Author: Anugrah Kumar
A federal court in Pakistan on Tuesday (Feb. 3) gave custody of a 13-year-old Christian girl to a Muslim who kidnapped and forcibly converted and married her, sources said. The parents of Maria Shahbaz were devastated at the ruling after the two-judge bench of the newly constituted Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) rejected her official birth record and disregarded earlier judicial findings that the marriage was illegal, said Safdar Chaudhry, chairperson of rights group Raah-e-Nijaat Ministry. Justice Karim Khan Agha and Justice Syed Hassan Azhar Rizvi accepted Maria’s statement, which her parents and their attorney say was given under coercion, that…
More than a month after three Christian converts were hacked to death in Odisha state in eastern India, police continue to attribute the triple murder to a land dispute, even as relatives and rights groups point to tensions linked to the family’s recent conversion. The victims, Jitendra Soren, his wife Malati Soren and their 15-year-old daughter, were attacked inside their home in Nialijharan village in Keonjhar district on Jan. 25, according to the United Kingdom-based advocacy group Christian Solidarity Worldwide, which tracks religious freedom cases globally. Giving an account of what happened, CSW said the family had attended a Pentecostal prayer…
A Brazilian student who’s facing four to 10 years in prison over social media comments about gender identity appeared before a federal court this week. The hearing addressed whether the posts constituted criminal “transphobia” under Brazilian law. Judicial questioning during the session this week focused on whether the statements were published from the defendant’s own social media account, and the judge indicated the content appeared to reflect personal opinion rather than discriminatory intent while granting the defense five days to submit written conclusions before any ruling, according to the legal advocacy group ADF International. The prosecution concerns two posts published in…