Daud Khattak is a senior international correspondent covering the Near East in RFE/RL’s Central Newsroom. He was previously the managing editor of RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal.
As many as 1,000 Hindu girls in Pakistan are forcibly converted to Islam each year and married off to Muslim men. RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal spoke to desperate families who have been torn apart and questioned the clerics behind the alleged forced conversions.
In Pakistan’s Sindh Province, influential cleric Mian Mitha operates what his opponents describe as a “conversion factory” in which young Hindu women are allegedly converted to Islam by force and married off to Muslim men. Few Hindu families feel empowered to challenge him.
Pakistani officials have tried to tackle the problem of excessive dowries involved in marriages, but the centuries-old tradition persists.
A spike in COVID infections in Pakistan has prompted authorities to reimpose restrictions just weeks after relaxing them. But traders and school owners have vowed to resist the new shutdowns, which they say target them unfairly.
Recently discovered remains of a Pakistani teacher killed 13 years ago have raised fresh questions about the earlier shooting death of an investigative journalist who was reporting on U.S. drone strikes in North Waziristan.
Pakistan has nearly fenced off the entire length of its disputed 2,670-kilometer border with Afghanistan, purportedly to stop militants from crossing the porous frontier. But observers say the greatest impact will be felt by Pashtun communities straddling the border.
Despite declaring victory in flattening the curve of coronavirus infections in early September, Pakistan is now bracing for a second wave of the pandemic as numbers are starting to rise since lockdown measures were lifted in August.
A diplomatic spat between close allies Pakistan and Saudi Arabia has exposed serious fissures in their relationship.
Pakistan is cracking down on social-media platforms, with critics accusing authorities of trying to control the free flow of information.
Pakistan has capitulated to pressure from hard-line Islamic clerics and politicians to halt construction on Islamabad's first Hindu temple.
Pakistan's leaders have championed a Turkish television drama that has triggered debate in the Muslim-majority country.
The Pakistani government, backed by the powerful military, is seeking to roll back a decade-old constitutional amendment that made it harder for the military to seize power.
The coronavirus pandemic is the latest obstacle in efforts to eradicate the crippling polio disease in Pakistan.
With half of Pakistan under a very unpopular lockdown, many are reluctant to obey the official orders that limit physical and social contacts and restrict mobility. There are concerns that the continued closure of businesses and places of worship could result in a sharp backlash in the religiously conservative and economically weak country.
A spate of recent attacks and harassment appear to target high-profile Pakistani journalists and bloggers living in self-imposed exile in Europe.
A Pakistani university prompted outrage when it banned female students from wearing lipstick on campus.
There has been an outcry in Pakistan after a lawyers' association demanded its members declare their faith.
Up to 3,000 journalists have been laid off in Pakistan over the last year. With the country's traditional media industry in crisis, some unemployed journalists have started up their own digital outlets while others have left the business altogether.
Fake markers are an obstacle in efforts to eradicate the crippling polio disease in Pakistan.
As Pakistan investigates the alleged sex-trafficking of women to China under the guise of marriages, alleged victims are pleading for help from family and supporters back home.
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