In recent months Chinese officials have attempted to build bridges with the Protestant house church movement even as police raided more unregistered congregations, arrested Christian leaders and forced at least 400 college students to swear they would stop attending such worship services.
There were concerns Wednesday, December 10, that Chinese authorities would launch a nationwide crackdown on the growing ‘house churches, after the Ministry of Civil Affairs ordered the “abolishment” of a major umbrella group.
Christians on the predominantly Muslim islands of Pemba and the Comoros archipelago are beaten, detained and banished for their faith, according to church leaders who travel regularly to the Indian Ocean isles off the east coast of Africa.
Christians in Orissa state are anticipating Christmas with fear as Hindu extremists have called for a state-wide bandh, or forced shut-down on all sectors of society, on Dec. 25 – a move that could provide Hindu extremists the pretext for attacking anyone publicly celebrating the birth of Christ.
Baptists in the Russian town of Lipetsk south-east of Moscow say local authorities are using “a bureaucratic way” to restrict their activities, BosNewsLife monitored Wednesday, December 3.
At least some 400 people have been killed and thousands forced to flee their homes in the central Nigerian city of Jos where Christians and Muslims clashed in the worst sectarian violence in Africa’s most populous nation in years. Fighting began Friday, November 28, amid a dispute over the result of a local election, witnesses said Saturday, November 29.
Thousands of Muslim protesters on Sunday (Nov. 23) attacked a Coptic church in a suburb of Cairo, Egypt, burning part of it, a nearby shop and two cars and leaving five people injured.
As the number of evangelical Christians in southern Mexico has grown, hostilities from “traditionalist Catholics” have kept pace, according to published reports.
In violation of Vietnam’s new religion policy, authorities in Lao Cai Province in Vietnam’s far north are pressuring new Christians among the Hmong minority to recant their faith and to re-establish ancestral altars, according to area church leaders.
Authorities in an Egyptian village arrested 50 Coptic Christians, whose shops were then looted, to pacify Muslims following violence that erupted on Nov. 4 over a Christian boy’s unwitting break with custom.
ChinaAid learned a house church leader in Henan province, Pastor Zhu Baoguo, was sentenced to one year of “re-education through labor,” accused of being an “evil cult” leader.
It has been nearly eight months since 15 year old Ami Ortiz was almost killed by an explosion while opening an innocent looking Purim basket on March 20th, however no arrests have been made despite the fact that the Ariel police have months of surveillance tapes and a considerable amount of evidence in their possession.
In prison at the age of 14 for having fatally stabbed her uncle in northern Iraq, Asya Ahmad Muhammad’s early release on Nov. 10 thanks to a juvenile court decision was overshadowed by fear of retaliation from her extended Muslim family.
Christians in Colombia were still searching for a Christian leader Wednesday, November 12, more than six weeks after he disappeared amid reports that several fellow pastors were killed by leftist rebels.
Authorities in northern Iraq have released a 16-year-old Christian girl who was serving a 3 1/2 years jail sentence for killing her uncle after he attacked her, observers of the case confirmed Wednesday, November 12.
Concerns about the health and safety of the son of martyred Iranian pastor Hossein Soodmand are swirling around Ramtin Soodmand as he awaits trial for “promoting anti-government propaganda.”
Chinese officials have yet to declare a new court date for Alimjan Yimit, a Christian house church leader and ethnic Uyghur in China’s northwest province of Xinjiang detained since his arrest on Jan. 12.
Dozens of Christian families in Pakistan’s second largest city refused to vacate their homes Tuesday, November 11, despite the expiration of an order from authorities to leave immediately, Christian rights investigators said.
A key leader of China’s rapidly growing underground house church movement who disappeared last month, was free Saturday, November 8, after Chinese authorities released him and other family members, Chinese Christians confirmed.
Hundreds of villagers of Burma’s, predominantly Christian, Karen minority have been displaced and several killed in fresh fighting in the country’s disputed Karen State area, a Christian rights group said Tuesday, November 4.