{"id":36063,"date":"2020-11-04T11:35:09","date_gmt":"2020-11-04T11:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.acnmalta.org\/?p=36063"},"modified":"2020-11-04T11:35:09","modified_gmt":"2020-11-04T11:35:09","slug":"pakistan-abducted-christian-girl-is-safe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2020\/11\/04\/pakistan-abducted-christian-girl-is-safe\/","title":{"rendered":"PAKISTAN:  Abducted Christian girl is safe"},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\"><\/style><p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The case of\u00a0 Arzoo Raja, the 13-year-old Christian girl kidnapped from her family home in the Santo Ant\u00f3nio neighborhood of Karachi, Pakistan on 13 October has taken a bright turn as the Sindh Court on November 2, ordered the police to place the young woman in custody [at the women&#8217;s shelter Darul Aman] and present her at the hearing scheduled for next Thursday, November 5.<\/p>\n<p>The magistrate also ordered a medical examination to determine the young woman&#8217;s age, since, according to the family, she will be only 13 years old, much less than the 18 years that are the legal limit imposed by law.<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0kidnapping of Arzoo by an older Muslim man, 44, who allegedly forced her to convert to Islam and to marry, immediately aroused protests from the Christian community and organizations like Aid to the Church in Need.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking with ACN, Joel Amir Sohatra, a former member of the Provincial Parliament of Punjab, said, \u201cright now religious minorities are really threatened\u201d in Pakistan, and the situation is getting worse by the day.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Amir Sohatra added that the Raja family is under threat and their safety of must be guaranteed, \u00a0&#8220;We demand that the authorities guarantee the safety of Arzoo and her family, as they are already under threat.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Sohatra, who led protest demonstrations in Faisalabad in which the Christian community called for the release not only of Arzoo but of all the abducted young women, assures ACN that \u201cthere are strong rumors that fanatics are threatening\u201d Arzoo&#8217;s family, to abandon this process, ensuring that the girl &#8220;embraced Islam&#8221; .<\/p>\n<p>Thursday will be the day of the verdict.\u00a0The decision that the Court will take will certainly be relevant to all cases of young people from religious minorities kidnapped and forced to marry in Pakistan.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We will wait until 5 November to see how the court will proceed with this matter,&#8221; says Joel Amir Sohatra.\u00a0&#8220;Religious minorities are really threatened and are facing [times of] uncertainty in Pakistan &#8230;&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.acnmalta.org\/donate\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-35565 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.acnmalta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Support-button-300x44.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"44\" srcset=\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Support-button-300x44.jpg 300w, https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Support-button-580x85.jpg 580w, https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Support-button-600x88.jpg 600w, https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Support-button.jpg 627w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The case of\u00a0 Arzoo Raja, the 13-year-old Christian girl kidnapped from her family home in the Santo Ant\u00f3nio neighborhood of Karachi, Pakistan on 13 October has taken a bright turn as the Sindh Court on November 2, ordered the police to place the young woman in custody [at the women&#8217;s shelter Darul Aman] and present&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36064,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e-newsletters"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - 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