Over 800 Tamil Christians including children, were on their way home Wednesday, November 15, after escaping from Tamil rebels who kidnapped them in August amid ongoing fighting with Sri Lanka’s security forces, government officials claimed.
In a worsening climate of impunity as Sri Lanka falls into civil war, Buddhist militants have continued their campaign against Christianity, attacking churches and threatening Christian schools.
During a panchayat or village council meeting convened last Thursday (November 9) to address threats against Christians in a village in Chhattisgarh state, a local politician and his associates attacked six believers, including a pregnant woman.
A day after the US removed Vietnam from it list of ‘countries of particular concern’ regarding religious freedom, human rights workers said a Montagnard Christian was “hanged” by security forces who also “tortured” and “detained” other believers and pro-democracy activists.
Family members continued searching Monday, November 13, for a kidnapped Protestant missionary in Vietnam amid a government-crackdown on Protestants and pro-democracy activists ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) summit here, dissidents and investigators told BosNewsLife.
Unknown assailants bombed the entrance of a Catholic church in Mosul last week, destroying three sets of doors as well as windows in the church, monastery and guest house.
A Nairobi court yesterday acquitted two U.S. evangelists and their Kenyan counterparts of charges of inciting Muslims to violence.
Pakistan’s longest jailed Christian prisoner of conscious was preparing for his release Saturday, November 11, following eight and a half years behind bars, after the Lahore High Court acquitted him of blasphemy charges.
Unidentified assailants hurled six Molotov cocktails at a Protestant place of worship in western Turkey last Saturday (November 4), breaking windows and inflicting minor damages on the exterior of the building.
Hindu extremists yesterday forced Christians in the remote village of Bevainahalli, in the southern state of Karnataka, to bow down before Hindu deities and applied the vermilion mark to their foreheads. It was the second such incident in Chitradurga district in a little over a week.
The high court of India’s western state of Gujarat heard a counter complaint Monday, November 6, from eight Christian missionaries accused of forced conversion and attempted murder. The Christians said police tortured them after they were attacked by Hindu militants.
There was concern Monday, November 6, about the whereabouts of four Christian youngsters amid reports they were detained more than a week ago in India’s southern state of Karnataka on charges of “forcible converting Hindus.”
Amid mounting international pressure Eritrea’s authorities have released Helen Berhane, an Eritrean Gospel singer who was jailed since May 2004, Christian rights investigators confirmed Saturday, November 4.
Political dissidents in Vietnam were preparing for a difficult court case Friday, November 3, after officials said they would be charged with “terrorism” even after authorities made efforts to convince the United States that freedom of expression and religious liberty for Christians had improved in the Communist nation.
A group of Chinese Christians faced a difficult period Thursday, November 2, after their house church building located in the campus of Changchun Agricultural University in the suburb of Changchun city, Jilin province was reportedly demolished forcibly by local authorities.
Tensions remained high in a city of China’s Gansu province Wednesday, November 1, after hundreds of Christians reportedly demanded the return of their church property 40 years after it was taken away from then during the Cultural Revolution.
Leaders of one of India’s largest Hindu parties have urged the arrest and deportation of Christian missionaries, and several of them have been attacked in tribal areas, BosNewsLife established Wednesday, November 1.
A Turkish prosecutor slapped criminal charges against two converts to Christianity earlier this month, accusing them of “insulting Turkishness,†inciting hatred against Islam and secretly compiling data on private citizens for a local Bible correspondence course.
Vietnamese authorities advised the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi that 18 Vietnamese churches had been registered while not informing the churches themselves. Observers believe this is an indication that the country has stepped up efforts to convince the United States of improvements in its religious freedom record as two key U.S. decisions approach.
Police last Friday (October 27) arrested a 25-year-old believer for “causing communal disharmony†after Hindu extremists harassed him for selling Christian literature at an evangelistic event in the eastern state of Orissa.