Christians in Vietnam now face new hurdles in planting churches as the government has issued Decree 95, a law which requires religious groups to submit financial records and allows officials to close down religious activities for unspecified “serious violations,” Christianity Today reports.

A Christian rights watchdog organization reports that Christians in Kosovo have been experiencing widespread persecution, Christian Daily reports. A small southeastern European country which separated from Serbia in 2008, Kosovo has a 93% Muslim population; just 6% of the population is Christian.

The United Church of Christ in Nigeria (UCCN) says one hostage died when suspected Islamic gunmen, known as “bandits,” released more than 50 church members after four months of captivity.

A Belarusian preacher, Syarhey Melyanets, has still not been released from jail in Belarus after being sentenced to 13 days’ imprisonment on unspecified charges, Radio Free Europe (RFE) reports.

The world’s largest Baptist denomination, the US Southern Baptist Convention, lost a record 1,200 congregations in 2022, a new study by Lifeway Research shows. The data for 2022 is the latest available; a report for 2023 will be published soon, Lifeway said.

As part of President Daniel Ortega’s long-term crackdown on religious leaders, authorities in Nicaragua have now convicted 11 Protestant pastors on apparently trumped-up money laundering charges, sentencing them to jail sentences of 12-15 years in prison and an $80 million fine each. 

The family of a 20-year-old Christian who was murdered by an Islamic extremist in Pakistan are being threatened that they too will be killed unless they drop their charges against the murderer, Morning Star News (MSN) reports.

A pastor and his wife in India’s Madhya Pradesh state have each been sentenced to two years’ imprisonment and a $300 fine after being found guilty of forcibly/ fraudulently trying to convert a Hindu couple to Christianity, Morning Star News (MSN) reports. 

Six Kenyan traders were shot dead in Somalia by suspected Islamic fighters for spreading their faith in Christ among Muslims, Christians said Monday.

A Presbyterian church building in Rawalpindi District, Pakistan was burned to the ground in a suspected arson attack on Saturday, one day after a local Muslim threatened that he would not allow the congregation to celebrate Easter in their building, Morning Star News (MSN) reports.

In yet another “brazen” murderous assault on Christian communities in Nigeria, Fulani jihadist herdsmen slaughtered seven people in attacks on villages in central Nigeria’s Benue state last month, Morning Star News (MSN) reports. Well over sixty thousand Christians have been murdered by Islamic terrorists since Sharia law and jihadism took hold in swathes of north and central Nigeria in 2009.

A pastor and evangelist associated with America’s National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (NHCLC) has reported that thousands of people responded to the Gospel during two major outreach events in Texas on the border with Mexico last month, CBN News reports.

The University of Alabama has joined a growing number of American colleges which have reported Christian revival breaking out among their student body, CBN News reports. Hundreds of students were reported to have been baptized following an evangelistic event attended by thousands at the university last week.

While Nigeria’s Islamic government has turned a blind eye to the jihadists who murder and abduct thousands of Christians each year, a Nigerian court in Kaduna state has acquitted an evangelical pastor and his wife who were falsely accused and imprisoned on charges of kidnapping and proselytizing a 12-year-old girl, CBN News reports.

A Pentecostal congregation in southwestern Nigeria faced an uncertain Easter after gunmen raided the church and kidnapped two worshipers, Christians said Saturday.

A pastor in Belarus was sentenced to 15 days in prison earlier this month after praying that the Russian invasion of Ukraine would end, Christian Daily (CD) reports.

The Religious Liberty Commission of Evangelical Fellowship of India (RLC) warns in a new report that Christians in India faced an “alarmingly steep rise” in violent persecution against them in the year leading up to the spring elections of 2024. The RLC gave its assessment in its latest annual report titled “Hate and Targeted Violence Against Christians in India, 2023.”

As the slaughter of Christians by Islamic extremists in Nigeria continues unabated and with impunity, unidentified gunmen murdered six people, including a pastor, in Nasarawa state in the north of the country at the weekend, International Christian Concern (ICC) reports.

A Vietnamese evangelical pastor whose body was found hanging in a cemetery in Vietnam’s Dak Lak Province is believed by local Christians to have been killed by government authorities who had forced him to renounce his faith in Christ and leave his church, International Christian Concern (ICC) reports.

As Nigeria’s government turns a blind eye to the slaughter of tens of thousands of the nation’s Christians by Islamic jihadists, authorities in Katsina state are being sued for banning Christian groups from meeting and worshiping on two university campuses, Premier Christian News (PCN) reports.