The pair were convicted in 2014 after sending a text message insulting the prophet Muhammad
A Pakistani court has ordered the release of a Christian couple sentenced to death for blasphemy, lawyers said, weeks after the European parliament blasted the country over the case.
Shafqat Emmanuel and Shagufta Kausar were jailed in 2013 and convicted of sending a text message insulting the prophet Muhammad – even though both are illiterate.
Continue reading...As Imran Khan’s government moves to outlaw virtually any criticism, media figures fear ‘darkest era’ of press freedom
Gathered before a solemn crowd, Hamid Mir, one of Pakistan’s best-known journalists, spoke defiantly. “Do not ever enter the homes of journalists again,” he said. “We don’t have tanks or guns like you, but we can tell the people of Pakistan about the stories that emerge from inside your homes.”
Mir may have been addressing journalists in Islamabad on Friday, but his words were not directed at them; they were a clear message to Pakistan’s all-powerful military establishment.
Continue reading...Activists were shot and beaten at demonstration to stop property giant Bahria Town building on indigenous land they say was taken with force
Muhammad Anwar was not aware of any danger when he took the day off work to join his friends at a demonstration on a construction site of a powerful real estate company.
When Anwar, 35, reached the west bank of Langeji river, near Karachi, earlier this month, he saw the bulldozers levelling land next to Bahria Town, a luxury gated development.
Continue reading...Data reveals Nepal, Iran and South Africa among 19 countries most at risk of running out as surging Covid cases push supplies to limit
Dozens of countries are facing severe oxygen shortages because of surging Covid-19 cases, threatening the “total collapse” of health systems.
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism analysed data provided by the Every Breath Counts Coalition, the NGO Path and the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) to find the countries most at risk of running out of oxygen. It also studied data on global vaccination rates.
Continue reading...Refugee organisation says 30m new displacements last year were due to floods, storms or wildfires
Intense storms and flooding triggered three times more displacements than violent conflicts did last year, as the number of people internally displaced worldwide hit the highest level on record.
There were at least 55 million internally displaced people (IDPs) by the end of last year, according to figures published by the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).
Continue reading...When Covid shut schools, fees still had to be paid even if rural pupils could not access online lessons
Iqbal Khan works as a chauffeur in Lahore. His children are in his home village in a rural area north of Peshawar. Both of these very different areas of Pakistan have the same problem for many of their young people: no means of getting access to an education.
Online learning was not an option for Khan’s children as the pandemic locked down schools across cities and countryside. Even as he worked to pay the school fees, his two sons, aged 16 and 13, were unable to access any lessons as their schools went digital.
Continue reading...The mobile library services are an education lifeline for students in Balochistan, where schools have closed during the pandemic
Sharatoon had wanted to continue her studies, but she had to leave school and her beloved books when she got married aged 15.
Now 27, Sharatoon is happy reading again, as every Friday a camel visits her small town, his saddle panniers full of books.
Continue reading...With travel from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh banned, some UK families are stuck abroad, while others cannot visit frail relatives
For the past 17 months, Saurav Dutt has had to watch from afar as relatives were lost to Covid, ancestral homes were damaged by a typhoon, and the mental toll of isolation, grief and illness led elders to question their very existence.
He had flights booked for May, but with cases soaring and India on the UK’s travel red list from 23 April, that is no longer an option. “It’s a very worrying time,” Dutt said. “You would think there are a million ways to help from over here, but we’re handcuffed. To deal with these things we need to be there.”
Continue reading...At least four dead and dozens wounded from blast in car park of luxury hotel in the city of Quetta
At least four people have been killed and a dozen others wounded when a powerful car bomb exploded at a top hotel hosting the Chinese ambassador in south-western Pakistan.
The blast took place in the car park of the Serena – a luxury hotel chain throughout Pakistan – in the city of Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province where the military has been fighting a decade-long low level insurgency.
Continue reading...Ahtisham Khan arrived in Greece, aged 16, after leaving Pakistan. A new initiative is helping children like him find a safe home where they can start to rebuild their lives
At some point in his journey to a freer place, Ahtisham Khan came to a fork in the road. Fifty days of travel from his native Pakistan to the plains of northern Greece had been unexpectedly frightening and exhausting.
“We had a lot of dreams,” he says, recalling why he and his brother, Zeeshan, left their village close to the city of Haripur in Pakistan. “We were teenagers … we didn’t know what we were embarking on. We did what we had to do to survive.”
Continue reading...Pakistani government bans religious leader as row over satirical cartoons simmers
French nationals and companies in Pakistan have been advised by their embassy to leave temporarily after violent anti-France protests brought large parts of the country to a standstill.
Anti-French sentiment has been simmering for months in Pakistan since Emmanuel Macron expressed support for a satirical magazine’s right to republish cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad, deemed blasphemous by many Muslims.
Continue reading...Charity warns of 22,000 additional deaths in poorest countries if Wish reproductive health programme ends
The director of a leading sexual and reproductive health charity has accused the government of “abandoning” women and girls it promised to help, as aid cuts derail a leading Tory programme to reduce maternal deaths and prevent unsafe abortions in poor countries.
The threat to the women’s integrated sexual health (Wish) programme could mean 7.5m additional unintended pregnancies, 2.7m unsafe abortions and 22,000 maternal deaths over the next year, said Dr Alvaro Bermejo, director general of International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF).
Continue reading...Decades of persecution has left the Shia minority with little space left in its graveyards but prime minister Imran Khan is in no hurry to listen
Ahmed Shah had always dreamed of bigger things. Though just 17, the high school pupil had taken a job in the coalmines of Balochistan, Pakistan’s south-western province, one of the harshest, most dangerous working environments in the world. Shah was determined to earn enough to educate himself, so he could escape the tough life of the Hazara Shia community, the most persecuted minority in Pakistan.
Related: In Pakistan, tolerant Islamic voices are being silenced | William Dalrymple
Continue reading...Murders of two volunteers and a nurse come one day after relaunch of national vaccination campaign
Two female volunteers and a nurse working door to door to vaccinate children against polio were shot dead by gunmen in two separate incidents in the Afghan city of Jalalabad on Tuesday.
On the same day, government officials confirmed that an explosion had rocked Jalalabad’s health ministry headquarters but no casualties were reported.
Continue reading...Islamabad high court orders government to fill vacant post at head of National Commission for Human Rights
The prime minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, and his government have been accused of trying to “sabotage” the country’s independent human rights watchdog to prevent accountability for mounting abuses and oppression.
Legislators, activists and lawyers told the Guardian that Khan’s government “punished” and immobilised Pakistan’s National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR) over reports that it had produced into human rights abuses and torture carried out by the military, which plays a powerful role in running the country.
Continue reading...Healthcare is focus of event to mark International Women’s Day, as organisers say pandemic has led to setbacks in rights
A march during the time of Covid is a difficult thing to plan safely. For Pakistan’s women, determined to have their “Aurat March” today, there are other risks – to their physical safety as well as of online abuse and trolling.
Noor is an organiser for this year’s masked nationwide rallies. She said she could not give her surname for fear of reprisals over her work.
Continue reading...Ban on violence against children will only apply in Islamabad, but campaigners hope rest of the country will follow suit
Pakistan has passed a bill banning corporal punishment for children in a move described as “historic” by rights activists.
It comes amid a number of high-profile cases of schoolchildren being badly beaten and even killed in schools, religious institutions and workplaces.
Continue reading...Hundreds married to men who travelled to Pakistan for militant training now find themselves stateless
Under dark skies in Kashmir’s heavily militarised town of Kupwara, Saira Javed mournfully recalled her happy childhood.
Recounting her early life in Karachi, a bustling metropolis over the border in Pakistan, she spoke vividly of her father, Abdul Latif, who would take their large family on weekend picnics and of the moonlit nights she spent dying her hands with henna.
Continue reading...Vaccines also exempt from price caps in divisive move that health experts fear will deepen inequality
Pakistan will allow private companies to import coronavirus vaccines and has exempted the vaccines from price caps in a divisive move that health experts fear will create vast inequalities in access.
The country has been scrambling to secure vaccine supplies but so far only the Chinese-made Sinopharm treatment is being deployed. This month 500,000 doses were donated to Pakistan.
Continue reading...Supreme court ruling welcomed by rights activists who say it opens the way to broader prison reforms
In a landmark decision, Pakistan’s supreme court ruled this week that prisoners with serious mental health problems cannot be executed for their crimes.
The verdict was hailed by rights activists, who said it laid the groundwork for broader prison reforms in the country.
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