Sectors of the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches in Mexico are engaged in a tug-of-war over the fate of 74 Tzotzil peasant farmers imprisoned for perpetrating the “Acteal massacre” in December 1997. Among them are 34 evangelical Christians from Presbyterian, Assemblies of God and Pentecostal churches in Chiapas.
For over a decade, Cuba has endured shocking shortages of everything from food and clothing to jobs and transportation. Cubans do not lack a sense of humor, however, and can still joke about their poverty.
Eighteen families of the indigenous Huichol tribe in Tenzompa, Jalisco, Mexico, — more than 80 adults and children, in all — are threatened with expulsion from their homes for the “crime” of believing in the Christian gospel.
An angry mob of Quechua-speaking Indians destroyed the only evangelical church in the remote village of Chucarasi in the Bolivian Andes on February 28 after beating a congregational elder unconscious. Villagers apparently attacked their Christian neighbors because they blamed them for a hail storm that damaged local crops.
November 18, 2003 was to be a day of major celebration by Christians across the island of Haiti. However, the Haitian government, changed its tune at the last minute and barred evangelicals from joining hands across the nation.
Colonel David de Vinatea, a decorated officer in the Peruvian army and an evangelical Christian, regained his freedom Wednesday after serving eight years and 10 days in prison for alleged drug trafficking.
An evangelical Christian pastor was assassinated last Friday near the town of San Juan Chamula in Mexico’s troubled southern state of Chiapas, while on his way to a prayer service.
Attorneys of the Association of Christian Lawyers in Colombia have assumed the defense of a pastor and several church lay leaders arrested by security forces near the city of Sincelejo and accused of terrorism.
In late April, Haiti’s President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a former Catholic priest, declared voodoo an officially recognized religion. The decision means, among other things, that marriage ceremonies conducted by voodoo priests now have equal standing with Catholic ones.
Terrorists now pose a serious threat in Peru, and one Peruvian mission leader is asking that Christians everywhere band together in prayer to protect God’s people from violence.
A heated debate over freedom of religion in Brazil has gone to court. Legal representatives of Umbanda and Candomble spiritist groups are pressing a lawsuit against Baptist pastor Joaquim de Andrade, 41, and Aldo dos Santos Menezes, 33, a deacon of the Anglican Church, in connection with an annual evangelistic outreach on the beaches of Sao Paulo state.
Twenty-five armed men entered a rural church in northern Colombia Tuesday night, May 6, and murdered its 80-year-old evangelical pastor and three other believers, confirmed the head of the nations evangelical alliance.
THE PALESTINIANS:
“Whether consciously or unconsciously, the Americans are paving a long, broad path for the death of tens of thousands, maybe even more, of their people. The American madness will bring nothing but counter-madness. They [Americans] have begun an era of destructive and lethal war for human beings in order to feed their aggressive military economic machine, and they will bear the responsibility for it.” Al-Ayyam (PA), April 10, 2003.
Traditionalist Catholic “caciques”(village leaders) in Chiapas, Mexico, accused evangelical Christians of provoking a violent confrontation that left seven people wounded by high powered rifles. However, the 27 evangelical Christian families left homeless for two weeks following the shooting say they are not at fault.
Since the armed attack on indigenous Mexican evangelicals in the southern province of Chiapas in 1995, the situation has not changed in favor of the persecuted Christians. (Pictured: Indian Christian woman and her child in Chiapas).
Seventeen innocent men and women in Peru, some of whom had been imprisoned for over ten years, will be freed from prison this weekend.
Juan Carlos, a blind Christian human rights activist imprisoned since March 2002 has learned that he could face up to six years in prison. His wife Maritza has been told that he will be charged with ‘acts of disrespect towards Fidel Castro, public disorder, resisting authority, and disobedience’, according to the Coalition of Cuban American Women. The prosecutor’s office in Ciego de Avila is recommending that he be given a six-year prison sentence. Juan Carlos Gonzalez Leiva, President of both the Cuban Human Rights Foundation and the Brotherhood of the Independent Blind People of Cuba, was arrested along with several … Read more
AUSTIN, Texas (Compass) — Guerrillas manning a roadblock near Medellin kidnapped an associate church pastor as he returned with a group of church members on Sunday, April 28, from an afternoon baptismal service, reported the head of that city’s pastoral alliance.
A prisoner who has spent nearly ten years behind bars in Peru for terrorist crimes he did not commit has now had to wait an additional three months for the result of his appeal.
COCHABAMBA, Bolivia, May 15 (Compass) — In mid April, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) forced 11 evangelical Protestant churches in Arauquita, a town near Colombia’s border with Venezuela, to suspend public worship services.