The Washington, DC, based human rights group, International Christian Concern (ICC) www.persecution.org, has received new information concerning the expulsion of 96 Christian families totaling about 600 people from their village in Lao Cai Province to Binh Thuan Province about 800 miles to the south.
Five Afghan men who had converted to Christianity have been killed in separate incidents since late June near the borders of eastern Afghanistan.
We just received exciting news that GFA native missionary Besh has been freed from the Maoist group that abducted him in mid-August. Another missionary had been sent to search for him, but in the meantime Besh was safely returned, physically unharmed. This is nothing short of a miracle when we consider that Maoists in this district typically kill those they abduct.
Another Christian has died in Pakistan as a result of severe torture at the hands of the police. This is the third murder of a Pakistani Christian this year, and the second carried out by the police.
Eight days after his arrest, prominent Vietnamese house church leader Rev. Tran Mai walked back into his house in Ho Chi Minh City at 11 p.m. on September 6. However, he arrived home with orders to appear for further interrogation just nine hours later at the city headquarters of the Ministry of Public Security.
As of Wednesday, August 25, GFA (Gospel For Asia) native missionary Besh is still being held by Maoist insurgents after being abducted about 12 days ago.
Samuel Masih, a Pakistani Christian who had been accused of blasphemy under Pakistan’s strict Law 295, died tonight around 9 p.m. local time in the Lahore hospital where he was a patient.
In spite of monumental efforts by Vietnam to minimize and cover up their brutal repression of demonstration attempts by the Montagnard ethnic minority this past Easter, consistent information is emerging that confirms atrocities.
A Protestant pastor kidnapped last Sunday morning escaped from his Islamist abductors overnight Monday, some 40 hours after he had disappeared on his way to church services in Quetta, capital of Pakistan’s Baluchistan province.
Six people were arrested on May 3 in connection with a February 10 incident regarding residents of a village in Orissa state, India, shaving the heads of a local pastor and eight Christian women in an effort to publicly mark them as Hindu converts.
During the Easter weekend of April 10 and 11, and on some days afterward, Montagnards in Vietnam’s Central Highlands attempted to stage demonstrations to call attention to the harsh injustices they suffer at the hands of communist authorities and ethnic Vietnamese settlers.
After a series of handwritten threats sent to Christian leaders in the Pakistani city of Quetta last week, at least one Protestant pastor has been reported missing by his family, with the whereabouts of another six uncertain.
Christians in Sri Lanka continue to face violent attacks and intimidation following the parliamentary elections in early April. Over 45 churches have been attacked since January, and during the past year more than 140 churches have been forced to close, due to attacks, intimidation and threats.
Pakistani police in the central province of Punjab reluctantly detained a Muslim cleric last week after a Christian university student savagely beaten and tortured inside a local Islamic madrasseh (seminary) died of his injuries.
A 23 year-old Pakistani Christian has died of injuries as a result of five days of severe torture by Islamic militants for refusing to convert to Islam.
As the campaign for elections to India’s parliament reached its heights, Indian officials ordered a Christian missionary to leave the country.
Sectarian violence has erupted again in Ambon, South Moluccas, Indonesia, dealing a blow to the tentative Muslim-Christian dialogue that brought relative peace to the area in February this year.
Rev. Rinaldy Damanik, a pastor who many believe was framed on false charges of illegal weapons possession, has finally received permission to travel to Jakarta for urgent medical treatment. Damanik has been in and out of the Salvation Army hospital in Palu since mid-April, suffering from severe kidney problems. Doctors believe he needs urgent surgery, the facilities for which are only available in Jakarta.
Three house churches in Sarpang district of southern Bhutan were visited by police on the night of April 11 following their Easter Sunday services. According to a respected Christian leader in Bhutan, the church members were warned to discontinue meeting together for worship. The raids seem to confirm a growing crackdown against Christian activity in Bhutan.
A Christian Fellowship Church (CFC) in the Kalutara district of Sri Lanka was attacked on April 11, Easter Sunday, leading to minor injuries and damage to the church building. This latest attack adds to the total of more than 146 churches attacked since January 2003. Sixty of those attacks have occurred in the past four months.