshippers in Pakistan since...

Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- A blast at a Protestant church in northwest Pakistan killed at least 72 people and wounded more than 120, a local hospital said Sunday. The attack took place at the All Saints Church of Pakistan, in the violence-plagued city of Peshawar, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) from the country's capital, Islamabad. Witnesses told CNN affiliate Geo News that at least one suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowded bazaar near the church entrance as crowds of worshipers were leaving a Sunday morning service. Some of the victims were children, the witnesses said. The outside of...

A suicide bomb attack on a historic church in northwestern Pakistan killed at least 52 people and wounded over 100 Sunday, officials said, in one of the worst assaults on the country's Christian minority in years. The bombing underlines the threat posed by Islamic extremists as the government seeks a peace deal with domestic Taliban militants. It occurred as worshipers were coming out of the church in Peshawar city after services ...

LAHORE, Pakistan (Morning Star News) – A Muslim political candidate suspected of murdering a Christian has instigated calls from mosque loudspeakers for attacks on Christians, whom he blames for his May 11 election loss. Tensions were high in Punjab Province’s Okara district after provincial assembly seat candidate Mehr Abdul Sattar, sought by police in connection with a 2008 murder, on May 13 arranged for mosque calls for violence against Christian villages.

The end justifies the means under Islam, eh? Pakistani Christian Girl Raped and Tortured for Eleven Days ICC (thanks to The Religion of Peace.com) A Pakistani Christian girl forced to convert to Islam and raped ICC Note: A fourteen year old Christian Pakistani girl was kidnapped, forced to convert to Islam, raped and tortured. When her father reported her missing, the police wouldn't help him. Finally, he recovered her himself, but not before the local mosque announced that she was now a Muslim and could not live as a Christian without facing dire consequences. The eight Christian families in the...

Islamic extremists have attacked an Anglican Church in Mardan Pakistan and an adjoining school. Some believe the stimulus was the government announced day of protest against an anti-Islam film. The attack occurred on Sept. 21. According to a news release from the British Pakistani Christian Association (BPCA), protesters set the church and school on fire and looted the premises, taking everything from computers to chairs and whatever else seemed valuable from the school. The BPCA said that Muslims desecrated Bibles and religious artefacts, especially many of which were used in ceremonies within the Anglican church. Many were brought out into...

Since June 2009, Pakistani citizen Asia Bibi, mother of five little children, has been imprisoned in appalling and intolerable conditions in Sheikhupura prison in Punjab province. Her crime: being a Christian who drank a glass of water from a well belonging to her Muslim friends. Sentenced to death for blasphemy, Asia Bibi continues to proclaim her innocence from the bottom of her windowless cell, where she can touch both walls by stretching out her two arms. Asia Bibi has appealed her death sentence, but her trial will not take place for another two years. We refuse to accept that this...

Pakistan's only Christian minister Shahbaz Bhatti was shot dead today after pushing for the reform of harsh blasphemy laws that impose the death penalty for insulting Islam.The assassination comes just a fortnight after Mr Bhatti, Minister for Minorities, said he was prepared to die for his beliefs following a series of death threats. ...Earlier this year, Punjab province Gov. Salman Taseer was killed by a bodyguard who said he was angry that the politician opposed the blasphemy laws.

An evangelist is still recovering from burns after six young Muslim men beat him with clubs and belts and set him on fire last month in a village near this Punjab Province city, the Christian told Compass. Area Christians said they found the Rev. Wilson Augustine, 26, of Village No. 44-SB, unconscious with burns on his head, hand and arm on Nov. 22 near the bus stop of Village No. 101-NB on the outskirts of Sargodha. Christian elders Austin Masih and Nadeem Samuel of nearby villages said that Augustine, who was ordained in a small Presbyterian church in Village No....

Note: Photo included. NOTE The following text is a quote: Monday, May 31, 2010 Christian Woman Kidnapped in Pakistan Escapes Impoverished father had received ultimatum from employer who loaned him money By Dan Wooding Founder of ASSIST Ministries RAWALPINDI, PAKISTAN (ANS) -- Compass Direct News (CDN) is reporting that a Christian woman who was kidnapped, forced to marry a Muslim farmer and told to convert to Islam amid a dispute over a loan said today (Monday, May 31, 2010) she has returned home after weeks of “captivity and torture.” Sania James (Photo: Compass) Sania James, 33, was kidnapped April 5...

Islamabad (AsiaNews) – A court in Kasur district, Punjab, convicted a Christian couple, Munir Masih and Ruqqiya Bibi, to 25 years in prison. According to the Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS), judge Ajmal Hussein convicted the couple for touching the Qur‘an without washing their hands. Munir Masih and Ruqqiya Bibi were released on bail last January, but were re-arrested after the judge ruled against them. The husband was locked up in Kasur’s district prison; the wife was sent to the women’s prison in Multan. Both have started serving 25 years behind bars. CLAAS, an association that fights...