An influential evangelical mission group in the former Soviet Union expressed concern Wednesday, March 29, over a “crackdown” on Christian believers in Belarus following the re-election of President Alexander Lukashenko.
Religious rights investigators warned Thursday, March 30, that thousands of people in Afghanistan could face execution for converting from Islam to Christianity, a day after Italy granted asylum to a Christian convert.
Florence Chuckwu, a Christian teacher at the Government Day Secondary School in the capital of Bauchi state, went to work on the morning of February 20 with no hint that her attempt to exercise classroom control would threaten her life and lead to the killing of more than 20 believers.
In a move expected to raise international concerns, the leader of one of India’s largest evangelical mission groups was Wednesday, March 29, in a Kota Central Jail of the state of Rajasthan, which has been shaken by religious strife, officials said.
Indian Church officials on Tuesday, March 28, condemned the adoption of anti-conversion legislation in a key state, after members of a US-backed mission group were attacked by Hindu militants for allegedly “illegally” converting people to Christianity.
Lawyers for three Christian men facing possible execution in Indonesia are planning to seek a presidential pardon and a Supreme Court review of the case because they have new evidence, news reports said Tuesday, March 28.
Voice of the Martyrs contacts in Indonesia report that on March 26, hundreds of radical Muslims converged on the Church of Pentecost in Indonesia (PTDI) in Gunung Putri, Bogor County, West Java during a Sunday morning service. The mob’s angry protest over the property being “misused” as a church building lasted five hours. Some of the women among the 190 congregants began crying hysterically as a result of the mob’s hostile demonstration, with some falling unconscious and collapsing to the ground.
The European evangelistic campaign ProChrist 2006 has registered fewer visitors than three years ago. But decisions for Christ in German speaking countries were up significantly, as organizers told the evangelical news agency “idea”.
Sergey Shavtsov, a lawyer and prominent human rights activist, was arrested, tried and sentenced to 10 days imprisonment in Belarus for organizing an “illegal religious activity,” a UK-based religious rights group said Monday, March 27.
Several key Christian human rights groups have launched a united campaign against what they see as “widespread religious repression” in the Eastern African nation of Eritrea where they claim at least 1,700 Christians are detained for their faith.
Led by angry Muslim clerics, hundreds of people on Monday, March 27, protested in a northern Afghan city against a decision to free an Afghan man who faced a possible death sentence for converting from Islam to Christianity.
Hindu extremists broke into a Youth With a Mission (YWAM) training center on March 17 in Madhya Pradesh state, beating students and significantly damaging furniture and equipment. YWAM director Mukesh Jacob and his wife have since been charged with illegal conversion under the Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act.
A mob of some 200 Muslim vigilantes forced Christians in Bogor, West Java, to abandon their church service on Sunday, The Jakarta Post reported today.
Amid mounting international pressure, a court in Afghanistan on Sunday, March 26, dropped its case against a jailed Afghan man, Abdul Rahman, who has been threatened with execution because he converted from Islam to Christianity, and his release was expected shortly.
A Hindu extremist group planning centenary celebrations in April hopes to “reconvert” as many as 10,000 tribal Christians to Hinduism during the event.
A presidential order that establishes new conditions for the exercise of non-Muslim religious practice was passed in the Algerian Ummah council (Senate) on Monday 13 March, and in the Algerian National Assembly (Parliament) on 15 March. As a presidential order, the text would not have even been open to debate.
An avalanche of media coverage of an Afghan man facing the death penalty for converting to Christianity has apparently sparked the arrest and deepening harassment of other Afghan Christians in the ultra-conservative Muslim country.
A local council in West Java has warned several congregations in the Rancaekek Kencana housing complex in Bandung to abandon their “nomadic” cell group system, which allows limited numbers of Christians to meet together in private homes.
China Aid Association learned one House Church pastor was detained on March 20, 2006 at Hubei Province. Pastor Lian Changnian is now detained at the Detention Center of Xiantao City, Hubei Province. Pastor Lian who is from Xi’an City, Shannxi Province was leading a Bible study of over 100 believers at a House Church at Xiantao City when the raid occurred.
One of the biggest evangelistic outreach programs on the European continent has kicked off from Munich, Germany. ProChrist meetings are aired daily via satellite to 1,250 venues in 21 European countries, March 19 through 26.