Christian Persecution – Asia

Anti-Christian violence “is escalating” in Sri Lanka amid ongoing fighting between security forces and Tamil rebels seeking independence, human rights investigators said Monday, November 27.

Police in India’s southern state of Tamil Nadu were investigating Monday, November 27, the death of a church worker who was apparently killed at the start of a Sunday worship service.

An Asian human rights team has condemned Philippines government for what it says is “its utter failure” to look into the killings of Christian leaders, rights activists, journalists and others by security forces and prosecute those involved, BosNewsLife established Friday, November 24.

Ranjha Masih, who was Pakistan’s longest held Christian prisoner of conscience, underwent surgery Saturday, November 25, after he was rushed to a private hospital to receive treatment for diabetes– one of many ailments of which he suffers following years of torture and abuse, friends said.

Adherents of a Bodo tribal religion in Assam, northeast India, forced nine families from their homes last Tuesday (November 14) for converting to Christianity.

Two unidentified militants today killed a Christian convert from Islam on a busy road in Mamoosa village, Barmullah district, in the terror-stricken state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Buddhist militants attacked two church services in Sri Lanka on November 12 and hit Christian workers returning from a funeral. On Thursday (November 16), they also doused a female church member with a container of burnt oil.

A Brazilian missionary was murdered in Dili, as new fighting flared in the capital of East Timor late on Sunday, Nov.19 according to a U.N. spokeswoman and a government statement said on Monday, November 20, 2006.

Armed and drunken Muslims struck two greeters at a Sunday evening service of a church outside Lahore last week, later returning to pelt the building with stones and bricks.

Muslim extremists in West Java attempted to murder a Christian lecturer in mid-October for converting from Islam three years ago.

As US President George W. Bush and 20 other leaders began their lavish Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Hanoi’s new $260 million National Convention Center Saturday, November 18, hundreds of Christians, pro-democracy activists and homeless people remained jailed or under police surveillance “to be hidden” from the world’s attention, dissidents told BosNewsLife.

Key pro-democracy activists, including Christians, remained jailed or under house arrest across Vietnam Thursday, November 16, as the government quelled dissent ahead of the arrival of American President George W. Bush, dissidents said.

South Korean pastor Kim U Sob, who has led the Love Presbyterian Church in the southern Kazakh town of Kyzyl-Orda [Qyzylorda] for the past eight years, has been forced to leave the country, Aleksandr Klyushev of the Association of Religious Communities of Kazakhstan told Forum 18 News Service. The local Migration Police refused to allow the pastor to extend his visa and remain in the country, after he was found guilty in June of carrying out “missionary work without registration.”

Over 800 Tamil Christians including children, were on their way home Wednesday, November 15, after escaping from Tamil rebels who kidnapped them in August amid ongoing fighting with Sri Lanka’s security forces, government officials claimed.

A suspected Muslim militant on Wednesday, November 15, admitted he was involved in the beheadings of three Christian schoolgirls in Indonesia last year and asked “forgiveness” from the families of the victims.

A day after the US removed Vietnam from it list of ‘countries of particular concern’ regarding religious freedom, human rights workers said a Montagnard Christian was “hanged” by security forces who also “tortured” and “detained” other believers and pro-democracy activists.

During a panchayat or village council meeting convened last Thursday (November 9) to address threats against Christians in a village in Chhattisgarh state, a local politician and his associates attacked six believers, including a pregnant woman.

In a worsening climate of impunity as Sri Lanka falls into civil war, Buddhist militants have continued their campaign against Christianity, attacking churches and threatening Christian schools.

Family members continued searching Monday, November 13, for a kidnapped Protestant missionary in Vietnam amid a government-crackdown on Protestants and pro-democracy activists ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) summit here, dissidents and investigators told BosNewsLife.

Pakistan’s longest jailed Christian prisoner of conscious was preparing for his release Saturday, November 11, following eight and a half years behind bars, after the Lahore High Court acquitted him of blasphemy charges.