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

Asif Hassan / AFP - Getty Images

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

Launch slideshow

Lisi Niesner / Reuters

Survivor Petro Mischtschuk, 87, from Ukraine, wears his old prisoner's garb as he stands near the memorial site of the Little Camp at Buchenwald.

Between July 1937 and April 1945, the Nazis imprisoned a quarter of a million people in the Buchenwald concentration camp, located near the German city of Weimar. Around 56,000 of them were killed before the camp was liberated by U.S troops on April 11, 1945.

68 years later, Reuters photographer Lisi Niesner interviewed some of the remaining survivors as they returned to Buchenwald to mark the anniversary of the liberation.

Lisi Niesner / Reuters

Victor Karpus, 88, from Ukraine, stood at the muster ground where inmates gathered at dawn each day for a roll call. Karpus was imprisoned in several camps including Buchenwald for a total of three years. He even once managed to escape from a camp but got captured and taken to Buchenwald, where he remained until its liberation.

"Work or die – it was impossible to get out from Buchenwald," Karpus says.

Lisi Niesner / Reuters

Lisi Niesner / Reuters

"To each his own": An inscription on Buchenwald's iron gate.

Eva Pusztai, 88, from Hungary, sat in a wheelchair in front of a reconstructed gallows. In July 1944 she was deported to Birkenau and six weeks later to Muenchmuehle, one of 136 satellite camps of Buchenwald.

The forced labor in the arms industry or the camp's stone quarry took the imprisoned to the brink of their physical abilities. "You got just enough food to survive. I lost a third of my weight and I was almost starving to death," she says. 

"The employable have to be destroyed by work," she says, explaining the attitude of the Nazis to their prisoners. Her right eye filled up with a single tear that ran down her cheek, then she composed herself and smiled.

Lisi Niesner / Reuters

"Where is your god? Why he does not help you?" Jakob Silberstein, born in Poland in 1924, remembers the mocking of a high-level Nazi on Yom Kippur. He survived six years of captivity in Buchenwald and Auschwitz and witnessed brutal actions by the SS, being locked in a standing cubicle for a week, carrying stones and drinking rainwater for days. 

He was standing inside the gas chamber at Birkenau when an SS man asked if any of the men were skilled laborers. "I stated I was an electrician, which luckily saved my life," he said. After the liberation he found out that none of his family or friends had survived the war. He now lives in Israel and tirelessly tells his story.

Lisi Niesner / Reuters

Lisi Niesner / Reuters

Urns are displayed in a room adjacent to the crematorium at Buchenwald.

Professor Elling Kvamme, 94, from Norway, stood at the site of Barrack Block 22. He was teaching medicine at a university in Oslo in 1943 when he was arrested for his connections with underground politics. "Students are always dangerous and the Nazis realized it very quickly," he explained.

He was forced to take part in the Nazi program of Germanization and had to work at the pathological facility in Buchenwald. Before the dead were cremated in an incineration system developed to veil the traces of murder, specimens were taken from their corpses for anatomical collections.

Lisi Niesner / Reuters

Vasile Nussbaum, 83, from Romania, spent a year in Auschwitz and Buchenwald. "Buchenwald was a sanatorium in comparison to Auschwitz" he recalls without hesitation.

Nussbaum revisits the site of the camp every year on liberation day. "You never know what’s coming, today we are 83 years old and in the next year we are no more here", he says.

Lisi Niesner / Reuters

Barracks behind trees at Buchenwald.

Editor's note: Pictures taken between April 11-14, 2013 and made available to NBC News today. Read more at Reuters' Photographers Blog.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

Prisoners in their cell at Badam Bagh, Afghanistan's central women's prison, in Kabul. A total of 202 women are imprisoned in the six-year-old jail, the majority of them in connection to so-called "moral" crimes.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

A prisoner with her child.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

Mariam, who shot the man who raped her, has spent the past three months in Badam Bagh prison without any idea of why she was imprisoned, what charges she faces or when she can leave.

Lost and alone in a strange city Mariam called the only person she knew, her husband's cousin. She had left her home in Afghanistan's northern Kunduz province, fleeing her husband's relentless and increasingly vicious beatings. The man promised to help, but too busy to come himself he sent a friend who took her to a house, held a gun to her head and raped her.

Finished with her he settled in front of a TV set, the gun on a table by his side. Choosing her moment, Mariam picked up the gun, shot her assailant in the head and turned the gun on herself.

"Three days later I woke up in the hospital," she said, shyly removing a scarf from her head to reveal a partially shaved head and a long jagged scar that ran almost the length of her head where the bullet grazed her scalp.

From the hospital Mariam was sent to a police station and from there to Badam Bagh, Afghanistan's central women's prison, where she told her story to The Associated Press. For the past three months Mariam has been waiting to find out what charges she faces.

Mariam is one of 202 women living in the six-year-old jail. The majority are serving sentences of up to seven years for leaving their husbands, refusing to accept a marriage arranged by their parents, or choosing to leave their parents' home with a man of their choice — all so-called "moral" crimes, says the prison's director general Zaref Jan Naebi. Read the full story.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

Adia, 27, left her husband, a drug addict, seeking shelter with her parents. They told her to go home to her husband, who had followed her demanding she return. She went to court to seek help but instead they sentenced her to six years in prison. Seven months pregnant, Adia will have her baby in jail.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

A prisoner hanging up laundry on a small patch of open space surrounded by a razor-topped fence.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

A prisoner outside her cell.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

Prisoner Nuria with her infant son. "When I went to court for the divorce, instead of giving me a divorce, they charged me with running away," Nuria said. The man she wanted to marry was also charged and is now serving time in Afghanistan's notorious Pul-e-Charkhi prison.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

Children walking through the prison. 62 children live with their imprisoned mothers in the jail.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

Fauzia is the oldest woman in the jail and has already served seven years. She will serve a 17 year sentence for killing her husband and her daughter-in-law. "I was in one room. I came into the next room and they were there having sexual relations. I found a big knife and killed them both," she said in a voice empty of emotion.

Editor's note: Pictures taken on March 28, 2013 and made available to NBC News today.

Slideshow: Afghanistan: Nation at a crossroads

Rahmat Gul / AP

More than ten years after the beginning of the war, Afghanistan faces external pressure to reform as well as ongoing internal conflicts.

Launch slideshow

Related:

Newlywed Afghan beheaded for her refusal to become prostitute

Afghanistan's female powerhouses: a rapper, a colonel and 'mother' to hundreds

Afghan artists use graffiti to depict violence and injustice of women's lives

Alexander Zemlianichenko / AP

Police officers stand near an empty defendant's cage in a courtroom in Moscow on March 11, 2013. The court postponed the trial of Sergei Magnitsky, a dead lawyer who accused law-enforcement authorities of massive corruption and whose case sparked a dispute between Washington and Moscow.

Mikhail Voskresensky / Reuters

Flowers lie near the grave of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in the Preobrazhensky cemetery in Moscow on March 11, 2013.

Journalists crowded into a packed Moscow courtroom on Monday to witness a legal first: the first prosecution of a dead person in Russian history. But the case was postponed as the absence of defendant Sergei Magnitsky — who died in 2009 — was compounded by the non-appearance of his legal team.

Magnitsky is charged with tax evasion and fraud — similar to accusations that he had leveled against police and tax officials — in a case that sparked a dispute between Washington and Moscow when Congress passed a law named after Magnitsky.

"The defense team ... believes that they have not yet fully acquainted themselves with the 60 volumes of case materials,"  Judge Igor Alisov said, looking down on the barred cage usually reserved for the accused and the empty seats where Magnitsky's lawyers should have sat. Alisov postponed the trial until March 22.

-- Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report

Bullit Marquez / AP

Filipino theater artist Monique Wilson flashes the No.1 sign with students from St. Scholastica's College, an all-girls' school,  as they dance at their campus as part of a global campaign dubbed One Billion Rising, to end violence against women and children on Valentine's Day Thursday Feb. 14, 2013 in Manila, Philippines. Thousands of women and children in various cities in the country danced in the streets, in malls and other places to express support for the One Billion Rising Campaign which also counts Australia and New Zealand as the first countries "to rise" for the campaign.

Bullit Marquez / AP

Students from St. Scholastica's College, an all-girls' school, flash the No.1 sign as they dance at their campus in a global kickoff campaign dubbed One Billion Rising, to end violence against women and children on Valentine's Day Thursday Feb. 14, 2013 in Manila, Philippines.

Vincent Yu / AP

62-year-old Cheng Man Wai lies in the 16 square foot cage that he calls home, in Hong Kong on Jan. 25, 2013.

By Kelvin Chan, The Associated Press

Vincent Yu / AP

A car passes luxury houses on Victoria Peak, Hong Kong's most exclusive neighborhood, on Feb. 7, 2013.

Published at 10:27 a.m. ET: For many of the richest people in Hong Kong, one of Asia's wealthiest cities, home is a mansion with an expansive view from the heights of Victoria Peak. For some of the poorest, like Leung Cho-yin, home is a metal cage.

The 67-year-old former butcher pays 1,300 Hong Kong dollars ($167) a month for one of about a dozen wire mesh cages resembling rabbit hutches crammed into a dilapidated apartment in a gritty, working-class West Kowloon neighborhood.

Vincent Yu / AP

77-year-old Yeung Ying Biu sits inside his cage home on Jan. 25, 2013.

Some 100,000 people in the former British colony live in what's known as inadequate housing, according to the Society for Community Organization, a social welfare group. The category also includes apartments subdivided into tiny cubicles or filled with coffin-sized wood and metal sleeping compartments as well as rooftop shacks. 

Forced by skyrocketing housing prices to live in cramped, dirty and unsafe conditions, their plight also highlights one of the biggest headaches facing Hong Kong's unpopular Beijing-backed leader: growing public rage over the city's housing crisis. Read the full story.

Vincent Yu / AP

63-year-old Lee Tat-fong walks in a corridor while her two grandchildren -- Amy, 9, and Steven, 13 -- sit in their 50-square-foot room in Hong Kong on Jan. 25, 2013. Lee, like many poor residents, has applied for public housing but faces years of waiting. Nearly three-quarters of 500 low-income families questioned by Oxfam Hong Kong in a recent survey had been on the list for more than 4 years without being offered a flat.

Vincent Yu / AP

77-year-old Yeung Ying Biu eats next to his cage on Jan. 25, 2013. The cage homes date from the 1950s, when they catered mostly to single men coming in from mainland China

Related:

'Coffin' apartments offer wooden box homes for the living

Manila's hidden spaces: Life on the margins in a crowded megacity

Woman leaps to her death as housing disputes surge in China

Eurokinissi via Reuters; Greek police via Reuters

A policeman escorts suspected bank robber Nikolaos Romanos near the prosecutor's office in Kozani, northern Greece, left. A mug shot released by police, right, shows Romanos, 20, with significantly less bruising.

Reuters reports — A Greek prosecutor ordered an investigation on Monday into whether four suspected bank robbers were beaten in custody, after police published mug shots that were altered to make their injuries appear less severe.

Rights groups and critics have long accused Greek police of detaining immigrants and other prisoners in shocking conditions.

Photos published in the Greek media of the men, who were aged between 20 and 25 and arrested on Friday, showed them bruised and bleeding while being escorted by police.

But mug shots released by the police over the weekend had injuries missing. One had been altered to remove a purple bruise from beneath the suspect's left eye. In another, black bruises below the suspect's eyes and cheeks appear to have been erased.

Eurokinissi via Reuters; Greek police via Reuters

A policeman escorts suspected bank robber Andreas Bourzoukos in Kozani, left, and the mug shot of Bourzoukos distributed by Greek police, right.

Public Order Minister Nikos Dendias acknowledged the photographs had been tampered with, but defended the decision by saying it was to make the four men recognizable to the public.

"Photoshop was used and I - just like you, just like any reasonable person - asked why was this done," Dendias said on Greek television when asked about the press reports.

"Because if they hadn't been Photoshopped, in order to make them resemble an image that the average person would recognize them in, then the photos wouldn't have been published in the first place." Read the full story.

Ringo H.W. Chiu / AP

Human rights activist Nguyen Quoc Quan (center left), seen with his wife Huong Mai Ngo and their sons Khoa, 20, and Tri, 19, speaks during a press conference after his arrival at the Los Angeles International Airport from Vietnam on Jan. 30, 2013.

Ringo H.W. Chiu / AP

Nguyen Quoc Quan and his wife Huong Mai Ngo smile during a news conference after his arrival in Los Angeles on Jan. 30, 2013.

The Associated Press reports — A Vietnamese-American pro-democracy activist returned to the United States on Wednesday night after a nine-month detention on accusations of conspiring to overthrow the communist government of Vietnam.

Nguyen Quoc Quan smiled broadly as he was greeted by his wife, children and other family members, who bore balloons and placed leis around his neck shortly after 8 p.m. as he exited a plane at Los Angeles International Airport.

"I love you a lot, and I feel very near you every minute of jail," he told his wife, Huong Mai Ngo, in Vietnamese, then repeated in broken English for reporters. He pulled her to his side. "Now even closer," he said with a smile. Read the full story.

Mohamed Abd El Ghany / Reuters

An anti-Morsi demonstrator tries to escape from a tent -- set on fire by riot police, according to a witness -- at Tahrir Square in Cairo Friday.

Mohamed Abd El Ghany / Reuters

Riot police beat an anti-Morsi demonstrator with batons after he emerges from his burning tent Friday.

Mohamed Abd El Ghany / Reuters

A column of smoke is seen rising from the burning tents of the demonstrators Friday.

Mohamed Abd El Ghany / Reuters

Morsi's opponents were expected to head to Tahrir Square on Friday to mark the second anniversary of the uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak with protests against the new head of state.

By Ahmed el-Shemi and Tom Perry, Reuters

CAIRO -- Hundreds of youths clashed with Egyptian police in Tahrir Square on Friday in a violent start to the second anniversary of the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak and led to the election of an Islamist president who is now the focus of protester rage.

The Health Ministry said 16 people had been wounded. At one point, riot police used one of the incendiaries thrown at them to set ablaze at least two tents erected by the youths, a Reuters witness said. Read the full story.

Previously on PhotoBlog:

• Tear down this wall: Protesters topple a barrier as Cairo braces for large demonstrations

Shariah policemen speak to a student who was caught playing games in an Internet cafe during school hours in Banda Aceh, in Indonesia's Aceh province. The boy was given a morality lecture and forced onto a shariah patrol truck to be taken back to school, where he faced humiliation from other students and teachers.

Female members of the Wilayatul Hisbah shariah police get instructions from a commander before going on patrol in Banda Aceh.

Photos and text by Damir Sagolj, Reuters — Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim nation, but nowhere is the faith more strictly interpreted than in Aceh, sometimes referred to as the "verandah of Mecca" because it was one of the first parts of the archipelago to turn to Islam. 

Aceh, which was hit by a tsunami in 2004 that killed an estimated 130,000 in the province, is Indonesia's only district to have implemented shariah, or Islamic law. This is something that occurred for complicated reasons, some of which go well beyond the religion itself and have more to do with Acehnese tradition, the long struggle for independence and conflict with outside forces, Jakarta included.

Hard-line Indonesian police shave punks' mohawks in 'moral rehab' drive

Formed to implement shariah law, Wilayatul Hisbah, which is the official name for the shariah police, is spread across the province working in small units, patrolling and conducting occasional raids. The units are made up of different kinds of people – some of them claim to be on a mission, others just needed a job.

The set of laws in force in Aceh is just a smaller part of what would be full shariah implementation, covering all levels of society. At present, the shariah package in Aceh targets only those violating the Muslim dress code, illicit behavior, drinking and gambling.

Shariah punishment for Indonesia coffee shop gambler

Dating can be particularly hazardous — under shariah, it is a crime for an unmarried man and woman who are not related by blood to associate in an "isolated place." As a consequence, it has become increasingly popular for young couples to get to know each other using social networks like Facebook. Read more at Reuters' Photographers Blog.

A shariah policeman shows dominoes found in the bag of a boy who ran away after a patrol spotted him and a friend during school hours in Banda Aceh. The dominoes were thrown in the mud and police continued their patrol after unsuccessfully chasing the boys.

A young couple chat in the shade on a beach near Banda Aceh. Under shariah, it is a crime for an unmarried man and woman who are not related by blood to associate in an "isolated place."

Members of the Wilayatul Hisbah speak to a young couple after they were caught sitting too close to each other in an isolated place in Banda Aceh.

Winda Wahyuni kisses the hand of her husband, Ahmad Yasir Saputra, after they got married in a mosque in Banda Aceh. Winda and Ahmad Yasir, who met a year ago on Facebook, married in a religious ceremony in a local mosque. Dating on social networks has become increasingly popular in Aceh due to the restrictions that shariah places on unmarried men and women.

Winda Wahyuni, center, and husband Ahmad Yasir Saputra, left, pray during their wedding ceremony in a mosque in Banda Aceh.

A man is seen from inside a house in Banda Aceh that was destroyed in the 2004 tsunami. Some residents near the sea believe the tsunami that killed an estimated 130,000 people in Aceh province was a punishment from God for those who broke Islamic laws, and they fear it might happen again.

Boys and girls meet at a cultural event in Banda Aceh.

Muslim worshippers gather for an evening collective prayer outside a mosque in Banda Aceh.

Acehnese Protestants attend an early Christmas mass in their church in Banda Aceh. Although it is complicated to build a new Christian church in the predominantly Muslim province, Father Amrin Sihotang of HKBP Protestant church said his community has no problems with strict Islamic laws as long "as we follow the rules."

Young people relax at Ulhee Ilhue beach in Banda Aceh. The gates of the beach close every day at 6 p.m. to prevent people violating Islamic law. Asked about shariah police who often patrol the beach looking for violators, one of the youngsters said, "I don't like them. They simply disturb me."

Female members of the Wilayatul Hisbah enter a public park as they search for those violating shariah law during their patrol in Banda Aceh.

A female member of the Wilayatul Hisbah insists on inspecting the clothes of girls relaxing in a park in Banda Aceh.

Members of a punk band named Trotoar Chaos are shown in Banda Aceh. Although they say they have been punished and had their hair shaved in the past by police, the young musicians remain defiant and insist they will stay in Aceh. One of them commented on a 2011 incident in which he was punished after being caught among 65 other punks at a concert: "There is a big change after that. Now I want to fight more."

A member of the Wilayatul Hisbah tells a man he should stop eating his lunch and go to the mosque just before Friday prayers in Banda Aceh. Besides patrolling with their male colleagues every day looking for those who violate shariah, female police officers drive through the town just before Friday prayers urging businesses to close and demanding that men go to pray.

A Muslim family enjoys nice weather on a beach in Banda Aceh.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Images taken between Dec. 6 and Dec. 11, 2012, and made available to NBC News today.

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Misha Japaridze / AP

Andrey Smirnov / AFP - Getty Images

Police officers detain gay right activists holding a 'kiss-in' protest outside the State Duma in Moscow on Dec. 19, 2012.

Russian gay rights activists kiss during a protest near the State Duma, Russia's lower parliament chamber, in Moscow on Wednesday.

The State Duma was set to debate a bill that would introduce sanctions for providing minors with information on homosexuality but postponed the debate until next month.

-- The Associated Press

 Related content:

• Russia retaliates against US rights legislation
• Lady Gaga accused of illegal gay rights promotion in Russia

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