Tensions remained high Sunday, December 26, near Jakarta where a group of angry Muslims backed by police surrounded homes of Christians in protests against what they called “unauthorized religious services”, Worthy News learned.
Muslims began protests Friday, December 24, against plans to change Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, after an Islamic leader offered nearly $6,000 for the killing of a Christian woman he accused of offending Islam.
Authorities in northern and central Nigeria tried to restore calm Saturday, December 25, after suspected Muslim militants targeted churches and other sites in Christmas Eve attacks that killed as many as 38 people, police and church leaders said.
“Many” church services have been canceled in Iraq over the Christmas period following deadly attacks and new terror threats, several church groups said Friday December 24.
Some 130 Christian worshipers, including children, remain imprisoned in Egypt, a month after some 2,000 security forces attacked their church under re-construction, killing several people, American and local missionaries told Worthy News.
Christians of house churches and other non-recognized groups prepared Friday, December 24, for a tense Christmas, after security forces halted Christmas celebrations and detained believers in several areas of Vietnam, Vietnamese Christians and rights investigators said.
Several Christians in Iran prepared Wednesday, December 22, to spend Christmas behind bars, including at least two Iranian pastors who face the death penalty on charges of ‘apostasy’, or abandoning Islam.
Human rights campaigners on Friday, December 17, urged the U.S. commander in war-torn Afghanistan, David Petraeus, to pressure the Afghan government to release two detained Christians who face the death penalty for “apostasy”, or abandoning Islam.
A Pakistani evangelist and pastor was still recovering Thursday, December 16, after he was set on fire by hard-line Muslims in Pakistan’s Punjab province, Christians and rights activists said.
The often prosecuted founder of one of India’s largest evangelical mission groups that rescues orphans and abandoned children has died after a long battle with health problems, his family and organization confirmed Saturday, December 4.
Rights activists urged Egypt’s government Friday, December 10, to free hundreds of Eritrean and other African refugees, including Christians, who they said have been held as hostages by human traffickers in the Sinai Desert for over a month, and probably sold to other dealers.
Scores of Coptic Christian children are recovering from injuries and nearly two dozen minors remain detained after Egyptian security forces opened fire on unarmed Copts protesting against the authorities’ decision to halt the construction of a church, rights investigators said Thursday, December 9.
Hundreds of Iraqi Christian families are fleeing Iraq’s capital Baghdad and the town of Mosul as murderers target families in their own homes and workplaces, a well-informed advocacy group said Wednesday, December 8.
An elderly Christian couple was gunned down in their Baghdad home Sunday night in what is the latest incident in a string of religious-rooted attacks against Christians in Iraq.
A Christian member of the European Parliament urged the European Union’s executive body, the European Commission, on Wednesday, December 1, to prevent the death sentence of Iranian house church leader Yousef Nadarkhani.
An advocacy group with close links to Chinese house church Christians said Thursday, December 2, that two of its Websites have collapsed under cyber attacks possibly originating from China.
Christian rights activists asked Vietnam Monday, November 29, to release pastors who received long prison terms on charges of “undermining national unity.”
The father of a Christian executive kidnapped in Pakistan’s Punjab province said Sunday, November 28, he fears his son will be killed on orders of senior Muslim managers.
A Christian teenager “wrongly” convicted of “blasphemy” against Islam was still recovering Sunday, November 28, after Muslim inmates nearly stoned him to death in a prison in Pakistan’s northwest Punjab province, Christians and medics said.
Iraq said Saturday, November 27, that its security forces have detained a dozen militants suspected of helping take Christians hostage in a church siege that killed scores of worshipers and two priests last month.