Anja Niedringhaus / AP

Ahmedi guards protecting an Ahmedi mosque in Lahore, Pakistan on April 30, 2013. Ahmedis are reviled by mainstream Muslims as heretics because they believe a prophet followed Mohammed, defying the basic tenet of Islam that says Mohammed is the last prophet.

Lahore, Pakistan — In majority Muslim Pakistan, religious minorities say democracy is killing them.

Intolerance has been on the rise for the past five years under Pakistan's democratically elected government because of the growing violence of Islamic radicals, who are then courted by political parties, say many in the country's communities of Shiite Muslims, Christians, Hindus and other minorities.

On Saturday, the country will elect a new parliament, marking the first time one elected government is replaced by another in the history of Pakistan, which over its 66-year existence has repeatedly seen military rule. But minorities are not celebrating. Some of the fiercest Islamic extremists are candidates in the vote, and minorities say even the mainstream political parties pander to radicals to get votes, often campaigning side-by-side with well-known militants.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

Ahmedis praying in their mosque, which displays an Arabic sign saying 'In the name of god, people are praying', in Lahore on April 30, 2013.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

A Shiite worshipper at a shrine in Jhang on May 1, 2013. Minority Shiites in Pakistan have little hope that the May 11 general elections will help them because they fear Sunni radicals, who have targeted Shiites, could gain political strength.

About 96 percent of Pakistan's population of 180 million is Muslim. Most are Sunni, but according to the CIA Factbook about 10 to 15 percent are members of the Shiite sect. The remaining 4 percent are adherents to other religions such as Christians, Hindus and Ahmedis.

More than a dozen representatives of Pakistan's minorities interviewed by The Associated Press expressed fears the vote will only hand more influence to extremists. Since the 2008 elections, sectarian attacks have been relentless and minorities have found themselves increasingly targeted by radical Islamic militants. Minorities have little faith the new election will change that. Read the full story.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

A Christian woman peering out from inside a church as angry Christians protest the beating of a young man from the Joseph Colony, a Christian neighborhood in Lahore, on April 30, 2013.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

Barber Elias, 25, a Christian who was injured when he was beaten by radical Muslims, in the Joseph Colony in Lahore on April 30, 2013.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

Christians protesting the beating of a young Christian belonging to the Joseph Colony, in Lahore on April 30, 2013.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

A Christian repairing his home after it was attacked by radical Muslims, in the Joseph Colony in Lahore on April 30, 2013.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

Homeless Hindus sleeping in a shrine cared for by Omparkarh Narian, 55, in Rawalpindi on May 4, 2013.

Slideshow: Pakistan: A nation in turmoil

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Images of daily life, political pursuits, religious rites and deadly violence.

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An American tour operator has been sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in North Korea for alleged “hostile acts” against the repressive regime, according to its official state news agency.

Kenneth Bae, who is in his mid-40s and lives in Washington state, has been described by friends as a devout Christian who took tourists on trips to North Korea, The Associated Press reported.

He was detained in November, but it has remained unclear what crime he was alleged to have committed.

State news agency KCNA’s brief report was headlined “American Citizen Punished in DPRK,” meaning Democratic People's Republic of Korea. It referred to Bae using a Korean version of his name, Pae Jun Ho.

“A trial of Pae Jun Ho, an American citizen, took place held at the Supreme Court of the DPRK on April 30. He was arrested while committing hostile acts against the DPRK after entering Rason City as a tourist on Nov. 3 last year,” it said.

“The Supreme Court sentenced him to 15 years of hard labor for this crime,” it added.

At least three other Americans detained in recent years also have been devout Christians, the AP said. While North Korea's constitution guarantees freedom of religion, in practice only sanctioned services are tolerated by the regime.

Washington state Rep. Cindy Ryu told The Herald newspaper in December that Bae might have been doing missionary work in North Korea. "Many of us are third- and fourth-generation Christians and many of our pastors are originally from North Korea," Ryu said. "We want to visit our home country, but in North Korea you cannot say you are a missionary."

Yonhap / Reuters

Kenneth Bae, seen in an undated video still, was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in North Korea on Thursday.

There have also been reports that Bae took photographs of hungry orphans. 

Dennis Kwon, a friend of Bae's since they attended the University of Oregon in Eugene together, told the Oregonian newspaper on Tuesday that Bae had lately been based in the Chinese city of Dalian.

Kwon added Bae went to North Korea to feed orphans and may have taken photographs of them begging for food. “He probably couldn’t walk away from what he saw.” But he added that Bae was “such a warm-hearted person, I can’t imagine him breaking the law."

North Korean officials may have considered the pictures to be “anti-North Korean propaganda,” South Korea-based human rights activist Do Hee-youn told the Christian Post in December.

On Tuesday, State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said the U.S. was calling on North Korea “to release Kenneth Bae immediately on humanitarian grounds.”

Swedish diplomats in North Korea, who act for the U.S. in issues involving American citizens in North Korea, visited Bae on April 26, Ventrell said, adding he had no further information.

A Facebook page has been set up titled “Remember Ken Bae, Detained in North Korea.”

North Korea defector Kwon Hyo-jin, who spent time in one of the North’s notorious slave labor camps, told Reuters that Bae would probably be sent to a correctional facility that only houses foreigners and had been set up as a model for international human rights groups.”

Slideshow: Glimpses into the hermit kingdom of North Korea

As chief Asia photographer for the Associated Press, David Guttenfelder has had unprecedented access to communist North Korea. Here's a rare look at daily life in the secretive country.

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Kwon said that in the camp where he was detained for seven years before fleeing to South Korea the prisoners were worked to death and often survived only by eating rats and snakes.

"If an American served jail together with North Korean inmates, which won't happen, he could tell them about capitalism or economic developments. That would be the biggest mistake for North Korea," Kwon told Reuters.

In 2009, American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee were sentenced to "hard labor" for trespassing and unspecified hostile acts after being arrested near the border with China and held for four months, according to the AP.

They were freed later that year after former President Bill Clinton flew to Pyongyang to negotiate their release in a visit that then-leader Kim Jong Il treated as a diplomatic coup, the news agency said.

Including Ling and Lee, Bae is at least the sixth American detained in North Korea since 2009, the AP reported. The others eventually were deported or released.

Ahn Chan-il, head of the World Institute for North Korea Studies think tank in South Korea, told the AP that the North was “using Bae as bait” to get another visit by a leading U.S. political figure.

“An American bigwig visiting Pyongyang would also burnish Kim Jong Un's leadership profile," Ahn added.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Related:

North Korea: Detained American tourist has 'admitted his crime'

Detained American, Internet freedom on agenda as Google boss visits North Korea

More North Korea coverage from NBC News

This story was originally published on Thu May 2, 2013 7:03 AM EDT

BEIRUT -- Two Syrian bishops kidnapped by gunmen on Monday are still missing, church sources in Damascus and Aleppo said on Wednesday, contradicting a report that the men had been freed.

A source at the Syriac Orthodox Archdiocese of Aleppo said the bishops had not been released and he was unaware of any contact with their abductors. At the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Damascus, a source also said there was no indication they had been freed.

Greek Orthodox archbishop Paul Yazigi and Syriac Orthodox archbishop Yohanna Ibrahim were seized near the northern commercial and industrial hub of Aleppo, which is contested by rebels and forces loyal to President Bashar Assad.

Authorities blamed the abduction on a "terrorist group", the label they usually give to anti-Assad rebels, but opposition fighters in the province denied they had kidnapped the two and said they were working for their release and trying to find out who had taken them.

The bishops were the most senior church figures caught up in the fight between Assad's forces and rebels trying to end four decades of family rule by Assad and his late father.

The conflict has killed more than 70,000 people and frightened minority groups as the mainly Sunni Muslim rebels gain ground in northern Syria, where Salafi and jihadi groups, including the al Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front, have emerged as among the most formidable insurgent formations.

Slideshow: Syria uprising

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A look back at the conflict that has overtaken the country.

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• 'Maybe my friends will kill me': Inside a Syrian city split by rival militias
• Tale of a kidnapping: 'First-rate killer' served tea, talked poetry
• Destruction and resistence: Window into war-torn Aleppo
• Full Syria coverage from NBC News

Pope Francis called for worldwide efforts towards peace in his first Easter Sunday address, urging leaders to find diplomatic solutions in Syria and North Korea.

In his first "Urbi et Orbi" message from the balcony of St Peter’s Basilica, he also asked for reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians solutions to conflicts in several African countries.

Earlier this month, the former Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina stood on the same balcony after being elected as the first pope from the Americas in more than 1,300 years.

Francis, who has emphasized a humbler style to the papacy, said: "Peace to the whole world, torn apart by violence linked to drug trafficking and by the iniquitous exploitation of natural resources! Peace to this our Earth! May the risen Jesus bring comfort to the victims of natural disasters and make us responsible guardians of creation.”

Christopher Furlong / Getty Images

Pope Francis greets the faithful prior to his first 'Urbi et Orbi' blessing from the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica, Sunday.

He added: “Peace in Iraq, that every act of violence may end, and above all for dear Syria, for its people torn by conflict and for the many refugees who await help and comfort.  How much blood has been shed!  And how much suffering must there still be before a political solution to the crisis will be found?”

Slideshow: The election of Pope Francis

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Cardinals from around the world gathered in the Vatican to elect the next leader of the Roman Catholic Church.

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Earlier, the pontiff strode onto a flower-bedecked esplanade facing St Peter’s Square, into which tens of thousands of faithful had gathered from early Sunday, to lead the traditional open-air Mass.

Francis bowed his head in reflection as the Gospel was sung in Latin, The Associated Press reported, recounting what Christians believe is the central mystery of their faith — the resurrection of Jesus after this death by crucifixion.

"Let the risen Jesus enter your life,” the pope told worshippers before the service via his Twitter account. "He will receive you with open arms."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Related: The evolution of the Popemobile

This story was originally published on Sun Mar 31, 2013 5:08 AM EDT

Four foreigners have been arrested in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi on suspicion of being Christian missionaries and printing books about Christianity, a security official said on Saturday.

"They were arrested on Tuesday at a publishing house where they were printing thousands of books that called for conversion to Christianity," security official Hussein Bin Hmeid said.

"Proselytizing is forbidden in Libya. We are a 100 percent Muslim country and this kind of action affects our national security."

Hmeid said the government-affiliated security apparatus called the Preventative Security, for which he is a spokesman, had arrested an Egyptian, a South African, a Korean and a Swede who was travelling on a U.S. passport.

"We are still holding interrogations and will hand them over to the Libyan intelligence authorities in a couple of days," Hmeid said, without giving further details.

The Preventative Security apparatus is a parallel security body created during the 2011 war that ousted leader Moammar Gadhafi and made up of several rebel brigades that fought in the conflict.

Libya's central government has yet to impose its authority on a myriad of armed groups that have yet to lay down their arms, and with skeletal national security forces, often relies on them for security.

Reporting by Hadeel Al-Shalchi; Editing by Alison Williams

Yazan Homsy / Reuters file

A church in Homs was heavily damaged in fighting, as seen here in December. It is unclear whether the damage was caused by Syrian government or opposition forces.

Armed opposition groups in Syria appear to have looted Christian churches and destroyed a Shiite Muslim mosquee in recent months, New York-based Human Rights Watch said Wednesday.

The rights group said it had previously documented the destruction of a Sunni mosque in Taftanaz by government troops fighting for President Bashar Assad.

The war has already killed more than 60,000 Syrians, according to U.N. estimates.

Human Rights Watch warned an increase in sectarian violence can only make things worse.

"The destruction of religious sites is furthering sectarian fears and compounding the tragedies of the country," Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director for Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

"Leaders on both sides should send a message that those who attack these sites will be held accountable," she added.

Sunni Muslims make up about three-quarters of the population, and most of the rebel fighters are Sunnis, according to the CIA's World Factbook.

Assad, however, is a member of the Alawite sect, which is more closely linked to Shiite Islam. Many of his appointees in high government and the military are also Alawites.

Human Rights Watch noted that international humanitarian law requires warring parties to avoid deliberate targeting or seizure of religious buildings that aren't being used for military purposes.

The group said it found evidence in three villages of attacks against religious sites after opposition groups had taken over and driven out government forces. In each area, religious minorities had fled in large numbers, if not entirely.

Villagers flee
In Zarzour, majority Sunnis told the group that their Shiite neighbors fled because they feared they would be attacked by opposition fighters if there was a perception that they had been supportive of government forces.

The Sunni villagers told Human Rights Watch that the Shiites had given "preferential treatment" to government forces when they were in Zarzour.

The rights group said its observations and witness accounts indicated that opposition fighters deliberately started a fire in a Shiite mosque when it took over the village.

In Jdeideh, local residents told observers that gunmen "operating in the name of the opposition" had broken into and stolen from a Christian church after the area came under rebel control.

Observers from the group said it appeared that gunmen had broken in, stolen from the church and fired numerous shots inside, shattering windows and causing structural damage.

A villager told observers that the fighters had used the adjacent priest's quarters to fire at government forces and had stolen medicine from a clinic owned by the church, looted homes and kidnapped civilians.

The rights group said it could not determine whether there was a religious motive for any looting or kidnapping.

In a third village, Ghasaniyeh, the group found that a local church had been broken into and gasoline and diesel fuel had been stolen. An observer found that the church doors had been forced open and that a cross had been left on the floor, but the group said the building otherwise was undamaged.

"The opposition of Syria should back up its claims that it will uphold minority rights by protecting places of worship," Whitson said in her statement.

Calls and emails to the National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces and a representative of the Syrian National Council were not immediately returned.

Slideshow: Syria uprising

A look at the violence that has overtaken the country.

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Yui Mok/PA via AP

British Airways employee Nadia Eweida celebrates winning her religious rights case outside her lawyer's office in London Tuesday.

A Christian airline worker in England who was sent home for wearing a small silver cross at work has won a lawsuit in which she alleged her right to freedom of religion had been violated.

In a judgment Tuesday, the European Court of Human Rights ordered that the United Kingdom should pay Nadia Eweida, who works for British Airways, about $2,675 in damages and $40,000 in costs.

However another Christian worker, Shirley Chaplin, lost her case that she should be allowed to wear a crucifix while working as a nurse in a hospital geriatric ward in Devon, England.

The court accepted hospital managers’ arguments that the cross “could cause injury if a patient pulled on it or if, for example, it came into contact with an open wound,” the court said in a statement.

Patients’ health and safety was “inherently of much greater importance” than Chaplin’s right to wear a cross, the court said.

The judgment also dealt with two other separate claims in which practicing Christians from the U.K. complained they had been fired for refusing to carry out duties that they considered would condone homosexuality.

Lillian Ladele, a registrar of births, deaths and marriages, and Gary McFarlane, who worked for the marriage guidance charity Relate, both lost their claims with the court noting that in both cases “the employer was pursuing a policy of non-discrimination” and that discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation was against the European Convention on Human Rights.

The decisions are not final as they can be appealed to the court’s “Grand Chamber.”

British premier 'delighted'
Eweida’s victory was welcomed by U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, who said on Twitter that he was “delighted that principle of wearing religious symbols at work has been upheld – ppl shouldn't suffer discrimination due to religious beliefs.”

Eweida said when she heard the verdict she was “very selfish initially” because “I was jumping for joy and saying ‘thank you Jesus,’” according to the U.K.’s ITV News.

“It's a vindication that Christians have a right to express their faith on par with other colleagues at work visibly and not be ashamed of their faith,” she said.

“I'm disappointed on behalf of the other three applicants but I fully support them in their asking for a referral for their cases to be heard in the Grand Chamber, and I wish them every success in the future to win,” she added.

In its statement, the court said Eweida was sent home without pay in 2006 after she decided to start wearing a cross on a chain on top of her uniform in defiance of British Airway's then policy to allow no visible jewelry. She returned to work in 2007 after BA changed its rules to allow religious and charity symbols.

The court said freedom of religion was “an essential part of the identity of believers and one of the foundations of pluralistic, democratic societies.”

However it added that “where an individual’s religious observance impinges on the rights of others, some restrictions can be made.”

'Common sense'
Shami Chakrabarti, director of U.K. human rights group Liberty, said in an emailed statement that the judgment was “an excellent result for equal treatment, religious freedom and common sense.”

"Nadia Eweida wasn't hurting anyone and was perfectly capable of doing her job whilst wearing a small cross,” she said. "She had just as much a right to express her faith as a Sikh man in a turban or a Muslim woman with a headscarf.”

"However the Court was also right to uphold judgments in other cases that employers can expect staff not to discriminate in the discharge of duties at work,” she added.

On the issue of wearing crosses at work, Keith Porteous Wood, executive director of the U.K.’s National Secular Society, said in a statement that Eweida had won “a very limited victory which simply means that if employers want to prevent an employee wearing religious symbol for corporate image purposes, they must prove that their image is negatively affected by such manifestations of belief.”

“In the case of Chaplin we are pleased that the court has acknowledged that employers are better placed than the court to decide if jewellery is a health and safety risk and did not support the idea of blanket permission to wear religious symbols in the workplace,” he added.

Porteous Wood said if Ladele and McFarlane had won this would have “driven a coach and horses through the equality laws.” 

“The rights of gay people to fair and equal treatment would have been kicked back by decades,” he added.

Marco Longari / AFP - Getty Images

An Egyptian flag is waved as thousands of Egyptian Copts attend a Mass in the Cave Cathedral, or St Sama'ans, in the Manshiet Nasser district of Cairo on Dec. 13, 2012, where they prayed for Egypt ahead of the disputed referendum on the new draft constitution slated for Saturday.

An Egyptian flag is waved as thousands of Egyptian Copts attend a Mass in the Cave Cathedral, or St Sama'ans, in the Manshiet Nasser district of Cairo on Dec. 13, 2012, where they prayed for Egypt ahead of the disputed referendum on the new draft constitution slated for Saturday. President Mohammed Morsi and his Islamist allies support the charter while a wide spectrum of liberals, youth groups and others see both the process and the draft as flawed.

Marco Longari / AFP - Getty Images

Egyptian Copts attend a Mass in the Cave Cathedral or St Sama'ans in Cairo on Dec. 13.

Marco Longari / AFP - Getty Images

An Egyptian man prays as thousands of Egyptian Copts attend a Mass in the Cave Cathedral in Cairo on Dec. 13

Related content:

Egypt's ElBaradei pleas for vote postponement

Previously on PhotoBlog:

• Protests in Egypt continue despite Morsi's concession
• Morsi leaves presidential palace in Cairo amid protests
• A blindfolded child's weighty task: Pick a new pope

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