A teenage Pakistani Christian spent Saturday, September 23, behind bars on suspicion of ripping book pages containing Quranic verses, the latest in a series of detentions raising concerns about Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy laws.
Three Christian men who were suspected of involvement in killing Muslims have been executed despite international doubts about the evidence against them, both officials and Christians rights investigators said late Thursday, September 21.
The Washington-DC based human rights group, International Christian Concern (ICC) www.persecution.org has just become informed that the execution date has been re-scheduled for three Christians involved in the Poso conflict. The men are to be executed on Thursday, September 21, 2006. They were the only ones charged in a conflict in which massive numbers of Muslims participated.
Dozens of Hindu militants stormed a house church Saturday, September 16, in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, where several other Christian gatherings were attacked earlier in the week, a Christian official said.
Vietnamese security forces have detained 24 house church Christians who support a religious rights group which investigates the reported persecution of members of the, predominantly Christian, Montagnard Degar ethnic minority, friends told BosNewsLife Monday, September 11.
The military government of Burma has launched a new violent campaign against a largely Christian ethnic group and its churches, BosNewsLife learned Friday, September 8.
Thousands of Dalits in India’s Tamil Nadu state faced a difficult Saturday, September 9, amid fresh reports that they may be deported from their homes. Elsewhere in India, pastors were attacked on charges of “forcibly converting” villagers.
Christians in Indonesia’s volatile province of Aceh on Saturday, September 9, were without their Indonesia Evangelical Mission Church Saturday, after an angry Muslim mob set fire to the complex because evangelicals planned, ‘revival’ meetings there, several sources said.
Dozens of Hindu militants stormed a Christian school in Lucknow, the capital of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh late Sunday, September 10, threatening nuns and vandalizing the complex, Indian Christians told BosNewsLife.
Hindu extremists investigating the activities of Varghese Thomas, an evangelist in Karnakata state, laid a trap for him on Sunday (September 3), before beating him and his wife. Thomas is 60 and his wife, Leelama, is 57.
The demand for Bibles is rising in China and India, the most populous countries of the world.
A long-time jailed member of Vietnam’s predominantly Christian Montagnard Degar community has been tortured to death, BosNewsLife learned from supporters Wednesday, September 6.
Tensions remained high Wednesday, September 6, in an area of India’s Jammu and Kashmir state after dozens of Hindu militants stormed a church and attacked Christians, including women and children, as they were attending a Sunday worship service, local Christians said.
Two pastors and five Bible school students were reportedly free Saturday, September 2, after a court in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir granted them bail following their detention on charges of “concealing identity” and “forced conversion.”
Fearing beatings, detentions and deportations “many” Uzbek Protestant church leaders and their families were in hiding Friday, September 1, as Uzbekistan celebrated its 15th anniversary of independence, Christians said.
Leading Christian and secular human rights groups welcomed Thursday, August 31 the release of a church leader and a well-known Internet activist as part of Vietnam’s National Day of amnesty of thousands of prisoners.
There was international concern Wednesday, August 30, that a reported decision by Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to further restrict evangelizing among Muslims would lead to oppression of evangelical Christians and other minorities in the Asian nation.
Multiple attacks and arrests in recent weeks demonstrate ongoing hostility towards Christians in India. Police have cooperated with Hindu extremists, in some cases claiming “tremendous pressure” to charge Christian ministers with forced conversion.
A Muslim cleric has accused three Christians including a pastor of the village, 55/2 L, some 2 Kms from the city, of blaspheming the Quran, the Muslims holy book.
Lina Joy, a Malaysian convert to Christianity, has gone into hiding after extremists issued death threats against her and the lawyers supporting her cause.