The Dutch coalition government has collapsed amid a political row over whether to extend the country’s military mission in Afghanistan. Christian Democratic Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende was due to submit his government’s resignation to Queen Beatrix later Saturday, leaving the future of its 1,600 soldiers stationed there uncertain.
There was concern Friday, February 19, that Ethiopian authorities would press “terrorism” charges against a Christian convert who has been detained since May for distributing Bibles and abandoning Islam, well-informed Christians said.
Up to six Christians have been killed in a new wave of anti-Christian violence rocking the northern city of Mosul and nearby areas, an advocacy group said.
By Worthy News Asia Service NEW DELHI, INDIA (Worthy News)– Eleven tribal Christians in India’s southern state of Karnataka were freeon bail Wednesday, February 17, after Indian police detained them for several days for allegedly “forcefullyconverting” Hindus to Christianity, rights investigators and Christian leaders said. Advocacy group International Christian Concern (ICC) told Worthy News and its partner BosNewsLife agency that police arrested the group,including four women, on February 1 in Thagadur village after “Hindu extremists” accused them of theforced conversions apparently because they were involved in evangelism. “The extremists dragged the Christians out of their homes and assaulted them before … Read more
North Korea observed the 68th birthday of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il’s 68th birthday but hundreds of thousands of people, including Christians, had no reason to celebrate as they remained behind bars in prison camps across the country, and many North Koreans reportedly faced starvation.
A Christian father in Pakistan’s Punjab province was without his home Monday, February 15, as his house was burned down by angry Muslims who killed his son in 2008, rights activists said.
Ukrainian election officials say they will not consider Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s complaints of presidential election fraud. Results show opposition leader Victor Yanukovich defeated Tymoshenko by 3.5 percentage points in the February 7 runoff election.
About 1,000 people, many of them elderly Holocaust survivors, braved winter temperatures Saturday, February 13, to express concern about the rising far right groups in Hungary.
Moroccan security forces raided a Bible study group and detained 18 Moroccans while deporting an American citizen, Worthy News learned Friday, February 12.
Over 70 houses, a mobile health clinic and two schools in eastern Burma have been burnt down by army patrols stepping up an offensive against predominantly Christian Karen villagers, rights activists said Thursday, February 11.
Twin bombings apparently targeting Shiite Muslims in Pakistan’s financial capital Karachi also killed at least five members of a Christian family, including a pregnant woman, Worthy News established Wednesday, February 10.
Survivors of India’s worst anti-Christian violence in recent memory have met European Union delegates over the weekend, urging them to help them in their fight for justice.
Amid international pressure, North Korea released an American missionary Saturday, February 6, and sent him to China after holding him for more than a month, officials confirmed.
A religious liberty group warned Saturday, February 6, that “Anti-Christian hostility is getting increasingly deadly” in the United States after two street preachers were shot and killed by a teenager who apparently opposed their message.
United States President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described international religious freedom as “important” at the annual National Prayer Breakfast, but a group investigating persecution of Christians said the administration should turn its words into deeds.
Authorities in India’s state of Orissa have forced nearly 100 survivors of anti-Christian violence to leave a local market complex where they stayed since the closure of refugee camps, Christians and officials told Worthy News, Thursday, February 4.
Protestant Christians in Pakistan’s Punjab province were searching for a place of worship Wednesday, February 3, after angry Muslims apparently attacked their partly constructed church, injuring scores of worshippers.
A Chinese Christian human rights lawyer was missing for 363 days Tuesday, February 2, but an advocacy group said it now believes he is still alive.
There was international disappointment Monday, February 1, that the leader of a growing network of independent churches in Cuba has been denied the right to appeal his six-year prison sentence by the Supreme Tribunal in Havana.
Glenn Penner, who became a key voice for persecuted Christians as leader of advocacy group The Voice of the Martyrs Canada (VOMC) has died after losing his battle with cancer, officials said. He was 48.