A pastor in Muslim-majority Pakistan says he has been shot and injured after Islamic graffiti was removed from his Presbyterian church in an eastern district where last month, angry Muslims destroyed scores of churches and homes.
The Supreme Court in Pakistan has ordered the government to respond to a complaint demanding lower courts stop allowing forced conversion and marriage of minority girls in the predominantly Muslim country. The decision could make way for the country to adopt laws that would protect young girls, says a new report.
Christians in several parts of Pakistan faced a new dilemma Thursday after their churches were painted with pro-Islam slogans by suspected Muslim militants, according to footage obtained by Worthy News.
Having suffered relentless genocidal persecution throughout history, Armenian Christians are again facing an existential crisis as the Muslim Azerbaijani government has imposed a military blockade on the flow of essential supplies from the Armenian capital, Yerevan, to the 120,000 Armenian Christians living in the contested Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) enclave in Azerbaijan, the Christian media outlet NRB reports. The blockade comes amid an ongoing conflict over the region involving Azerbaijan, Armenia, and the self-declared Armenian breakaway state of Artsakh.
Pakistani authorities have detained two Christian men for allegedly desecrating the Koran after some 2,000 Muslim extremists demanded tougher actions against Christians accused of blasphemy, Worthy News learned Tuesday.
Christians in India’s Madhya Pradesh state say police have issued at least 40 churches with suspicious, discriminatory, questionnaire notices requesting information they believe could be released to Hindu extremists to attack them with, Morning Star News (MSN) reports.
As Christians in Pakistan continue to face mortal danger because of their faith, a Christian man was falsely accused of blasphemy and then murdered by Islamic extremists in Punjab earlier this month, News Intervention reports.
Hungary, the only nation with a government secretary dedicated to persecuted Christians, has condemned attacks against the Christian community in eastern Pakistan.
More Muslim protests and strikes were expected Saturday in eastern Pakistan, more than a week after churches and Christian homes were torched and vandalized, well-informed sources tell Worthy News.
Hundreds of Christians near Pakistan’s capital fled their homes Friday amid fears that Muslim mobs would attack their homes and churches following Friday prayers, Christians told Worthy News.
Indian Christians have urged prayers after Hindu nationalists stormed a church in Delhi during Sunday prayers, vandalized it, and attacked believers.
Pakistani government officials announced Monday that Christians whose homes were destroyed by Muslim rioters last week will receive compensation of 2 million rupees ($6,800), DW reports. The announcement is a rare act of consideration toward Christians by Pakistani authorities.
Five Christians in India’s Uttar Pradesh state were arrested and charged last week for allegedly trying to convert Hindus to Christianity in violation of the state’s anti-conversion law, Christian Today reports.
A Muslim man in Indonesia’s Sumatra island has been sentenced to three months imprisonment for overstepping his authority as head of a Lampung Province neighborhood and disrupting a Christian worship service being held there, Morning Star News (MSN) reports.
More than 100 were arrested, and criminal investigations were launched against hundreds of others in east Pakistan city after thousands of Muslims burned churches and vandalized homes, Christians and officials said Thursday.
Angry Muslim crowds have torched two churches in Pakistan’s Punjab province, forcing Christians to flee their homes after blasphemy allegations, footage sent to Worthy News early Wednesday shows.
Muslim protestors blocked worship services from taking place at two separate churches in northern Indonesia earlier this month, Morning Star News (MSN) reports. While Christianity is legal under the Indonesian Constitution, the Muslim-majority country ranks 33rd on the US Open Doors World Watch List 2023 of the top 50 countries where Christians are persecuted.
Christian leaders and civil rights advocates have expressed alarm at Pakistan’s recent passing of the Criminal Laws (Amendment) Act 2023, which increases already-harsh punishment for blasphemy offenses against Islam, and the National Commission for Minorities Bill 2023, which places minority rights at risk, the Christian Post (CP) reports.
A Christian teacher in central India has been violently attacked by police and charged with human trafficking for escorting a small group of tribal Christian students by bus from their home state of Chhattisgarh to a Bible institute in Kerala state, with their parents’ consent, Morning Star News (MSN) reports.
Although Indonesia’s Constitution specifically protects religious freedom, a church in East Jakarta has come under pressure to close, after Islamic government authorities threatened to permanently deny the congregation a permit to meet and worship in their own building, International Christian Concern (ICC) reports.