Source: Morning Star News, November 28, 2024
A judge in Pakistan has overturned a verdict that denied a Christian’s effort to correct his name and religion on his national identity card as he was a victim of fake conversion to Islam, his attorney said.
[On November 16], Ahmad Saeed, additional district judge of Pattoki Tehsil, Kasur District, Punjab Province, overturned the verdict of Pattoki Civil Judge Mian Usman Tariq, who had ruled that 24-year-old Sufyan Masih could not revert to Christianity after “converting” to Islam, said the Christian’s attorney, Sumera Shafique.
Masih had definitively affirmed his Christian faith and had reiterated that declaration in his statement to the district judge, she added. He told the judge that Asif Ali, the brick kiln owner where Masih worked, had registered his name in the NADRA record as Muhammad Sufyan and his religion as Islam in a bid to enslave him.
“Being an illiterate person, Masih failed to read the form filled by the data entry operator on the directives of his employer,” Shafique said, noting that Masih had put his thumbprint on the form in ignorance.
Also learn about a Baptist church in Uzbekistan that has been unable to use its building or meet publicly for worship since 2021. Other religious groups in the country are experiencing similar problems (Forum 18.)