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        <title>Christian Daily International | Asia</title>
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        <description><![CDATA[Asia news from Christian Daily International providing biblical, factual and personal news, stories and perspectives from every region, focusing on religious freedom, integrated gospel and other issues that are relevant for the global Church today. ]]></description>
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                                                        <item>
                <title><![CDATA['Don't settle for a smaller joy': Missionary to Papua New Guinea urges young Christian leaders at Arise Asia]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/don-t-settle-for-a-smaller-joy-missionary-to-papua-new-guinea-urges-young-christian-leaders-at-arise-asia</link>
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                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Pastor Wayne Chen, director of Radius Asia, addresses delegates during the opening night of the Arise Asia 2026 Congress in Manila, Philippines, July 27, 2026.]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Christian Daily International ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Pastor Wayne Chen, director of Radius Asia, addresses delegates during the opening night of the Arise Asia 2026 Congress in Manila, Philippines, July 27, 2026. Chen called young Christians to pursue what he described as a joy greater than anything the world offers and to take the gospel to unreached people groups across Asia and beyond. ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Tue, 28 Jul 2026 06:10:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[Pastor Wayne Chen, director of Radius Asia and a former missionary to the Biem people of Papua New Guinea, delivered the keynote address on the first night of the Arise Asia 2026 Congress on Monday, speaking to approximately 4,000 young Christians gathered in Manila from 50 countries under the conference theme "For the Joy," drawn from Hebrews 12:2.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
Pastor Wayne Chen, director of Radius Asia and a former missionary to the Biem people of Papua New Guinea, delivered the keynote address on the first night of the Arise Asia 2026 Congress on Monday, speaking to approximately 4,000 young Christians gathered in Manila from 50 countries under the conference theme "For the Joy," drawn from Hebrews 12:2.
Before Chen spoke, a video was shown documenting a milestone from the Biem people's story: after 17 years of sustained effort, the island community received printed Bibles in their own mother tongue for the first time. Chen referenced the footage during his address — an illustration of the hardship and joy he described from his own years on the island. His message centered on the assertion that the kind of joy a person pursues will determine the entire shape of their life, and most people are settling for one that is far too small.
A background forged in the field
Chen pastored in Northern California before he and his wife, Gail, moved their family to Biem Island in Papua New Guinea in 2009. The island is roughly three kilometers across, accessible only by small boat, and had no running water or reliable electricity when they arrived. For five years, Chen said, the family collected rainwater and relied on solar panels.
From 2009 to 2017, Chen and his team worked to learn the Biem language and culture, develop a written alphabet where none had existed, translate Scripture, and plant a church. By 2012, the gospel had taken root on the island and the Biem church was born. Chen now directs Radius Asia, the Asian arm of Radius International, a missionary training program focused on language and cultural acquisition, foundational Bible teaching, and planting churches capable of sustaining themselves under indigenous leadership.
A confession that keeps repeating itself
Chen then shared about a kind of encounter he has had repeatedly over years of speaking at missions events and churches. After services where he shares Scripture and about his time in PNG, older attendees — usually in their 50s or 60s — approach him with something that resembles a confession.
"They would say, when I was young, I attended this conference. Back in the days, I also had a calling to missions," Chen told the congress. "But when they said it, their face didn't carry any joy."
What those conversations share, he said, is rarely a story of opposition or trauma. "Usually they don't say their parents opposed them, or their church stopped them, or they walked away from the faith." The reason was simpler: "Life simply happened. They got a job. They got a promotion. They met a nice boy. They got married. They bought a house. They had children."
None of those things are wrong, Chen said. But the cumulative drift — one semester becoming one year, one year becoming five, five becoming thirty — produces the regret he keeps encountering. "Nobody stopped them [from going on missions]. They simply started living like everybody else in the world was living."
That, he told the delegates, is what Arise Asia 2026 is asking them not to do. "What matters more than the next five days is really the next five years and the next 50 years of your life."
The world in three parts
Chen showed a visualization of the global population dividing the world's eight billion people into three rough thirds to distinguish the reached from the unreached and also those who simply have not yet heard the gospel in their immediate context.
The first are those who identify as Christians — with access to churches, Bible translations, and believers in their own language. The second are non-Christians who nevertheless live where the church is already present. "Can you find a church in Manila?" he asked. "You can find a church in Manila." These people need the gospel, Chen said, but they live within reach of existing witness.
The last third are different. "They live in places where even if they want to find a Christian, oftentimes they don't know who to talk to," Chen said. "As they drive around their city, they don't see crosses on buildings. They don't find churches where they could ask, 'Can you share the gospel with me?'" He noted that before he and his team arrived on Biem Island, the community had lived for generations without any outsider ever learning their language. There was no Bible, no literacy in the language, no means of access.
"All the easy places have heard about the gospel. When a people group, when a region, when a country have no access to the gospel, it's usually because there's some sort of difficulty or hardship waiting for the gospel messenger," he said. Short-term missions, he argued, are not sufficient. "We need to go, some of us need to go and stay and finish it."
A bigger joy than the world offers
Turning to his own years in PNG, Chen told the congress that his time on the island was not enjoyable — and yet was marked by something he described as the deepest joy he had known. "Enjoying something is different than finding joy in something," he said. "None of those days were enjoyable. But man, there was a bigger joy that God had reserved for me."
He took the congregation to Psalm 67, reading the opening verse: "May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine on us." He asked what would happen if the psalm ended there. "Who is at the center of the universe? It's not God. It's us. God is simply a blessing machine." He argued that many Christians live only in that verse, treating God's grace as something that ends with personal comfort.
Verse two, he said, changes everything. "So that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations." The blessing of verse one exists for an outward purpose. "God does not exist for you. We exist to glorify and praise him. Don't build your life around a passion that is smaller than God's passion."
Faith sees. Hope endures. Joy finishes.
In the closing section of his address, Chen offered delegates a framework for how to pray over the five days of the congress — and over the decades that follow. He drew three words from Hebrews 11 and 12: faith, hope, and joy.
Faith, he said, sees what is not yet visible — as Abraham did when he left without knowing his destination, sustained by confidence in a better city and a better country. Hope, Chen said, keeps a person in the race once faith has opened their eyes. "Hope is not positive thinking. Hope is confidence that God's promises are true."
Joy, he said, is what finishes the race. "Once that joy captures your heart, obedience, obeying God no longer feels like a bad thing. Sacrifice no longer feels like giving things away. You are actually getting things from God."
He closed with a personal disclosure. One of his two daughters told him she wanted to be a missionary. "I cried," he said. "The first reason I cried is, out of anybody, I know exactly what she's getting herself into. She is choosing a difficult path. But the second reason I cried — because I am so proud of her that as a young woman she is choosing the greater joy than anything the world has to offer."
He added: "I am not standing here challenging you to do something that I will not challenge my own kids with."
'Don't let that become your story'
Chen returned, at the close, to the older men and women who carry the weight of a calling they did not act on — not to judge them, he said, but because he does not want the delegates before him to become them.
"30 years from today, some of you will be doing different jobs. That's great. Be faithful. If God doesn't pull you to the mission field, stay where you are," he said. "But it is my prayer that some of you, 30 years from now, would be spending your lives in places where they have not heard the gospel."
"My prayer is that 30 years from now, none of you will walk up to a young pastor in a mission conference and say, 'When I was young, I stood up at Arise 26 and I almost obeyed.'"
He closed with an appeal to pursue what he called the deepest joy there is: "The joy of knowing Jesus Christ. The joy of obeying Jesus Christ. The joy of seeing his name be proclaimed in a place where it has not been proclaimed. Brothers and sisters, don't settle for a smaller joy. Lift up your eyes to a greater joy."
Follow Christian Daily International's full reporting on Arise Asia 2026.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA['Life is too short': Manny Pacquiao calls Arise Asia delegates to set soul-winning goals]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/life-is-too-short-manny-pacquiao-calls-arise-asia-delegates-to-set-soul-winning-goals</link>
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                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Manny Pacquiao addresses delegates at the Arise Asia 2026 Congress in Manila, Philippines, July 27, 2026.]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Christian Daily International ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Manny Pacquiao addresses delegates at the Arise Asia 2026 Congress in Manila, Philippines, July 27, 2026. The Philippine boxing legend and evangelist urged the gathering of some 4,000 participants from 50 countries to set annual soul-winning goals, calling discipleship a personal commitment "while we're living here in this earth." ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Mon, 27 Jul 2026 21:10:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[Manny Pacquiao, the Philippine boxing legend turned evangelist, told thousands of Christian leaders in Manila that life is brief and the task of sharing the gospel cannot wait — urging delegates at the Arise Asia 2026 Congress to set specific, annual goals for bringing others to faith.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
Follow Christian Daily International's full reporting on Arise Asia 2026.
Manny Pacquiao, the Philippine boxing legend turned evangelist, told thousands of Christian leaders in Manila that life is brief and the task of sharing the gospel cannot wait — urging delegates at the Arise Asia 2026 Congress to set specific, annual goals for bringing others to faith.
Pacquiao delivered his message on the congress's opening evening on July 27. Speaking before some 4,000 participants from more than 50 countries, he drew from his own journey — from a life of what he described as drunkenness and gambling to one centered on Scripture and evangelism — and pressed delegates to measure their Christian lives by how many souls they are actively trying to reach.
"With the time I accept Jesus Christ in my life — but before that, people know my old life," he said. "A lot of vices in life, drunkenness, gambling, everything like that. I had that. But when God changed my heart and gave me conviction and I surrendered my life to Jesus and accepted him as my Lord and Savior, then I obeyed."
The Arise Asia 2026 Congress runs through July 31 under the theme "For the Joy," drawn from Hebrews 12:2. Pacquiao, a former eight-division boxing world champion who has also served as a Philippine congressman and senator, was recently installed by the Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches as an international evangelist.
Set a goal
Much of Pacquiao's address turned on the question of intentionality. He cited the Great Commission in Matthew 28:19-20 and called on believers to translate the mandate into concrete personal commitments rather than leaving it abstract.
"We should set a goal in our day-to-day life — how many souls that you can target in one year to bring to the kingdom of God," he said. He suggested a modest starting point: "My target this year is to bring two souls to the kingdom of God. Just two. And then next year, maybe I can make five souls. So that's my goal in life. I encourage you to do the same."
He framed the urgency in terms of human mortality. Life, he said, is "like a morning fog that we appear and disappear." Against that brevity, he asked: "How many souls you bring to the kingdom of God in your lifetime in this earth? That's the question, being a Christian."
On pride and compromise
Pacquiao reserved his sharpest remarks for what he called the greatest spiritual obstacle many believers face: the assumption that one is already good enough.
"The greatest hindrance for a person to be saved is to assume that you are good enough to go to heaven," he said. He connected that pride to a failure to read Scripture and pray consistently, which he argued leaves believers unable to resist temptation or remain faithful. "There are so many Christians right now in the world that we call it backsliding, turning and compromising their faith," he said. "They're not reading the Bible day and night. They're not praying continually. That's the most important. That's the problem for all of us."
He urged delegates to make Scripture memory a discipline: "I encourage you to read the Bible day and night, memorizing the Scriptures — that's how to make you strong. Because when the day of trial comes in our lives, we cannot stand using our physical body."
Faith shown in conduct
Pacquiao also pushed back against a version of Christianity measured by knowledge rather than character. When learning about God increases pride rather than humility, he said, something has gone wrong.
"When your knowledge increase about God, then pride will come. And that's the greatest hindrance," he said. The alternative, he argued, is a faith visible in how believers treat the people around them. "The life I'm talking about is the way you treat others, the way you show up to others, the way you help others. That's the most important thing, being a Christian — inspiration admirable to others, especially our attitude, the way we treat others, the way we communicate, the way we humble ourselves for others."
He closed with prayer for delegates, asking that they receive "wisdom, knowledge, understanding to preach your word boldly without fear."
The Arise Asia Congress continues through July 31 in Manila.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[Arise Asia 2026 Congress opens in Manila with call to reach 3 billion unreached]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/arise-asia-2026-congress-opens-in-manila-with-call-to-reach-3-billion-unreached</link>
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                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Delegates from 50 countries fill the arena during the opening worship session of the Arise Asia 2026 Congress in Manila, Philippines, July 27, 2026.]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Christian Daily International ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Delegates from 50 countries fill the arena during the opening worship session of the Arise Asia 2026 Congress in Manila, Philippines, July 27, 2026. The five-day gathering drew approximately 4,000 participants from across Asia and beyond under the theme "For the Joy," drawn from Hebrews 12:2. ]]>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Bishop Noel Pantoja, National Director of the Philippines Council of Evangelical Churches and chair of the Arise Asia board, addresses delegates at the opening session of the Arise Asia 2026 Congress in Manila, Philippines, July 27, 2026.]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Christian Daily International ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Bishop Noel Pantoja, National Director of the Philippines Council of Evangelical Churches and chair of the Arise Asia board, addresses delegates at the opening session of the Arise Asia 2026 Congress in Manila, Philippines, July 27, 2026. Pantoja called participants to reach nearly 7,000 unreached people groups representing roughly three billion people worldwide. ]]>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Rev. Dr. David Ro, co-founder and executive director of Arise Asia, speaks at the opening session of the Arise Asia 2026 Congress in Manila, Philippines, July 27, 2026.]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Christian Daily International ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Rev. Dr. David Ro, co-founder and executive director of Arise Asia, speaks at the opening session of the Arise Asia 2026 Congress in Manila, Philippines, July 27, 2026. Ro introduced the conference theme "For the Joy," based on Hebrews 12:2, framing it around what he described as a path of sacrifice rather than ease. ]]>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Pastor Peter Tan-Chi, founder and senior pastor of Christs Commission Fellowship, delivers the opening address at the Arise Asia 2026 Congress in Manila, Philippines, July 27, 2026.]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Christian Daily International ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Pastor Peter Tan-Chi, founder and senior pastor of Christ's Commission Fellowship, delivers the opening address at the Arise Asia 2026 Congress in Manila, Philippines, July 27, 2026. Tan-Chi urged young leaders to "serve God with joy and finish well," warning that research suggests only a quarter of Christian leaders complete their ministries faithfully. ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Mon, 27 Jul 2026 12:20:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[Some 4,000 Christians from across Asia and beyond gathered in Manila on July 27 for the opening session of the Arise Asia 2026 Congress, a five-day gathering of students and young leaders focused on frontier missions and evangelism.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
Follow Christian Daily International's full reporting on Arise Asia 2026.
Some 4,000 Christians from across Asia and beyond gathered in Manila on July 27 for the opening session of the Arise Asia 2026 Congress, a five-day gathering of students and young leaders focused on frontier missions and evangelism.
Representatives from 50 countries filled the venue for the event, which runs through July 31 under the theme "For the Joy," drawn from Hebrews 12:2: "For the joy set before him, he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."
Bishop Noel Pantoja, National Director of the Philippines Council of Evangelical Churches and chair of the Arise Asia board, opened the congress by drawing attention to the scale of the task facing global missions. Nearly 7,000 people groups — comprising roughly three billion people, or about 40 percent of the world's population — remain without meaningful access to the gospel, he said.
"The highest concentration of unreached groups are found in this region," Pantoja told the congress, pointing to South Asia, the Middle East, and parts of East and Southeast Asia. He called on participants to move past national and organizational identities and engage the task as "brothers and sisters in Christ" bound by a shared calling.
"I invite you to pray with me that thousands of young people will rise up as God's agents and ambassadors to bring the gospel to these nations," Pantoja said. He described the challenge as one requiring "sensitivity, creativity, partnership and collaboration."

The theme: joy through the cross
Rev. Dr. David Ro, co-founder and executive director of Arise Asia, acknowledged that while arriving at the Congress had been very smooth for some, there are also many delegates that had traveled long distances under difficult conditions — hours on planes, delays at airports, and other logistical challenges. He offered that experience as a preview of the missionary road ahead.
He referred to the well-known worship song "Blessed be your name", which first praises God amid abundance and sunshine but then continues to praise God "on the road marked with suffering."
"The life ahead of you is not going to be easy," Ro said. "And if you can still say, 'Blessed be your name,' then amen."
The conference theme, he explained, does not promise that everything will always go smoothly. "For the joy of the Lord doesn't necessarily come on an easy path. Remember Hebrews chapter 12? For the joy set before him — what? Endure the cross."

Ro outlined how the five days of the congress would each explore a dimension of that joy: for the joy is the theme of the first day, the joy of following Jesus on the second day; the joy of surrender, holiness, and sacrifice on the third; the joy of purposeful perseverance on the fourth; and the joy of eternity on the final day.
Opening address: serve God with joy, finish well
The evening's first address came from Pastor Peter Tan-Chi, founder and senior pastor of Christ's Commission Fellowship (CCF) in the Philippines. Speaking to a hall where the majority of delegates are under 40, he urged them to carry a single resolve throughout their years of ministry: serve God with joy, and finish well.
Tan-Chi cited research suggesting that only 25% of Christian leaders complete their lives and ministries faithfully. He said that figure — which he first heard from a professor and initially dismissed — eventually reshaped his entire approach to developing leaders.
"I began to focus on character: the heart, not activities, not performance, not competence," he said.
He identified common reasons leaders fall away: neglecting personal time with God, failing to maintain boundaries with the opposite sex, and having no one in their lives willing to hold them accountable.
"Most of us, especially in Asian culture, we want to save face and don't want to confront people," Tan-Chi said.

Drawing on 2 Timothy 2:15, he offered three principles for those who want to both serve God with joy and finish their course. The first is a passion to please God above every other audience. "You can please people. You can please your denomination. You can please your church organization. But God is emphatic — you are going to give an account of your life."
The second is a commitment to excellence. Tan-Chi told delegates that Christians who cut corners in their professional work and blame ministry commitments do damage to the gospel's credibility. "Don't use Bible study as an excuse to be a lousy performer in your company," he said. "Whatever you do, do your work as for the Lord rather than for men."
The third principle, he said, is a passion for God's truth — and the courage to teach it without compromise. "Truth is not truth because the majority of people believe it," he said. Truth is not about feelings or preferences either, he emphasized. "Truth is narrow and exclusive." He pressed delegates to hold the scriptural witness against the grain of cultural accommodation on questions of human identity and sexual ethics.
Tan-Chi closed with the story of John Stephen Akhwari, the Tanzanian marathon runner who fell and injured himself during the 1968 Mexico City Olympics but continued to the finish line, arriving hours after the other competitors. When asked why he kept going, Akhwari said his country had not sent him to start the race but to finish it.
"God has told you to run the race," Tan-Chi said. "Serve God with joy. Finish well. It does not mean you will never fall down. It does not mean you will never get hurt. But you get up."
The Arise Asia Congress continues through July 31 in Manila. The event is organized by Arise Asia, a missions mobilization movement focused on engaging unreached people groups across the Asian continent.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[Constitutional court in Pakistan to revisit ruling on married girl]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/constitutional-court-in-pakistan-to-revisit-ruling-on-married-girl</link>
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                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[Christian Daily International / Morning Star News]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Maria Shahbaz’s parents Shahbaz Masih and Erum Shahbaz with attorney Saqib Jillani and rights activist Safdar Chaudhry (R) at Federal Constitutional Court building.]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Christian Daily International-Morning Star News ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Maria Shahbaz’s parents Shahbaz Masih and Erum Shahbaz with attorney Saqib Jillani and rights activist Safdar Chaudhry (R) at Federal Constitutional Court building. ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Mon, 27 Jul 2026 11:39:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[Pakistan’s Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) on Friday (July 24) agreed to revisit its controversial ruling that upheld the marriage of a Muslim man to a 13-year-old Christian girl allegedly abducted, forcibly converted to Islam and married against her will.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
Pakistan’s Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) on Friday (July 24) agreed to revisit its controversial ruling that upheld the marriage of a Muslim man to a 13-year-old Christian girl allegedly abducted, forcibly converted to Islam and married against her will.
A two-member bench comprising Justice Syed Hassan Azhar Rizvi and Justice Aamer Farooq heard a review petition filed by Shahbaz Masih, father of Maria Shahbaz. Supreme Court Advocate Muhammad Saqib Jillani represented the petitioner.
Opening the proceedings, Farooq emphasized that the case was not about any particular religion but concerned the constitutional rights of all Pakistani citizens.
“This issue is not linked to any specific faith,” he observed, assuring the parties that the court remained the guardian of the fundamental rights of every citizen regardless of religious affiliation.
Rizvi, who was part of the bench that issued the court’s Feb. 3 ruling validating the marriage, referred to the record of previous proceedings before the magistrate, sessions court, high court and the FCC.
“The girl consistently stated before every forum that she had married of her own free will,” he noted. “At no point did she indicate that those statements had been made under duress.”
The judge also expressed broader concern about cases involving underage girls who are groomed or lured away from their homes, saying the issue transcended religious divisions and required a societal response.
“We have observed that when girls leave home and marry men of their choice, they are often either killed in the name of honor or rejected by their families, leaving them with nowhere to return,” Rizvi said. “Non-governmental organizations should focus their efforts on addressing this issue.”
He then asked the petitioner’s counsel what the legal status should be of marriages involving children. Jillani replied that any marriage involving a minor should be declared void, adding that this formed the central basis of the review petition.
The lawyer argued that the FCC’s previous judgment had relied on legal precedents that were no longer authoritative following a recent ruling by the Federal Shariat Court (FSC) in the Ali Azhar v. Province of Sindh case. Drawing the bench’s attention to that judgment, Jillani said the FSC had clarified that Islamic law requires not only physical puberty but also mental maturity as an essential condition for marriage.
“The impugned judgment relied on precedents that have since been superseded by the FSC’s decision,” he submitted. “The Federal Shariat Court rejected the continued reliance on outdated jurisprudence suggesting that child marriages remain legally valid despite statutory prohibitions. Such reasoning is inconsistent with recent constitutional and Islamic legal developments and undermines child protection laws.”
Jillani further argued that both Islamic jurisprudence and Pakistani law restrict minors from entering into legally binding contracts.
“Marriage is a contract in Islam,” he told the court. “A minor therefore cannot legally enter into a marriage of his or her own choice. Likewise, any statements recorded by Maria before various courts regarding her age or marriage have no legal value because she was a minor.”
Following the hearing, the FCC issued notices to the alleged husband, Shehryar Ahmad, the Attorney General for Pakistan, and the Advocate General for Punjab Province, scheduling the matter for a date to be fixed after the Supreme Court’s summer recess.
Speaking to reporters afterwards, Jillani welcomed the court’s decision, saying the issuance of notices reflected the importance attached to the case.
“The Attorney General has been directed to personally assist the court regarding the implications of the earlier judgment for fundamental constitutional rights,” he said. “This demonstrates that the court recognizes both the sensitivity and significance of the issues involved.”
Two additional review petitions challenging the FCC’s Feb. 3 judgment have also been filed by the Karachi-based Legal Aid Society and the Lahore-based advocacy group Christians’ True Spirit (CTS). Those petitions are expected to be heard alongside Shahbaz Masih’s petition at the next hearing.
Welcoming the FCC’s decision to admit the review petition for hearing, Tehmina Arora, director of advocacy for Asia of legal advocacy group ADF International, told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News that Maria’s case is a crucial moment in the movement to protect young girls from the crisis of forced marriage in Pakistan.
“We hope that the court will re-examine the evidence that was previously relied upon by the lower courts, deliver justice, and establish a precedent that protects other vulnerable girls from these grave abuses,” said Arora, whose group is supporting the family’s legal struggle.
In an exclusive interview with Christian Daily International-Morning Star News on July 21, Jillani said the FCC had committed multiple legal errors by recognizing a marriage that violated Pakistan’s child marriage laws despite official government records confirming that Maria was under the legal age for marriage.
“The court ignored compelling evidence that the marriage was unlawful because Maria was underage according to her official birth records,” said Jillani, who has litigated several prominent human rights cases in Pakistan.
Although the FCC acknowledged that the Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929, applies equally to Muslims and non-Muslims, he argued that it failed to give effect to the Federal Shariat Court’s authoritative interpretation of Islamic law.
“The FSC made it clear that marriage in Islam is not determined solely by biological puberty or the capacity for sexual relations,” Jillani said. “Marriage establishes legal rights and responsibilities that require mental maturity, psychological stability and economic capacity.”
He noted that the FSC distinguished between the Islamic concepts of Balugh (physical puberty) and Rushd (mental maturity), observing that classical Islamic jurists have long treated them as separate concepts.
“Mental maturity frequently develops later than physical maturity because it depends upon intellectual, emotional and educational development,” Jillani said, adding that the FSC cited classical Islamic scholarship, including the opinion of Imam Abu Hanifa, who regarded 25 years as a reasonable benchmark for attaining full Rushd.
He also challenged the FCC’s conclusion that while the Child Marriage Restraint Act criminalizes child marriage, it does not render such marriages legally void.
The petition further disputes the FCC’s assessment of Maria’s age. In its earlier judgment, the court questioned the reliability of records issued by the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) after noting that Shahbaz Masih had reportedly provided a different age when filing the First Information Report following his daughter’s disappearance.
Jillani argued that the discrepancy should not outweigh official government records.
“Any inconsistency could easily have resulted from Shahbaz Masih’s emotional distress while reporting his daughter’s abduction or from an error by the police officer recording the complaint,” he said. “Such a discrepancy cannot override official documentation establishing that Maria was underage.”
He also rejected the FCC’s suggestion that Maria’s birth certificate and NADRA records were unreliable because they had been issued several years after her birth.
“There was no evidentiary basis for the court to question the authenticity of these official documents,” he said. “This was not a trial in which the petitioner bore the burden of proving their genuineness.”
Maria’s case has become one of Pakistan’s most closely watched religious freedom cases, attracting international scrutiny from human rights organizations and European lawmakers concerned about the abduction, forced conversion and marriage of underage girls from religious minority communities.
On July 9, the European Parliament adopted a resolution highlighting Maria’s case and urging Pakistan to establish a national mechanism for receiving complaints from families of abducted or forcibly converted girls belonging to religious minority communities.
Maria was abducted in July 2025 by Muhammad Ahmad, who allegedly forced her to convert to Islam and compelled her to marry him, according to her family. On Feb. 3, the FCC ruled that the marriage was valid and ordered that she remain in Ahmad’s custody.
International advocacy organizations continue to rank Pakistan among the world’s most difficult countries for Christians. In its 2026 World Watch List, Open Doors ranked Pakistan eighth among the 50 countries where Christians face the most severe persecution, citing systemic discrimination, mob violence, forced conversions, bonded labor and gender-based abuses. The organization also said weak law enforcement and widespread impunity have enabled perpetrators of anti-Christian violence to escape accountability.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[India’s Cockroach protests: Education minister resigns. The government is still deciding how to lose.]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/indias-cockroach-protests-education-minister-resigns-the-government-is-still-deciding-how-to-lose</link>
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                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[Surinder Kaur]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Dharmendra Pradhan, Indias education minister, speaks during an official meeting.]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Dharmendra Pradhan, India's education minister, speaks during an official meeting. Pradhan resigned July 25, 2025, amid student protests over leaks in the NEET national medical entrance exam, becoming the central demand of the youth-led Cockroach Janta Party movement. ]]>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Young protesters create hand-drawn signs at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi during a demonstration organized by the Cockroach Janta Party.]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Christian Daily International ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Young protesters create hand-drawn signs at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi during a demonstration organized by the Cockroach Janta Party. Posters spread across the ground call for accountability over leaks in India's NEET medical entrance exam. Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned July 25, 2025, meeting a central demand of the 49-day protest movement. ]]>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Demonstrators climb atop a Delhi Police barricade to watch proceedings at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi during protests led by the youth-led Cockroach Janta Party.]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Christian Daily International ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Demonstrators climb atop a Delhi Police barricade to watch proceedings at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi during protests led by the youth-led Cockroach Janta Party. The movement, which drew students from across India, pressured the government to address corruption in the NEET national medical entrance exam and ultimately forced Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan's resignation July 25, 2025. ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Sun, 26 Jul 2026 18:23:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[When Christian Daily International last reported on this movement on July 24, India’s government had met two of three demands set by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), a youth-led movement mocking Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) but was withholding an answer on the central one.]]></description>
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When Christian Daily International last reported on this movement on July 24, India’s government had met two of three demands set by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), a youth-led movement mocking Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) but was withholding an answer on the central one. Forty-nine days after the movement’s first, police-permitted march to Jantar Mantar, New Delhi’s designated protest ground, that answer came: Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned on Saturday, July 25.
The reversal
Pradhan submitted his resignation to Prime Minister Modi that morning, in a letter written in formal Hindi and posted to X. He said he was stepping down so “anti-national forces” could not exploit the standoff at Jantar Mantar, and so no student’s future would be entangled in legal trouble. He did not apologize for the leaks in NEET, India’s national medical school entrance exam, that triggered the movement.
President Droupadi Murmu accepted the resignation with immediate effect under Article 75(2) of India’s Constitution, and on the prime minister’s advice gave the education portfolio, as an additional charge, to Minister Pralhad Joshi. Joshi told reporters he accepted the job “with a sense of duty and humility.”
Weeks earlier, Pradhan had dismissed the CJP as the “B-team of terrorists.” As recently as Friday, July 24, a government source told reporters that resignation “equates to running away, and running away is not a solution.” By Saturday afternoon, both lines had been abandoned.
We have done it
At Jantar Mantar, CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke fell to his knees when the news broke, then raised a fist. “We have done it, we have done it,” he shouted, before reading aloud the names of students who had died by suicide after the exam cancellations.
The CJP’s account on X read simply: “Cockroaches won… Democracy won!” The national anthem played, sweets were passed through the crowd, and the metro stations shut around the site reopened.
From his hospital bed at Medanta, activist Sonam Wangchuk posted a photograph of himself flashing a victory sign. “It is a victory of democracy, and we should all cherish it,” he said in a video statement.
Later he struck a more cautious note. The agitation had entered a new phase, he said, and now needed reforms to build “a robust system that makes us a great nation.” “Resignation alone does not make a nation,” he added, urging the federal government to also honor its commitments to Ladakh, the Himalayan region whose own statehood movement had led to his six months in detention last year.
Among those who came to Jantar Mantar that evening was Rajesh Thapa. His daughter Riya, a NEET aspirant, had died after the exam chaos.
“Children are fighting for their rights, if my daughter were here, she might have joined them too,” he told the Press Trust of India. He said that since she could not be there, he had come in her place, “so that nothing like this ever happens to anyone else’s child.”

The deal
After the resignation, CJP spokespeople Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka sat with Ministers J.P. Nadda and Jitendra Singh and announced the protest was over.
Das said the government had accepted all their demands and appealed to protesters to go home. Nadda said FIRs, the criminal complaints police had filed against demonstrators, would be withdrawn in Delhi and BJP-run states, and that families of students who died after the leak would receive “honourable compensation” within existing rules.
Both sides agreed to meet again in four weeks on broader exam reforms.
Don’t make me a hero
In his speech announcing victory, Dipke turned unexpectedly cautionary.
“Don’t make me a hero because Dharmendra Pradhan resigned today,” he told the crowd. “The country has been ruined because of making one person a hero.”
He named specific police officers he held responsible for the July 20 crackdown and warned against complacency. “If we can make a minister resign, what are you?” he said. “Remember, do not mess with cockroach.”
What the deal does not cover
The CJP’s three formal demands, Pradhan’s resignation, compensation, and FIR withdrawal, were all addressed at the press conference. A further demand, pressed separately by opposition leader Rahul Gandhi and by Dipke himself, was not: accountability for the police response on July 20, when officers used batons and tear gas near Parliament.
Gandhi has since written formally to Home Minister Amit Shah, who oversees Delhi Police, demanding accountability for that day. Opposition leader Mayawati went further, calling for the identification of officers who behaved indecently toward female protesters.
A day before the resignation, Gandhi had brought protester Sheikh Irshad Mansuri, who says he suffered pellet wounds in the crackdown, to a press conference and lifted his shirt to show reporters; police have denied using pellet guns. A separate petition from a group called Save India Foundation, seeking criminal action against protesters who allegedly attacked police that day, was declined by the Delhi High Court on July 24; the court disposed of the case and told the group to take its complaint directly to the police instead.
Wangchuk, too, has had to answer online claims that he struck a “secret deal” with the government when he broke his fast in front of two ministers rather than students. He has called his hospital-stay “North Korea-like,” and said he chose to protect students from prosecution over holding out for the resignation himself.
Same event, different story
The government’s messaging afterward told a different story. Ministers queued up to praise Pradhan rather than concede defeat.
Home Minister Amit Shah, whose ministry runs Delhi Police, said Pradhan’s exit showed that for BJP workers, “students are far more important than any position.” He did not address the force used on July 20.
Rajnath Singh, the Defence Minister, called the resignation proof the government treats students’ futures as paramount. BJP president Nitin Nabin said it reflected “the highest standards of integrity and selfless service in public life.”
Modi’s own first social media post after the resignation did not mention Pradhan, the protests, or the CJP. It welcomed Sarnath’s inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Repackaged as sacrifice
Days before the resignation, Sridhar Vembu, founder of the Indian software company Zoho, called the protests a “malicious agenda” meant to plunge India into chaos. Afterward, he praised Pradhan on X as one of the finest public servants he knew, a man who had “put the nation above self.”
Rev. Vijayesh Lal, general secretary of the Evangelical Fellowship of India, wrote about that shift on his personal blog, noting the views were his own, not an official EFI position. Pradhan’s letter, he wrote, never quite conceded that citizens had forced accountability; it spoke instead of preventing “anti-national forces” from exploiting the moment.
“Accountability demanded by citizens must not be repackaged as sacrifice offered by power,” Lal wrote. “A resignation can be personally painful without becoming personally heroic.”
Lal drew a line to Dipke’s own warning against hero worship: a movement born to challenge one personality cult, he argued, should be careful not to build another in its place.
Why the ministry mattered
Part of the answer may lie in Pradhan’s own history in the Sangh Parivar, the network of Hindu nationalist groups built around the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or RSS, the ideological parent body of Modi’s BJP. Pradhan has belonged to the Sangh Parivar since 1983, entering politics through the BJP’s student wing. A 2019 Caravan magazine profile called him the party’s “money man,” crediting his fundraising for much of the BJP’s ground organization in the eastern state of Odisha.
A News Minute investigation published this month found that ONGC, a state oil company under the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, gave more than ₹668 crore (roughly $70 million) through its corporate social responsibility program to twenty RSS-linked organizations between 2013 and 2025, most of it during and after Pradhan’s tenure as petroleum minister. It did not allege he personally directed the donations, and noted similar giving likely would have continued under any minister; it did note he had publicly welcomed ONGC’s funding of a Hindu pilgrimage-site redevelopment in 2021.
The education ministry itself has carried outsized weight for the RSS since the Sangh’s political arm first entered government in 1967, Seema Chishti, a columnist for the Indian news site The Wire, argued this week. Education’s share of the federal budget has fallen by nearly half under Modi, from 4.6 percent in 2013-14 to 2.5 percent in 2025-26, even as the ministry grew more central to the party’s project, a pattern Chishti says helps explain why Pradhan’s record was defended so vigorously.
The cost of showing up
Not everyone connected to the protests has come out ahead.
In Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, Assistant Professor Mohit Bhardwaj said he was fired from Ganna Utpadak PG College days after he returned from Delhi. He said he was called to the principal’s office and told the college had seen video of him at the July 20 protest, and that his services were terminated. “Just like that,” he told the Indian outlet The Quint. A Haryana teacher was suspended in June for similar reasons, then reinstated.
Anchal Gupta, a researcher with Yuva Halla Bol, a youth advocacy group, said this is precisely the risk that remains once the cameras and the crowds move on. “The larger challenge,” she said, is making sure organizers and ordinary participants are protected from retaliation now that the headline demand has been met.
Where things stand
The government has given itself four weeks before the next round of talks. Whether that window produces the education reforms Wangchuk says the movement now exists to pursue, or only the compensation and paperwork already promised, will decide whether Jantar Mantar’s cockroaches call this the end of their fight, or only its first chapter.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[Arise Asia: Turning Gen Z passion into a lasting Asian mission force]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/arise-asia-turning-gen-z-passion-into-a-lasting-asian-mission-force</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/arise-asia-turning-gen-z-passion-into-a-lasting-asian-mission-force</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[Timothy Goropevsek]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Rev. Dr. David Ro delivers the keynote address at the Arise Leadership Summit 2025, declaring, “Asia is moving from being a mission field to a mission force.”]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Christian Daily International ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Rev. Dr. David Ro delivers the keynote address at the Arise Leadership Summit 2025, declaring, “Asia is moving from being a mission field to a mission force.” ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Sun, 26 Jul 2026 11:45:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[This coming week, some four thousand young leaders from across Asia and beyond will converge on Manila, Philippines, for the Arise Asia 2026 Congress, held July 27–31. For Rev. Dr. David Ro, the co-founder and executive director of Arise Asia, the gathering is the next big step on a longer journey.]]></description>
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This coming week, some four thousand young leaders from across Asia and beyond will converge on Manila, Philippines, for the Arise Asia 2026 Congress, held July 27–31. For Rev. Dr. David Ro, the co-founder and executive director of Arise Asia, the gathering is the next big step on a longer journey: one he hopes will carry a generation to the places where the gospel has not yet been named.
Ro spoke with Christian Daily International on the sidelines of last year’s Arise Leadership Summit where he expressed his excitement about the rapid growth he has witnessed since the movements beginning in 2023. "The main thing is that I'm getting a sense now that the leaders we have are not just catching the vision, but they're really owning it and bringing it back to their own context," he said. "This is not just coming to an event overseas and then going back. They're going to bring this movement into their own country and their own churches."
More than 200 people have committed to long-term cross-cultural mission at a recent gathering, Ro said, and those commitments are what concern him most. "We have lots of young people who have committed, and we've got to help them follow up on that commitment," he said. "That will be the true measure of long-term success for Arise."
Building toward Manila: turning collaboration into something concrete
Much of the groundwork for the Congress has already been laid at the national level. At the Arise Leadership Summit last year, national committees gathered to build five-year strategy plans for their countries, including how many people they hope to send to the 2026 Congress, how they will support and finance them, and how they will follow up with those who make commitments.
"I think that will be the most significant thing," Ro said of that process. "It solidifies the national teams to move forward with their strategies." That, in his view, is what separates Arise from the leadership conferences he and others have attended for years, where people "hear about it, come in and meet in meetings, and then go back and do their own thing."
This time, he said, participants "truly are going to come in and commit to a collaborative effort," because now they have something concrete to collaborate around.
Ro cautioned that the language of collaboration risks becoming empty if there is no specific direction. "Everyone talks about collaboration on the high level and it sounds good. No one's against that. You can't be against it, to be a Christian," he said. "But what is the actual collaborative thing we can do together?"
His answer is to mobilize young people to go where there is no gospel, with different ministries working side by side rather than any single agency owning the effort. "It's not just one ministry like OM doing it, or YWAM, or OMF, or even the national alliance. We're bringing the whole church to see how we can collaborate."
Sending — and supporting
For all the enthusiasm young people bring, Ro said a commitment card is not a missionary. Therefore, Arise is building support at two levels. At the higher, more structured end is a three-year training program, developed with a range of mission agencies supplying mentors and drawing on training material Arise owns.
"We're going to really make sure these leaders are trained well," he said, though he cautioned it will take a year or two to roll out fully.
At the grassroots level, the pathways are more organic: young people joining existing mission agencies or being sent by their own churches and denominations.
Ro gave an example of three young people he met who received their calling at an Arise event and are now serving with the Christian and Missionary Alliance. He has heard of a group from another country coming into Thailand with Pioneers. "I just hear these anecdotal stories of people automatically doing that," he said.
His central concern is the gap between commitment and deployment. "I know there are a lot of people who committed that are still waiting to follow up," he said, adding that they are working on connecting with them to ensure they can follow through.
His counsel to every national committee is to not try to do everything at once. "Focus first on one team, find one place of an unreached people group in your own country. Send that team, find a missionary working in that area, send that team to work with that missionary, provide all the training. Let's get one team going first as a model — and then from there we can multiply," he said.
The old wineskin has to bless and release the new wineskin
Asked whether the movement's youthful energy risks straining the structures meant to carry it, Ro pointed to the image of the wineskins in Matthew 9:17. "Yes, we need the new wineskin," he said, speaking about the younger generation. "But the old wineskin has to still bless and release."
The two cannot be pitted against each other, he said. "If we only go with the new wineskin, the movement will go fast, but it will eventually die out," he said, "because the old wineskin still has all the power and the resources and the structures behind it. All they have to do is be against it and it'll stop the new wineskin."
Working with the established institutions, he said, is not always easy. Ro highlights two obstacles in particular.
The first is the mission agencies. "In the mission world they're saying, young people, we just don't have time for them until they're ready to commit long-term. But you won't get long-term missionaries with that kind of mindset," he said. "We have to convince them that working with 20-year-olds is important."
The second is the local church. "These church leaders don't want to release their young people, because they’re afraid that they're going to lose their best people to the mission field."
His response, however, is that sending people "to the ends of the earth" is part of the church's own mission. And the investment returns. "When you release young people to go and they come back, it'll actually benefit the church in the long run," he said. "They'll be on fire for God and they will bring more energy and mission for the church."
Bridging the generations — and staying authentic
Ro's focus is on the young, but he acknowledges that "young people are very messy," as one of the speakers at last year’s Arise Leadership Summit put it. Still, the church cannot wait for a generation to become theologically polished and mission-ready before engaging it, he said. "If we're expecting mature people who are theologically educated with all this Christian character before they're ready to go, then we're not going to reach this generation. Instead, we're going to journey with them through that process."
What is critical when raising Gen Z for mission, he said, is to recognize that they prize authenticity in a way even millennials did not. He pointed to TikTok videos where Gen Z shares raw emotions about the joys and challenges they face. "They like the authenticity of life," he said.
Ro connects the implications to a framework he has laid out, which distinguishes between "platforms" — the public work — and "pathways," the private walk, warning that influence without integrity is dangerous and blind. "When they look at us, we've got to be very authentic," Ro said. "They're just going to look at a platform and say, that's all fake. You've got to come down to what's real underneath. That's what they're really interested in."
Missions is not a Western construct, it is biblical
Ro also addressed a critique that has grown more common among some Asian mission leaders: that cross-cultural sending is tainted by colonialism. He described a mindset in which "the West has done a lot of damage to missions," and a preference for talking about "mission" as the church's local witness rather than "missions" as the sending of people across cultures. Read between the lines, he said, the message becomes: "The West to the rest was a bad model, so we're not going to do it anymore."
Ro disagrees, and he said the stakes are high. "If that mindset comes into the younger generation, then we will never have missionaries out to where there's no gospel, because the church will only grow stronger and deeper where it's at. It won't go beyond." Reaching the hardest places, he said, "takes a lot of energy, you have to sacrifice yourself, you could possibly die — and if we're just multiplying within our own context, we will never get out there."
He points to the Apostle Paul’s ambition to preach where Christ had not been named and argues that the biblical foundation for missions remains valid and necessary. "This is not a Western construct. This is a biblical thing that the Apostle Paul did," Ro said.
He acknowledges Western failings but emphasizes that this does not nullify the calling: "Yes, they made mistakes, but at least they laid down their children and came. Let's remember there's some good: that's why we have the churches here in Asia, because of what they did. So let's honor and celebrate that."
He said he learned that posture from the church in mainland China, which carries little of the anti-Western baggage because foreign missionaries were expelled generations ago. "They see the grave sites where missionaries came and died and buried their kids here," he said. "They have a real positive image of missionaries."
He thanks God for the Hudson Taylors and William Careys who brought the gospel to Asia and urges the church to learn from their mistakes without abandoning their calling.
15% going to missions, 85% revitalizing the church
Asked what success would look like five to ten years out, Ro said, "My success would look like thousands of young people who have committed themselves to go to a place where there's no gospel, and then follow up on that commitment, at least for a year."
Some 10,000 young people have come through Arise events already. "Fifteen percent have committed to go long-term. Eighty-five percent are still very open to it," he said. "But we want everyone to at least give one year of their life to go."
Even those who return, he said, will change the church they come back to. "The 15% may go long-term. The 85%, after a year, may come back and revitalize the church and missions. But that will change the whole church."
Looking at the conference starting this week, Ro emphasized, "This is not just about another conference. It's about a generation stepping into its calling — for the nations, for the gospel, for the glory of God."]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[India's Cockroach protests: They wanted one resignation. They got tear gas, a hunger strike, and half a deal.]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/india-s-cockroach-protests-they-wanted-one-resignation-they-got-tear-gas-a-hunger-strike-and-half-a-deal</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/india-s-cockroach-protests-they-wanted-one-resignation-they-got-tear-gas-a-hunger-strike-and-half-a-deal</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[Surinder Kaur]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Supporters of Indias Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) ride a barricade during a protest demand the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over examination paper leaks, at Jantar Mantar on July 24, 2026 in New Delhi, India]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ NEW DELHI, INDIA - JULY 24: Supporters of India's Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) ride a barricade during a protest demand the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over examination paper leaks, at Jantar Mantar on July 24, 2026 in New Delhi, India. A mix of protesters gathered in New Delhi on Monday as discontent bubbled over myriad issues, and as Sonam Wangchuk, an activist who was fasting in protest, was forcibly taken to hospital on Sunday. Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi was detained on Tuesday among others, as the movement continues well into the week. ]]>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Students protest Indias examination system in Delhi, India on July 23, 2026. One demonstrator holds a sign reading Stayfree is way more secure than the system, at least it doesnt leak — a reference to the menstrual pad brand and a pointed jab at the e]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Christian Daily International ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Students protest India's examination system in Delhi, India on July 23, 2026. One demonstrator holds a sign reading "Stayfree is way more secure than the system, at least it doesn't leak" — a reference to the menstrual pad brand and a pointed jab at the exam paper leaks that have roiled India's national testing bodies. ]]>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Protesters climb atop a structure spray-painted with Gen-Z Revolution!!! during demonstrations against Indias examination system in Delhi on July 23, 2026. The student-led protests, which spread across the country, demanded accountability from educatio]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Christian Daily International ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Protesters climb atop a structure spray-painted with "Gen-Z Revolution!!!" during demonstrations against India's examination system in Delhi on July 23, 2026. The student-led protests, which spread across the country, demanded accountability from education officials after paper leaks in competitive national exams. ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Fri, 24 Jul 2026 21:25:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[India’s government has given itself until Saturday afternoon (July 25) to answer the one demand it has not yet met: whether Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan will lose his job.]]></description>
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India’s government has given itself until Saturday afternoon (July 25) to answer the one demand it has not yet met: whether Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan will lose his job.
For weeks, a youth-led protest movement has demanded his resignation over a leaked medical school entrance exam. This past week alone brought tear gas at the gates of Parliament, a 26-day hunger strike that ended only after midnight negotiations, and the Leader of the Opposition dragged bleeding from a sit-in outside the Prime Minister’s residence.
On Friday, July 24, the government agreed to two of the movement’s three demands. Pradhan’s job was not one of them.
When Christian Daily International last reported on this movement, called the “Cockroach Janta Party,” the mood was closer to a street festival than a standoff. It was June 6, and thousands had just held the movement’s first march, peacefully, with a police permit. Seven weeks later, that peaceful mood is gone.
A fast begins
The Cockroach Janta Party, or CJP, a satirical, Gen Z-led movement mocking Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), had by early June amassed a social media following larger than the BJP’s own, close to 26 million followers on Instagram at last count. That number reflects online supporters, not registered members.
Its grievance never changed: accountability for the leaked National Eligibility cum Entrance Test, known as NEET, and a botched school-grading system, both under Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s watch.

What changed was who joined the fight. On June 28, Sonam Wangchuk, a Ladakhi engineer, education reformer, and Ramon Magsaysay Award winner already treated by CJP supporters as an “honorary cockroach,” began an indefinite hunger strike at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi’s designated protest ground. Six students from the All India Students Association fasted alongside him.
His health declined steadily even as opposition leaders, actors, and public intellectuals urged him to stop. By mid-July he had lost close to 20 pounds.
On July 14, a delegation of Christian leaders came to express solidarity with the movement and to sit with Wangchuk at Jantar Mantar. Among them were veteran human rights activist John Dayal, Father Susai Sebastian, a Catholic priest, Michael Williams, and Minakshi Singh, who helped coordinate the visit. Several came in a personal capacity rather than representing any single church or organization.
They prayed with Wangchuk. Singh later said the visit stayed with her. “Seeing the whole situation there was very painful,” she said, describing a generation that felt scattered and unheard.
By mid-July, thousands of messages arrived daily asking Wangchuk to break his fast. He refused, arguing that ending it without a government response would send the wrong signal.
Instead, he urged supporters to turn out for the CJP’s planned July 20 march to Parliament, dubbed “Chalo Sansad,” and asked schools and colleges to treat the day as a lesson in civic participation. He noted that Indian governments had fallen before under public pressure, once even over onion prices. “Do the people of India love their children’s lives and education more, or onions?” he asked.
Removed by force
Before dawn on July 19, Delhi Police moved into Jantar Mantar and carried Wangchuk out amid what officials called “a slight commotion.” He was taken to Safdarjung Hospital, a government facility, weighing about 125 pounds, some 20 pounds lighter than when he began fasting. Police cited Delhi High Court directions and his deteriorating health. CJP said he had been manhandled and forcefully removed.
Within hours, CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke, a postgraduate in public relations from Boston University, began his own hunger strike at the same spot. The party sharpened its demand to also call for Modi’s resignation.
Tens of thousands at the gates of Parliament
The confrontation reached its sharpest point on July 20, the opening day of Parliament’s Monsoon Session, when tens of thousands of CJP supporters, by some estimates considerably more, tried to march to Parliament itself, far exceeding what organizers had expected and fueled by anger over Wangchuk’s removal.
Police used batons that morning, then fired tear gas by afternoon to stop protesters nearing Parliament. Several metro stations along the route were shut.

Police said close to 180 people were hurt, 118 of them officers, and detained roughly 70 protesters, some of whom, they said, had thrown stones. Independent reporting by media outlets put the number of injured students alone at more than 100, nearly double the police’s total for all protesters combined. Dipke alleged authorities had planned to let “goons” disrupt the march and blame protesters, a claim police did not directly address. Amnesty International India called it a possible breach of legality and proportionality.
That night, Dipke told the roughly 2,000 protesters who stayed that this was only the movement’s “first call to march.” Earlier that day, two CJP spokespeople had waited four hours to see Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda, then gotten just ten minutes with him, “a waste of our time,” spokesperson Ashutosh Ranka said. Nadda called the meeting cordial.
Churches respond
Christian bodies were among the first religious institutions in the country to speak out. On July 20, the Church of North India’s Delhi diocese, led by Bishop Paul Swarup, called for a transparent investigation into the exam leaks, citing scripture to affirm that every student deserves a system “founded upon honesty, fairness, transparency, and equal opportunity.”
The next morning, the Evangelical Fellowship of India said the state “carries a greater responsibility because it possesses greater power” than protesters and pressed for an independent inquiry into the crackdown. The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India went further, calling the police action “a heartbreaking assault on the very soul of our democracy” and voicing solidarity with Wangchuk during his hospitalization.
Many in Delhi’s Christian community have also been present in person. The historic Free Church on Parliament Street, next to Jantar Mantar, has been serving for the past several days as the site for distributing water, food, ORS, and light snacks to protesters and others gathered there, an effort coordinated by Christians in Delhi together with the Diocese of Delhi, CNI. An appeal circulated within the city’s Christian community, and individuals and organizations have responded with supplies and volunteers.
Sikh institutions moved in a similar way. Gurdwara Bangla Sahib and other gurdwaras across the city opened their doors after the July 20 crackdown, offering food, first aid, and a place to sleep to protesters fleeing tear gas and baton charges, while separate groups of Sikh volunteers set up a langar (free community kitchen) directly at Jantar Mantar, distributing meals, blankets, and mats to those camping at the protest site.
Not all of it has gone smoothly. Recently a team of Christian volunteers headed toward Jantar Mantar was stopped by police in the Nizamuddin area and told to turn back or face arrest. One local pastor involved in the effort, who asked not to be named, called it an instance of random profiling.
A bloodied nose outside the Prime Minister’s house
The day after the march, Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge, and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra marched to Modi’s residence, demanding his resignation over the police action. A minister from the Prime Minister’s Office came out to negotiate, but talks collapsed when Congress refused to drop its demands.
Gandhi sat on the road outside the residence through the afternoon. Around 6:40 p.m., police physically removed him along with his sister and other lawmakers. Videos showed him bleeding from the nose as he was dragged away. Before being removed, he said, “An attack on students is an attack on every Indian family.”
Cameras, courts, and claims of intimidation
A Public Interest Litigation before the Delhi High Court, filed by former student union president Aishe Ghosh, alleged Delhi Police had installed a permanent surveillance tower at Jantar Mantar capable of facial recognition, filming protesters continuously, even while eating or resting. The court admitted the matter for hearing.
Plainclothes police were separately reported operating during the crackdowns. Disability rights groups alleged that one protester, identified as Sheikh Irshad Mansuri, 25, suffered pellet wounds to his chest, neck, and face and was being treated at Delhi’s Lady Hardinge Medical College Hospital, and warned that shock batons were also being used. Police denied using pellet guns at all, calling the claim “completely false and misleading.” On Friday, July 24, Rahul Gandhi brought Mansuri to a press conference and lifted his shirt to show reporters the wounds, calling Pradhan a “criminal education minister” and demanding his removal.
Parliament was repeatedly adjourned through 20 – 24 July. Kharge told reporters his microphone was switched off moments after he rose to raise the issue, calling it a mockery of democracy.
The fast ends, in writing
After he was forcibly taken to hospital on July 19, Wangchuk’s condition remained precarious, with doctors reporting low blood sugar, dangerously low potassium, and dehydration. His wife, Gitanjali Angmo, asked the Delhi High Court to let him transfer to a private hospital, arguing his stay at the government facility amounted to confinement without consent. A single judge declined, but a two-judge bench reversed that on appeal on July 21 and ordered his immediate transfer to Medanta Hospital, ruling it necessary to protect his health and rights.
Wangchuk broke his 26-day fast late on July 23, before two federal ministers at Medanta Hospital. His team said the government had given written assurance that accountability in the exam system would be discussed on the floor of Parliament, that families of students who died by suicide would receive compensation, and that no cases would be filed against peaceful protesters. “End of hunger,” his team wrote. “Beginning of accountability.”
Modi responded personally: “I pray to the Almighty that Sonam ji remains healthy.”
The message came from a government that, just over three months earlier, had released Wangchuk after nearly six months in detention under India’s National Security Act, a law that permits imprisonment without trial for up to a year. He had been held since September 2025, after protests demanding statehood for Ladakh turned deadly. Dozens of others arrested in that crackdown remained in custody for months afterward, cases the Bar Association president in Leh, Mohd Shafi Lassu, called a “pressure tactic by the administration.”
A late-night video and a fast-track court
Close to midnight on July 23, Modi released his own video message, his first direct comment on the crisis after two months of silence. He said those responsible for the leak had been caught and jailed, that 2.2 million students had been given a retest, and that a bill to punish future leaks would go before Parliament. He said nothing about Pradhan. Congress leader Jairam Ramesh noted the government had until recently told a parliamentary committee no leak had occurred at all.
The timing carried its own irony. Hours earlier, the Central Bureau of Investigation had given a “clean chit” to Sanjeev Mukhiya, the alleged kingpin behind a separate, earlier NEET paper leak scandal from 2024, distinct from the 2026 leak driving the current protests.
The same day, the Delhi High Court appointed a judge to head a fast-track court dedicated to exam-fraud cases, a first concrete step on one of Modi’s promised reforms.
Universities, a chief justice, and a battle over the narrative
Delhi University and Jawaharlal Nehru University both issued advisories telling students to stay away from Jantar Mantar, citing Supreme Court directions and warning of disciplinary action. Kharge accused the government of turning universities into “propaganda outlets.” Gandhi was blunter: “How dare you threaten students for exercising their democratic rights?”
Chief Justice Surya Kant, whose “cockroaches” remark started the movement, rejected reports that he had refused to hear a challenge to the crackdown, saying no formal petition existed, only a lawyer’s letter, and called the reporting “irresponsible and reckless.”
Solidarity protests took place this week in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Patna, and Guwahati among other places. Huge crowds were reported in Mumbai and Patna.
Talks at the Constitution Club
On Friday, July 24, CJP spokespeople Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka met ministers Nadda and Jitendra Singh for nearly two hours at the Constitution Club of India, a historic meeting place for lawmakers. It was the second round after an earlier meeting on July 20 ended without agreement.
As per statements by the CJP leaders after the meeting, the government agreed in principle to two of CJP’s three demands: withdrawing cases against protesters and paying roughly ₹1 crore (roughly $104,000) in compensation to each family that lost a child to suicide linked to the leak.
On the central demand, Pradhan’s resignation, the government asked for more time. “The government has sought time till tomorrow afternoon to respond,” Ranka said, adding CJP would not soften its position. “Nothing short of Pradhan’s resignation or his removal would be acceptable,” he said.
Das raised a separate complaint: that Delhi Police had been detaining young people at random since the previous night, including some simply heading home or delivering food, and had manhandled lawyers trying to help them. He said the government first denied it, then assured CJP the incidents would stop.
What longtime activists see in this
Shabnam Hashmi has spent more than four decades working to bridge India’s religious and communal divides, since her brother, the street theater artist Safdar Hashmi, was murdered while performing in 1989. She founded ANHAD, a group working on secularism and communal harmony, in the aftermath of the 2002 Gujarat riots.
What stands out to her about Jantar Mantar is who has shown up. “Students, workers, job seekers, activists, intellectuals, filmmakers and ordinary citizens from different regions, communities, and faiths are standing together,” she told CDI. In her assessment, it may be the first protest in years to openly challenge India’s Hindu-Muslim political narrative.
She also sees a generational shift in how the movement organizes itself. Young Indians, she said, are building “decentralized networks that are fast, creative, and driven by collective action” rather than waiting on traditional political leadership.
John Dayal, the human rights activist who visited Wangchuk at Jantar Mantar earlier in July, offered his own assessment of the week’s events.
“Six weeks ago, I wrote that the cockroaches had made this government look small and a little naked,” he said. “It has taken tear gas, a 26-day fast, and the Leader of the Opposition dragged away bleeding to make it look, for a moment, almost reasonable, paying the families it should have paid weeks ago, promising not to prosecute the young people it beat in the street. What it still will not do is answer for the one man responsible. A government that will compensate the dead but will not name the living men responsible for those deaths, is not being reasonable, it is doing arithmetic on how much accountability it can afford.”
Where things stand
That is where matters stood as the week closed. The government has moved on compensation and legal protection, concessions previously unthinkable from an administration that stayed silent for two months. What it has not done is answer the question that started all of this: whether Pradhan would keep his job, a decision it has promised within a day.
The sit-in at Jantar Mantar continues, six weeks after it began as a peaceful, permitted march — the kind of origin story that has preceded Gen Z uprisings across South Asia. Whether this one joins that list may depend on what the government ultimately decides.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[Muslims protest construction of church building in Indonesia]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/muslims-protest-construction-of-church-building-in-indonesia</link>
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                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[Morning Star News]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[The 99-dome mosque in Makassar, South Sulawesi Province, Indonesia.]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Kementerian Pariwisata dan Ekonomi Kreatif Indonesia, Creative Commons ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ The 99-dome mosque in Makassar, South Sulawesi Province, Indonesia. ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Fri, 24 Jul 2026 10:26:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[Muslims in Indonesia on July 7 protested construction of a church building in South Sulawesi Province, falsely claiming it had not fulfilled legal requirements, sources said.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
Muslims in Indonesia on July 7 protested construction of a church building in South Sulawesi Province, falsely claiming it had not fulfilled legal requirements, sources said.
The Muslims also baselessly accused the church of manipulating supporting documents, excluding locals from the permit process, failing to conduct outreach, and asserted the land for the proposed worship building was merely a residential house.
The protest occurred despite local authorities granting a construction permit after concluding all legal conditions had been met, several sources reported.
The demonstration by several dozen people who said they were local residents took place on July 7 at the village head office at Kompleks Mangga Tiga Blok BI No. 1, Jalan Mangga, Paccerakkang village, Biringkanaya District, Makassar, capital of South Sulawesi Province, according to various sources.
Carrying a banner containing their signed statement of opposition, the protesters demanded the cancellation of plans to build the Toraja Christian Church, Lanraki Congregation, on Lorong VI Street, Paccerakkang, Biringkanaya District, Makassar. The protesters said the church should not be built in their area.
In response, the local Forum for Religious Harmony (Forum Kerja Sama Umat Beragama, FKUB) said the church’s management had completed all legally required documents and it had issued a recommendation for construction on April 14.
“All requirements for building the church have been met, and the church even put up a construction notice banner for a month, so the FKUB plenary could proceed and issue a recommendation to the city government,” FKUB Makassar Vice Chairman Hasan Pinang told reporters, according to BBC.com.
Hasan said the church applied for the recommendation in January and that FKUB followed up with a field verification and a public meeting in February.
“At that meeting, both residents who supported and those who had not yet stated a position were present,” he added, promising to continue socialization and mediation to find a resolution, according to the Facebook account Christianity in Indonesia.
FKUB Makassar Chairman Arifuddin Ahmad handed the recommendation letter to the head of the church construction committee, Makis Wata, on April 14 after completing the socialization process, according to KarebaToraja.com.
“There was a month of outreach about the planned construction of the Toraja Christian church in Paccerakkang. By the deadline, no written letters of objection had been submitted to FKUB Makassar,” Arifuddin said when presenting the recommendation.
To prevent manipulation of data by opponents, FKUB would accept only written objections with signatures and wet stamps or barcodes, Arifuddin told KarebaToraja.com. Based on that recommendation, the church committee posted a banner announcing the planned construction on the provided land for one month. The banner instructed protesters to submit written objections to FKUB Makassar at Jalan Teduh Bersinar, Blok J No. 2, Makassar.
No responses or objections were submitted to FKUB by nearby residents, BBC.com reported.
Affirming that the church had received an official recommendation, the Chairman of the Fellowship of Churches in Indonesia for South and Southeast Sulawesi, Yohanis Metris, expressed disbelief that a group claiming to be local residents still opposed the construction.
“I’m confused by the community’s disposition. We followed all legal procedures. The authorities have already approved it,” Makis Wata told Morning Star News, adding that meetings had been held with various stakeholders.
One resident who wished to remain anonymous claimed the opposition stemmed from the area being majority Muslim, having no local Christian congregation, lacking required government documents, and the alleged unilateral manner of the planned construction without neighbors’ consent.
Without showing supporting evidence, the resident accused the church of paying Muslims between Rp 100,000 and Rp 500,000 (about $6.50 and 33) to support the project.
“We reject it because they are outsiders wanting to build a church in our area. That’s why people are angry. This is not arbitrary rejection; why build a church without consent, unilaterally like that?” the resident said, as reported by BBC.com.
The resident also said the land intended for the church had previously been used as a chicken coop.
“After the chicken coop, it became a meeting place, like a hall. They used it for worship because it’s far from the village. Now they want to build a church,” he said.
There have been two previous acts of opposition since the church committee began preparing the required government documents in 2022. The first, according to the Makassar Legal Aid Institute, involved installing a banner on Feb. 4, 2025, which local residents removed shortly after. The banner warned that the presence of a church would spark interreligious hostility.
David Herson Tonius, advisor at the Presidential Communications Office, followed up the case by calling the church construction committee chairman, Makis Wata, and later urged the public to monitor developments via his Instagram account, davidherson_official.
“We must keep an eye on this so the construction of the Toraja church in Paccerakkang, Makassar, can continue. It was rejected even though it has permissions and complete documents. The state guarantees every citizen the right to worship according to their beliefs, and freedom of worship is a right of all citizens,” he said.
Reacting to David’s post, richamariana12345 urged the government to act firmly.
“The government must be strict, because it looks like things are being allowed to slide. Honestly, the government has been lenient. People assume they can reject and expel those who disagree... Aren’t they ashamed to be frightened by another faith’s worship? How weak is your faith? It’s worrying that intolerant groups are growing. What will our country become if we keep hating each other...!!!”
Indonesia for All Movement (Pergerakan Indonesia untuk Semua, PIS) also questioned why the case had arisen.
“If all state-required conditions have been met, why the construction of a house of worship still be obstructed?”
Blaming the Joint Regulation of the Minister of Religious Affairs and the Minister of Home Affairs (PBM) Nos. 8 and 9 of 2006 for complicating construction of minority houses of worship, the group also criticized FKUB as adding an extra bureaucratic layer.
PIS noted that FKUB’s composition, based on the number of adherents in a region, often leaves minorities with far fewer representatives in heavily single-faith areas, creating potential for majoritarian influence on recommendations despite FKUB’s stated aim of preserving harmony. Another frequent criticism is that the right to build a house of worship effectively depends on neighbors’ acceptance.
“Even when administrative requirements are complete, the church construction can still be blocked by on-the-ground rejection,” they said.
Reports show the Toraja Christian Church Lanraki congregation has used the site since 1998, when the area was sparsely populated. Yohanis said the congregation used a building there for worship without receiving objections.
“I thought their worship went on without issue,” he added.
But Yohanis said the situation changed when the congregation sought to upgrade the building into a formal church.
“The plan to build the church has been in discussion perhaps two or three years,” he told BBC.com]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[Young Christians find AI easier to talk to than humans — and that is a problem, pastors say]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/young-christians-find-ai-easier-to-talk-to-than-humans-and-that-is-a-problem-pastors-say</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/young-christians-find-ai-easier-to-talk-to-than-humans-and-that-is-a-problem-pastors-say</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[A young adult consults his phone]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ A young adult consults his phone. For a growing number of Christians in their 20s and 30s, AI has become the first stop for questions about Scripture and faith. ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Thu, 23 Jul 2026 17:02:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[A growing number of Christians in their 20s and 30s are bringing their questions about Scripture, spiritual struggles, and life decisions to generative AI before they bring them to a pastor or church elder.]]></description>
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A growing number of Christians in their 20s and 30s are bringing their questions about Scripture, spiritual struggles, and life decisions to generative AI before they bring them to a pastor or church elder.
The shift reflects how deeply AI tools have embedded themselves in daily life for younger adults who grew up in a digital environment. For this generation, AI functions less like a search engine and more like an always-available conversation partner — one that asks nothing in return.
Korean theological scholars say the trend raises significant questions about faith formation, the future of pastoral care, and the proper place of technology in Christian discipleship, according to reporting by Christian Daily Korea.
"Behind this phenomenon of young people turning to AI first lies 'the cost of relationships' and 'fear of uncertainty,'" said Choi Gwang-jin, head chaplain of Hoseo University and a former president of the Korean Society of Systematic Theology.
A conversation with another person, Choi explained, is never merely a transaction. It involves managing emotions, navigating social expectations, exposing one's ignorance, and finding the right time to ask. When a young believer shares a spiritual struggle with a pastor or church member, he said, advice and judgment often arrive alongside the response — and that prospect can feel like a risk not worth taking.
"Young people sometimes feel the burden of being evaluated or condemned in that process," Choi told Christian Daily Korea.
Why AI wins the first conversation
Books present a similar barrier, Choi argued. Reading demands patience and requires the reader to follow an author's logic on the author's terms. AI does the opposite: it restructures content around the user's question, adjusts its level of explanation, and responds instantly. A request such as "summarize this from a pastoral-theological perspective for someone in their 20s" produces a tailored reply in seconds.
That responsiveness is why many young people no longer think of AI as merely a reference tool, Choi said. They treat it as a personal assistant.
The psychological dynamic matters too. "Asking a person a question means revealing one's own inadequacies," he said, "but AI carries no risk of mocking the user or damaging a relationship, so the psychological burden is comparatively lower." Spiritual struggles — precisely the domain where vulnerability is highest — are where that difference becomes most pronounced.
What AI cannot do
Still, Choi was direct about AI's limits. Knowledge and meaning are not the same thing.
"AI can present answers to questions, but it cannot fill the meaning of life," he said. "What AI provides is quantity of knowledge, whereas conversation with a person conveys the quality of knowledge together with warmth."
He also pushed back against any reading of the trend as evidence that young people have turned away from human connection altogether. The problem, he said, is not indifference to community but exhaustion from wounded relationships.
"If they encounter a truly personal community that accepts them as they are and can be trusted, young people will once again choose relationships with people," Choi said. He added that as technology becomes more capable, the desire for what is distinctly human will deepen rather than diminish.
Choi described three qualities in the kind of person young adults are waiting for. The first is someone who listens to a question all the way through before offering a correct answer. "AI excels at finding the right answer, but a person is a being who can look at the other's heart and pain alongside them," he said. "What young people need is not a problem-solver who fixes issues, but a companion who endures the weight of their worries together with them."
The second quality is honesty about one's own failures. A person who speaks openly about weakness rather than projecting competence is far more likely to be trusted by younger believers as a genuine elder, Choi said.
Third, he stressed the need for flexibility — the ability to hold firm to the values of faith while communicating in language the next generation can actually receive, and to ask what young people think rather than simply delivering accumulated wisdom from above.
"Young people may appear to have left the church," Choi said, "but in reality they are waiting for an adult who will respect them as a full human being. Becoming a better person for someone begins not with grand achievements, but with the small daily effort to understand the heart of the person you meet."
A tool, not a judge
Lee Seung-gu, a distinguished professor at Hapdong Theological Seminary, told Christian Daily Korea that using generative AI is not inherently problematic — but treating it as a final authority is.
"Multiple experts have consistently pointed out that AI can provide a fairly high level of response on general topics, but errors can appear on specific and detailed matters," Lee said. A response from an AI can reasonably serve as one reference point among many — alongside books, commentaries, and the counsel of other people — but it should never be treated as settled.
"The issue is not using AI itself," Lee said, "but using it as one reference among books, diverse materials, and the opinions of others." He called for a balanced approach that draws on a range of sources before reaching any conclusion, and warned against letting convenience substitute for the harder work of weighing multiple perspectives.
The threat to contemplation
Seo Chang-won, chairman of the Korean Reformed Preaching Institute and a former professor at Chongshin University Graduate School of Theology, widened the frame beyond youth ministry. The rise of AI, he argued, poses a challenge to deep faith formation across every age group.
The concern is not simply about accuracy. It is about what happens to the interior life when information becomes too easy to obtain.
"Using AI allows one to obtain desired information easily and quickly, but in that process, the training of thinking deeply, reflecting, and looking back on one's own life may gradually diminish," Seo told Christian Daily Korea. "Simply obtaining knowledge and information, and having that knowledge flow into one's life, are entirely different matters. True learning must necessarily pass through a process of deep reflection."
Seo warned that a faith built on fast information without reflective digestion risks producing passive Christians — believers who are easily swayed by fragments of knowledge rather than grounded in a life shaped by sustained encounter with Scripture and God.
"Rather than raising Christians who actively and voluntarily follow and commit to God, a passive faith attitude may be formed, with the result that even spiritual zeal begins to cool," he said.
He also raised a concern about the pulpit. If congregants are habituated to content that is short, immediately useful, and emotionally stimulating, pressure may grow on preachers to match that register — at the cost of sermons that lead listeners into slower, deeper engagement with the Word.
"All the more in the AI age, the church must redouble its pastoral efforts to help believers deeply meditate on God and the Word," Seo said. He called guiding believers to explore the spiritual world on their own terms, and to think seriously about God, a central responsibility of the church in the current moment.
Experts who spoke with Christian Daily Korea agreed that AI's convenience need not be rejected — but that it should be held alongside a renewed commitment to the things technology cannot replicate: genuine community, honest relationships, and the slow, irreplaceable work of spiritual formation.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[Christians imprisoned under India’s ‘anti-conversion’ law]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/christians-imprisoned-under-indias-anti-conversion-law</link>
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                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[Morning Star News]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Mahakaleshwar Temple, dedicated to Hindu god Shiva in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh, India.]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Mahakaleshwar Temple, dedicated to Hindu god Shiva in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh, India. ]]>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Chhot Singh Dhurve, one of six pastors imprisoned under Madhya Pradesh, India’s ‘anti-conversion’ law.]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Morning Star News ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Chhot Singh Dhurve, one of six pastors imprisoned under Madhya Pradesh, India’s ‘anti-conversion’ law. ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Thu, 23 Jul 2026 11:47:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[Six pastors and another Christian in India have begun serving their five-year prison sentences under an “anti-conversion” law, two years after they were falsely accused at a child’s birthday party, sources said.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
Six pastors and another Christian in India have begun serving their five-year prison sentences under an “anti-conversion” law, two years after they were falsely accused at a child’s birthday party, sources said.
The Christians were convicted on June 12 of “promoting enmity, hatred, or disharmony between different religious groups,” “deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage the religious feelings” under the Indian Penal Code and luring people to convert under Madhya Pradesh state’s anti-conversion law against fraudulent or forced conversion.
“By entangling these six pastors in a false case, opponents have succeeded in shutting down churches at six locations, scattering the believers and instilling fear in them,” a source told Morning Star News.
Pastors Santosh Paraste, 21, Sanjay Markam, 20, Amit Kumar, 24, Pramod Singh, 28, Karan Singh Maravi, 40, and Chhot Singh Dhurve, 49, all residents of Diwari village, along with Jeet Singh, 48, another Christian of Pipariya village, Dindori District, were arrested on a complaint by Angad Singh Maravi. An anti-Christian neighbor who disrupted the birthday party they were attending in 2024, Angad Singh Maravi is a follower of traditional indigenous religion who accused them of luring residents to convert.

Justice Shiv Kumar Kaushal, Second Additional Sessions Judge, Dindori (M.P.), sentenced the seven Christians to five years rigorous imprisonment and a fine of 100,000 rupees ($1,040) and sent them to District Jail, Dindori, to serve their terms, on June 12.
First Information Report No. 210/2024 in the case was filed on April 28, 2024.
On the day of their arrest, they were attending the party for the fifth birthday of the daughter of Suday Singh Maravi, along with other villagers. Suday Singh Maravi told the trial court that he had not invited Angad Singh Maravi to the event.
Suday Singh Maravi testified that on that day, April 27, 2024, he phoned police after Angad Singh Maravi called villagers offering them liquor, caused a commotion at the birthday party and threatened to beat the Christians present.
The police, on arrival, arrested the seven Christians instead of Angad Singh Maravi.
In his complaint, Angad Singh Maravi stated that he lives in the neighborhood of his cousin, Suday Singh Maravi, and his family. He alleged that the Christians were repeatedly visiting the village and “offering allurement” to residents to convert.
After Pastor Karan Singh Maravi and five companions arrived at Suday Singh Maravi’s house on three motorcycles on the evening of the birthday party, Angad Singh Maravi claimed to have overheard them while standing outside saying in Hindi, “Start praying in the name of Jesus and adopt Christianity. You will also get money.”
According to Angad Singh Maravi, village head Angad Banwasi, sub-village head Dinesh Rajput and his sister-in-law Matiya Bai had also come near Suday Singh Maravi’s house at that time, and allegedly heard Pastor Karan Singh Maravi and his companions telling Suday Singh Maravi, “Join us in Christianity. You will get a lot of money and wealth, your poverty will be removed, and all your troubles will go away... If you people do not accept Christianity, then I will trouble you so much along with my companions that one day you will be forced to join us, and you will see how long your god helps you.”
Suday Singh Maravi explicitly testified in court that no “Christian religion propaganda was going on in his house.”
A brother of one of the accused, speaking on the condition of anonymity, expressed shock over the judgment.
“When the host himself is denying that he or his wife was lured in any way at the birthday celebration, how can the court believe an outsider’s statement, who wasn’t an official invitee to the party and was actually a troublemaker to the host?” he said.
The six pastors were arrested on April 28, 2024, and sent to jail. Jeet Singh was arrested the following day and also jailed.
“Jeet Singh is a professing Christian, and his family was the first to came to Christ in Pipariya village, about seven years ago,” a source who requested anonymity told Morning Star News. “Angad Singh intentionally targeted Jeet Singh and named him in the FIR because of his [Angad Singh’s] anti-Christian sentiments against Christians.”
Pastor Kumar and Jeet Singh were released on bail on May 6, 2024, while pastors Paraste, Markam, Singh, Maravi and Dhurve followed three days later on May 9.
The charge sheet was filed against the seven Christians on Dec. 31, 2024, and the charges were framed on Nov. 26, 2025.
“The host of the birthday party [Suday Singh Maravi] is willing to give a statement before any court that these pastors were in his house at his invitation and that there was no forced or fraudulent conversion taking place in his house,” said a source who spoke with Suday Singh Maravi.
All six pastors were trained ministers and led congregations in different villages of the district.
A convicted person can be released on bail pending an appeal challenging the verdict, but the bail amounts are huge.
“The total bail amount is 700,000 rupees [$7,300] which is a huge sum of money for these poor families to arrange. With this judgement, their families are shattered, and these men were the sole breadwinners,” Rakesh Rajdwar, a Christian leader from Dhindori who is helping the seven families, told Morning Star News. “Once the money is arranged, we will apply for their bail.”
Theirs are the second case in the state of Christians convicted under Madhya Pradesh’s anti-conversion law. The first conviction was from the Sagar District Court in March 2024, involving Ramesh Ahirwar and his wife, Sakshi Ahirwar.
India ranked 12th on Open Doors’ 2026 World Watch List of the countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian, up from 31st in 2013 before Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[Muslim woman gains custody of kidnapped Christian girl in Pakistan, lawyer says]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/muslim-woman-gains-custody-of-kidnapped-christian-girl-in-pakistan-lawyer-says</link>
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                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[Christian Daily International / Morning Star News]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Badshahi Mosque in Lahore, Pakistan.]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Badshahi Mosque in Lahore, Pakistan. ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Wed, 22 Jul 2026 14:45:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[A court in Pakistan has handed custody of a 16-year-old Christian girl to an unrelated Muslim woman after the minor was recovered from a Muslim accused of abducting, forcibly converting and marrying her, her family’s attorney said.]]></description>
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A court in Pakistan has handed custody of a 16-year-old Christian girl to an unrelated Muslim woman after the minor was recovered from a Muslim accused of abducting, forcibly converting and marrying her, her family’s attorney said.
The ruling came despite an earlier judicial finding that the minor had been coerced into making statements supporting the suspected kidnapper, said attorney Hanif Hameed.
Hameed said that Mehnaz Nadeem, a ninth-grade student and daughter of Nadeem Masih from Chak No. 134/16L in Mian Channu, Khanewal District, Punjab Province, was abducted from her home on May 15. The alleged kidnapper, Ansar Syed, is a resident of Muzaffargarh in southern Punjab, he said.
Masih, a mason, initially registered a First Information Report (FIR) at Mian Channu Saddar Police Station against two suspects under Sections 365-B (abduction) and 376(iii) (rape of a minor) of the Pakistan Penal Code, Hameed said.
During the investigation, police examined the call detail records of Mehnaz’s mobile phone and found that she had been communicating with Syed, he added.
“Technical data from the victim’s phone indicated that she was in Sialkot,” Hameed told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News. “Acting on this information, a police team raided a hotel in the city on May 29 and recovered Mehnaz along with Syed.”
A medical examination conducted after her recovery found evidence of sexual abuse, according to Hameed. Investigators also concluded that Syed had allegedly groomed the minor by promising marriage before abducting her.
When Mehnaz appeared before Judicial Magistrate Zafar Iqbal on June 4 to record her statement under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, she claimed that she had willingly converted to Islam and married Syed. Hameed said such statements are commonly made by minor victims under coercion or intimidation.
The attorney argued that, as a minor, Mehnaz was legally incapable of giving valid consent to marriage or religious conversion. The magistrate accepted those arguments, agreeing with the lawyer’s submission that the case fell within the ambit of the Punjab Anti-Rape Act, 2021, the Punjab Destitute and Neglected Children Act, 2004, and the Punjab Child Marriage Restraint Act, 2026.
Hameed said the magistrate further concluded that Mehnaz’s statement had been procured under coercion, ordered police to register a criminal case regarding the false statement, remanded Syed to judicial custody, and directed that she be placed in a government-run shelter home pending further proceedings.
Several days later, Mehnaz’s father obtained permission to meet his daughter at the shelter home.
“During that meeting, the child realized that she had been exploited by the accused and agreed to return to her family,” Hameed said. “Her parents were overjoyed and immediately began preparing an application seeking her custody.”
The case, however, took an unexpected turn. On June 23, Mehnaz submitted an application through the shelter home’s superintendent requesting her release. When she appeared before another judicial magistrate, Muhammad Sohail Anjum, she reversed her position, claiming she feared returning to her family and asking the court to allow her to leave with a person she trusted.
“I strongly opposed the request, arguing that a minor child could not legally be entrusted to an unrelated person instead of her natural guardians,” Hameed said. “Despite these objections, the magistrate did not accept our arguments.”
The following day, Anjum ordered that Mehnaz be released into the custody of a Muslim woman identified as Shazia Mai, who had no familial or legal relationship with her, the lawyer said.
Hameed described the order as contrary to the Guardian and Wards Act, 1890.
“Under the law, the court may restore custody to the child’s natural guardians, entrust the child to a suitable relative, or continue to exercise protective jurisdiction if that best serves the child’s welfare,” he said. “There is no legal basis for handing over a minor to an unrelated individual.”
He also questioned the apparent inconsistency between the court’s decisions.
“It is incomprehensible that the court allowed a child to leave with an unknown person after another magistrate had already determined that she had been induced to make false statements and had placed her under the court’s protective custody,” Hameed said.
The family plans to challenge the custody order before the Lahore High Court, he said.
“We will move the high court against this illegal order because the child’s safety and welfare remain at serious risk.”
The disputed custody order comes just weeks after Punjab enacted sweeping reforms to its child marriage laws. The Punjab Child Marriage Restraint Act, 2026, which came into force on May 11, raises the minimum legal age of marriage to 18 for both males and females, bringing the province into line with Sindh, Balochistan and the Islamabad Capital Territory. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa remains the only province without equivalent legislation.
The law replaces provisions of the Child Marriage Restraint Act of 1929, which had allowed girls to marry at 16 and boys at 18. Lawmakers also adopted an amendment requiring authorities to treat the “best interests of the child” as a primary consideration in all proceedings under the law, including investigations, bail hearings, sentencing and custody decisions.
The amendment, introduced by Christian lawmaker Ejaz Alam Augustine with cross-party support, further provides that a child involved in a marriage cannot be treated as an offender and that the purported consent of a minor, particularly in cases involving coercion or abduction, cannot be considered determinative in decisions relating to custody or protection.
Cases involving the abduction, forced conversion and forced marriage of underage girls from Pakistan’s religious minority communities have increasingly drawn international attention. On July 9, the European Parliament adopted a resolution highlighting the case of 13-year-old Christian girl Maria Shahbaz and calling on Pakistan to establish a national mechanism to receive complaints from families of abducted or forcibly converted girls from religious minorities.
The resolution described Maria’s case as emblematic of broader human rights concerns in the country and urged Pakistan to fully implement its national framework to end child marriage, strengthen protections for religious minorities, ensure that all cases involving minors or allegations of coercion are investigated independently and transparently, prosecute those responsible, strengthen the judicial framework, and enable abducted girls to return safely to their families.
Maria was abducted from her family in July 2025 by 30-year-old Shehryar Ahmad, who allegedly forced her to convert to Islam and marry him. Her family petitioned Pakistan’s Federal Constitutional Court for her return, but on Feb. 3 the court upheld the marriage and returned custody of the child to Ahmad.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[Court in Pakistan to consider hearing case of abducted Christian girl]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/court-in-pakistan-to-consider-hearing-case-of-abducted-christian-girl</link>
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                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[Christian Daily International / Morning Star News]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Maria Shahbaz’s parents with rights activist Safdar Chaudhry after federal court ruling on Feb. 3, 2026.]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Maria Shahbaz’s parents with rights activist Safdar Chaudhry after federal court ruling on Feb. 3, 2026. ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Tue, 21 Jul 2026 09:49:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[After multiple legal setbacks, relatives of a Christian girl who was forcibly converted to Islam and married to her Muslim kidnapper are hoping Pakistan’s highest constitutional court will revisit a controversial ruling that upheld the marriage, her family’s lawyer said.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
After multiple legal setbacks, relatives of a Christian girl who was forcibly converted to Islam and married to her Muslim kidnapper are hoping Pakistan’s highest constitutional court will revisit a controversial ruling that upheld the marriage, her family’s lawyer said.
Supreme Court Advocate Muhammad Saqib Jillani said that the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) is scheduled to hear on Friday (July 24) a review petition challenging its Feb. 3 judgment validating the purported marriage of 13-year-old Maria Shahbaz to 30-year-old Shehryar Ahmad.
“We filed the review petition in May, and after seeking an early hearing because of the child’s continued illegal custody and concerns for her well-being, the court has now fixed the matter for July 24,” said Jillani, a leading Pakistani lawyer who has successfully litigated several high-profile cases related to human rights violations.
The FCC committed several errors of law by recognizing an unlawful marriage despite official government records establishing that Maria was below the legal age for marriage, he said.
“The court ignored compelling evidence that the marriage was a sham and violated Pakistan’s child marriage laws because Maria was underage according to her official birth documents,” Jillani told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News.
Among the principal grounds raised in the review petition, the attorney contends that the FCC mischaracterized the family’s legal arguments.
“The judgment states that the petitioner argued that a Christian woman cannot lawfully marry a Muslim man,” he said. “The family’s previous counsel never advanced such an argument or questioned Islamic law. The court’s reliance on earlier judgments concerning interfaith marriage was therefore irrelevant to the issues before it.”
Instead, he said, the central legal question was whether a girl below the legally prescribed age could validly contract a marriage and whether legal weight could be attached to Maria’s statement recorded under Section 164 of Pakistan’s Criminal Procedure Code, in which she purportedly claimed to have willingly married Ahmad.
“The court also exceeded its jurisdiction by commenting on the validity of Maria’s religious conversion,” Jillani said. “That was not the issue before the bench. The real question was whether an underage child could legally enter into a marriage.”
A central argument in the review petition relies on the Federal Shariat Court’s (FSC) recent ruling in the Ali Azhar v. Province of Sindh case, which upheld legislation fixing the minimum marriage age at 18 and rejected claims that such laws are inconsistent with Islamic principles, he said.
Jillani said that although the FCC acknowledged that the Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929, applies to both Muslims and non-Muslims, it failed to consider the FSC’s authoritative interpretation of Islamic law.
“The FSC made it clear that marriage in Islam is not merely about biological puberty or sexual relations,” he said. “It establishes legal rights and responsibilities that require mental maturity, psychological stability and economic capacity. The FSC distinguished between the Islamic concepts of Balugh (physical puberty) and Rushd (mental maturity), noting that classical Muslim jurists have consistently recognized them as separate concepts.
“Mental maturity often develops later than physical maturity because it depends on intellectual, emotional and educational development,” Jillani said, adding that the FSC cited classical Islamic scholarship, including the opinion of Imam Abu Hanifa, who regarded 25 years as a reasonable benchmark for attaining full Rushd.
The review petition also argues that the FCC overlooked Article 203-G of Pakistan’s Constitution, which grants the FSC exclusive jurisdiction to determine whether laws conform to the injunctions of Islam.
“The Federal Shariat Court is the only constitutional forum empowered to decide such questions,” Jillani said. “The FCC effectively disregarded a binding precedent issued by the competent constitutional court.”
He further challenged the FCC’s conclusion that while the Child Marriage Restraint Act criminalizes marriage with a child, it does not invalidate such a marriage.
“The judgments relied upon by the FCC are per incuriam because they were rendered without considering the FSC’s latest ruling,” he said. “Those earlier precedents have effectively been overtaken by the FSC’s Ali Azhar judgment.”
The petition also disputes the FCC’s findings regarding Maria’s age. The court questioned the reliability of records issued by the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) because Maria’s father, Shahbaz Masih, reportedly stated a different age when filing the First Information Report (FIR) after her disappearance.
Jillani argued that the discrepancy should not have undermined official government records.
“Any inconsistency could easily have resulted from Shahbaz Masih’s emotional distress when reporting his daughter’s abduction or from an error by the police officer recording the complaint,” he said. “Such a minor discrepancy cannot outweigh official documentation establishing that Maria was underage.”
He also rejected the court’s observation that Maria’s birth certificate and NADRA registration were unreliable because they were issued several years after her birth.
“There was no evidentiary basis for the court to question the authenticity of these official documents,” he said. “This was not a trial where the petitioner bore the burden of proving their genuineness.”
Similarly, he said, the FCC attached undue significance to an apparent age discrepancy between Maria and her younger sister in NADRA records.
“Even if there were an administrative error in government records, it does not alter the undisputed fact that Maria was still a child and legally incapable of entering into a valid marriage,” Jillani said. “The court gave greater weight to the age recorded in the disputed marriage certificate than to official government records.”
The review petition also argues that Pakistan’s Constitution should be interpreted consistently with the country’s international human rights obligations.
Jillani noted that Pakistan is a party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
“These treaties require Pakistan to protect children from abduction, forced marriage, trafficking and sexual exploitation while ensuring that the best interests of the child remain the primary consideration in all legal proceedings,” he said.
He added that the alleged forced religious conversion of a minor violates internationally recognized protections for freedom of religion or belief.
“Article 14 of the CRC protects a child’s freedom of thought, conscience and religion under parental guidance, while Article 18 of the ICCPR guarantees every person’s right to adopt or change a religion free from coercion,” he said. “The targeting of minor girls from religious minority communities for forced conversion and marriage constitutes a compounded violation of equality, dignity and religious freedom.”
According to Jillani, Pakistan’s courts have an established constitutional obligation to interpret domestic law consistently with the country’s international commitments wherever possible.
“In Maria’s case, the alleged abduction, forced marriage and coerced conversion not only violate constitutional guarantees but also place Pakistan in breach of its international obligations,” he said. “We remain hopeful that the court will adopt an interpretation consistent with both constitutional principles and international human rights law and provide the victim with the protection she is entitled to receive.”
Maria’s case has become one of Pakistan’s most closely watched religious freedom cases, drawing international attention from human rights organizations and European lawmakers concerned about the abduction, forced conversion and marriage of underage girls from religious minority communities.
On July 9, the European Parliament adopted a resolution highlighting Maria’s case and urging Pakistan to establish a national mechanism to receive complaints from families of abducted or forcibly converted girls from religious minority communities.
The resolution also called on Pakistani authorities to ensure Maria has access to legal counsel, her family and psychological support. It condemned the abduction, forced conversion and forced marriage of underage minority girls, describing Maria’s case as emblematic of broader human rights violations in Pakistan.
Maria was abducted from her family in July 2025, according to relatives, who say Ahmad forcibly converted her to Islam and compelled her to marry him. After the family petitioned the FCC seeking her return, the court ruled on Feb. 3 that the marriage was valid and ordered that she remain in Ahmad’s custody.
Following the European Parliament’s resolution, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International, which is supporting Maria’s legal case, welcomed the lawmakers’ intervention.
“Throughout Pakistan, the pattern of abductions, forced conversions and coerced marriages of underage girls to much older men is alarming,” Tehmina Arora, ADF International’s director of advocacy for Asia, said in a July 9 press statement. “Hundreds of girls each year become victims of these sham marriages, losing their freedom and facing exploitation and abuse. Maria is only 13 years old, yet she has endured more than any child should ever experience. The court now has an opportunity to deliver justice, restore her freedom and establish a precedent that protects other vulnerable girls from these grave abuses.”]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[EU warns Pakistan needs to improve human rights record]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/eu-warns-pakistan-needs-to-improve-human-rights-record</link>
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                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[European Union flags in front of Berlaymont Building, Brussels, Belgium.]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ European Union flags in front of Berlaymont Building, Brussels, Belgium. ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Mon, 20 Jul 2026 13:04:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[The European Union has warned Pakistan that continued access to the bloc’s preferential trade scheme will depend on measurable improvements in human rights, rule of law and governance.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
The European Union has warned Pakistan that continued access to the bloc’s preferential trade scheme will depend on measurable improvements in human rights, rule of law and governance.
Citing a deterioration in several key areas despite limited legislative progress, the warning came in the European Commission’s latest report on Pakistan’s implementation of the Generalized Scheme of Preferences Plus (GSP+) for the 2023-2025 monitoring period. Jointly published by the European Commission and the E.U. High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the report is the final monitoring assessment under the current GSP+ regulation.
The Commission concluded that Pakistan “has been facing compliance issues with its GSP+ obligations” and has “regressed in a number of areas while positive change was limited.” It said “significant concerns remained, generally impacting the rule of law and civil society space,” adding that reports of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings had increased without accountability for perpetrators.
The report also expressed concern over the deterioration of freedom of expression, saying amendments to cybercrime, anti-terrorism and blasphemy laws contain vague provisions that could be used against “dissidents, human rights defenders, journalists, minorities and ordinary citizens,” exposing them to imprisonment, confiscation of assets or restrictions on foreign travel.
Media freedom has continued to deteriorate despite legislation aimed at protecting journalists, the Commission stated, noting that members of the press face intimidation, harassment, violence and strategic litigation for reporting on sensitive issues.
“Targeted litigation (strategic lawsuits against public participation) is sometimes employed to prevent journalists and lawyers from doing their work,” the report stated.
It added that legislation such as the Pakistan Electronic Crimes Act (PECA), criminal defamation, blasphemy, sedition and counter-terrorism laws, contain “vague concepts of hate speech, defamation, terrorism and false news,” creating “a significant chilling effect on dissidents, journalists, human rights defenders and individuals belonging to ethnic or religious minorities.”
Addressing Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, the Commission acknowledged that authorities had highlighted existing legal safeguards, provincial standard operating procedures for handling blasphemy cases and judicial oversight as measures intended to prevent abuse.
“However, these prove to be ineffective, with persistent reports of procedural delays, intimidation and extrajudicial violence impacting blasphemy cases,” the report stated. “There has been no prosecution of false accusations of blasphemy to date. Blasphemy laws are also misused for personal gain.”
The Commission also referred to the emergence during the reporting period of a “blasphemy business group” that entrapped more than 800 people, primarily young men, through online scams that led to false blasphemy allegations.
“The network appears to be dismantled, but as of April 2026, over 300 of the falsely accused victims were still in jail,” the report stated.
The Commission further said that recent constitutional amendments had drawn criticism for “further undermining judicial independence,” exacerbating longstanding concerns about fair trial guarantees and access to justice.
“Latest constitutional amendments have, however, raised concerns about the impact of such reforms on the independence of the judiciary, accountability of the military, and respect for the rule of law,” it stated.
The assessment was shaped by persistent complaints regarding the integrity of Pakistan’s 2024 general elections, measures taken against opposition leaders and supporters, and what the report described as increasing military influence in civilian affairs.
According to the report, political rights have been adversely affected by “abusive judicial proceedings, and detention of opposition supporters and leaders, including of a former prime minister,” with concerns relating to fair trial guarantees, detention conditions and access to lawyers, visitors and medical care.
The Commission also criticized the use of military courts, saying such trials do not meet the fair trial guarantees required under Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), including the right to an independent, impartial and competent tribunal and effective legal representation.
On enforced disappearances, the report said cases continued to rise, particularly in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces, while Pakistan’s Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances had failed to establish accountability for perpetrators. It also criticized the continued absence of legislation specifically criminalizing enforced disappearances.
The Commission further highlighted continuing discrimination against religious minorities, particularly Ahmadis, along with persistent violence against women and children, high numbers of out-of-school children, child marriage, child labor, prison overcrowding and concerns over the treatment of Afghan refugees returned under Pakistan’s repatriation program.
Despite its concerns, the Commission acknowledged several legislative and administrative reforms undertaken during the reporting period. It described the National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR) as an increasingly important institution in advancing Pakistan’s human rights commitments. The report also welcomed legislation establishing a National Commission for Minorities, the narrowing of the scope of the death penalty, the continuation of the country’s de facto moratorium on executions, implementation rules under the Anti-Torture Act, the passage of a domestic violence law for Islamabad Capital Territory and Pakistan’s first conviction for marital rape.
It cautioned, however, that “most progress is of legislative and administrative nature and needs to be translated into real improvements on the ground.”
Beyond human rights, the report also assessed Pakistan’s implementation of GSP+ commitments on labor rights, environmental protection, climate change and sustainable development. Reiterating that Pakistan’s continued access to GSP+ depends on tangible progress, the Commission outlined priorities for future engagement ahead of the revised trade framework due to take effect on Jan. 1.
“To ensure further GSP+ eligibility and compliance with international commitments, including in view of the revised GSP rules as of 2027, key priorities for future engagement include: ensuring accountability for human rights violations; increased efforts against torture; prison and capital punishment reforms; reversing negative developments in relation to enforced disappearances and violations of freedom of expression,” the report stated.
Under the revised framework, all current beneficiaries will be required to reapply for GSP+ status under stricter sustainability and governance requirements.
Pakistan is the largest beneficiary of the EU’s GSP+ arrangement, under which exporters receive preferential access to the European market in return for implementing 27 international conventions covering human rights, labor rights, environmental protection, climate action and good governance.
According to the report, the economic benefits of the scheme remain significant. E.U. imports from Pakistan reached 9.4 billion euros ($10.9 billion) in 2022 before declining to 7.9 billion euros in 2023 because of weaker European demand and recovering to 8.3 billion euros in 2024.
The E.U. remained Pakistan’s largest export destination, accounting for 28 percent of the country’s exports, while textiles and clothing represented between 70 percent and 76 percent of Pakistani exports to the European market. About 90 percent of Pakistan’s exports to the E.U. qualified for GSP+ preferences during 2022-2024, with utilization averaging 93 percent and rising to 95 percent in 2024.
The Commission estimated that Pakistan benefited from approximately 732 million euros in tariff exemptions in 2025 alone, equivalent to about 9 percent of its exports to the European Union.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[Ezra Jin describes harsh prison conditions in first comments since release from China]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/ezra-jin-describes-harsh-prison-conditions-in-first-comments-since-release-from-china</link>
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                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[The Christian Post]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Pastor Ezra Jin has been released from detention in China and reunited with his family in the U.S., his family said Saturday, July 4, 2026.]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Pastor Ezra Jin has been released from detention in China and reunited with his family in the U.S., his family said Saturday, July 4, 2026. ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Mon, 20 Jul 2026 11:56:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[Days after reuniting with his family for the first time in eight years on the eve of America’s 250th anniversary, Chinese house church Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri has vowed not to rest until he sees the release of eight other church members still behind bars in China, where they are confined to cramped cells and must sleep on floor mats in blistering heat.]]></description>
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Days after reuniting with his family for the first time in eight years on the eve of America’s 250th anniversary, Chinese house church Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri has vowed not to rest until he sees the release of eight other church members still behind bars in China, where they are confined to cramped cells and must sleep on floor mats in blistering heat.
Jin, 56, was released from detention last week after 266 days in a Chinese prison. He was detained along with 28 other leaders and members of Beijing Zion Church last October. His release came less than two months after President Donald Trump raised his case with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing.
In an op-ed published by The Wall Street Journal, the founder of Beijing Zion Church expressed hope that his release might mark a “new chapter for people of faith in China” where “people can freely worship.”
“Such a future might seem impossibly remote, but so did my release,” Jim wrote, after explaining that he thought he was being taken to a trial when guards ushered him into a van last Friday. While he expected a long sentence for leading an underground house church, he was instead freed with all charges dropped.  
“I couldn’t be more thankful, and pray that others still imprisoned will experience this same freedom soon. Mine is a God of miracles, and he constantly surprises me. 
However, eight of his fellow church members and several other church leaders remain prisoners of conscience in China. Jin said these “men and women [are] some of the most caring people I have met."
“[They] are confined in cramped cells and sleep on floor mats in blistering heat,” he wrote. “Many leave behind young families. I won’t rest until they see freedom.”
Jin stressed that Chinese authorities “have no reason to fear the tens of millions in China who worship in unregistered congregations.”
“These Christians love their nation,” Jin declared. “They only want to worship God peacefully according to the Bible and to serve others, especially the poor, the disabled and the elderly.”
“Freedom of religion is a universal right promised in the Chinese Constitution,” he continued. “I hope that all our church members are freed and that China becomes a place where all people can freely worship. A first step would be to legalize house churches alongside state-run churches in the same way China has legalized private industry alongside state-owned enterprises.”
Jin, who studied at Fuller Theological Seminary in California, founded Zion Church in 2007. After converting to Christianity following his participation in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, he helped build the congregation into one of China’s largest house churches. He and his wife are Chinese nationals, while his children are American citizens. 
Authorities shut the church’s Beijing premises in 2018 after it refused government demands to install surveillance equipment. The congregation then moved to online gatherings, drawing as many as 10,000 participants through Zoom, YouTube and WeChat.
In an interview with The New York Times, Jin said that before his release, he was held in a “harsh jail environment” and had “no idea what the future held.” He said he was expecting around a 15-year sentence. 
Jin said that he shared a roughly 1,000-square-foot room with dozens of prisoners. During the daytime, they were all required to sit on benches, and many developed sores because they had to request permission to stand. At night, they all slept on a platform bed. 
The newspaper reports that officials often pressured Jin to plead guilty. Although he admitted that he established a church and continued to gather after authorities shut it down, he contended that such acts of worship were legal. 
“[My release] may be because everybody knows President Xi personally made the decision,” Jin said. “Otherwise, this wouldn’t be possible.”
“I hope people don’t think ‘We succeeded’ and forget the others,” Jin added. “We must go all out and speak out. That’s what my family did, and look at the result.”
The ruling Communist Party views organized religion as a potential threat to its hold on power. Registered churches in China fall under either the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPA) or the Catholic Patriotic Association (CPA), which are closely overseen by the state, according to the international persecution watchdog Open Doors. 
“These strictures are to ensure the ‘sinicisation’ of churches – that is, the aligning of religious doctrine with Communist ideology,” the organization reports. “The crackdown on Christians in China continues, and the impact of laws banning the involvement of children in church activities is increasingly coming to the fore.”
Originally published by the Christian Post.]]></content:encoded>
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