Christian Persecution – Asia

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.

The high court of India’s western state of Gujarat heard a counter complaint Monday, November 6, from eight Christian missionaries accused of forced conversion and attempted murder. The Christians said police tortured them after they were attacked by Hindu militants.

Hindu extremists yesterday forced Christians in the remote village of Bevainahalli, in the southern state of Karnataka, to bow down before Hindu deities and applied the vermilion mark to their foreheads. It was the second such incident in Chitradurga district in a little over a week.

There was concern Monday, November 6, about the whereabouts of four Christian youngsters amid reports they were detained more than a week ago in India’s southern state of Karnataka on charges of “forcible converting Hindus.”

Political dissidents in Vietnam were preparing for a difficult court case Friday, November 3, after officials said they would be charged with “terrorism” even after authorities made efforts to convince the United States that freedom of expression and religious liberty for Christians had improved in the Communist nation.

Leaders of one of India’s largest Hindu parties have urged the arrest and deportation of Christian missionaries, and several of them have been attacked in tribal areas, BosNewsLife established Wednesday, November 1.

A Pakistani Christian who spent over two years in jail for allegedly degrading Islam has died and there were fears he may have been tortured, fellow Christians said Monday, October 30.

Police last Friday (October 27) arrested a 25-year-old believer for “causing communal disharmony” after Hindu extremists harassed him for selling Christian literature at an evangelistic event in the eastern state of Orissa.

Vietnamese authorities advised the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi that 18 Vietnamese churches had been registered while not informing the churches themselves. Observers believe this is an indication that the country has stepped up efforts to convince the United States of improvements in its religious freedom record as two key U.S. decisions approach.

Two Christian believers in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh were recovering from their injuries Sunday, October 29, after angry villagers and militants were beating them for their refusal to return to Hinduism, their previous religion.

Police this morning arrested a recent convert in Mayapuri, Madhya Pradesh state for the second time in three days in an apparent attempt to pressure him to give evidence that his pastor forcibly converted him. By nightfall in India, the new believer was charged with “insulting religious beliefs.”

Up to eight Christian workers at a home for the destitute in India’s Karnataka state were in jail Wednesday, October 18, on charges of “wrongful confinement, abduction and cheating” after apparently incorrect television reports led to a riot around the facility, Christian investigators said.

Pakistan has released a psychiatrically disordered man who was accused of setting alight some pages of Quran, the Muslims holy book last year, ANS has learnt.

Leaders of Indonesia’s embattled Christian minority urged authorities Tuesday, October 17, to catch the killers of a Protestant pastor, whose church defended three Catholics before they were executed last month for alleged involvement in violence against Muslims.

News has just been received by ASSIST News Service that at around 9 am this morning (Monday, October 16, 2006), the acting head of the Protestant Church in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia, was assassinated. He was shot in the head on a street in Palu, the capital of Central Sulawesi, Indonesia — the same region where three Catholic Christians were recently executed.

A teenage girl was “mercilessly beaten and punished” by Muslim teachers at her school for “defending” her faith in Christ and wearing a cross, amid growing concern over violence against Christian women and girls in the Asian nation, Pakistani Christians said Friday, October 13.

A church in Uttar Pradesh’s Jaunpur district cancelled its weekly meeting yesterday (October 10) due to tensions in the region following false reports of conversions in newspapers. The reports led to two attacks in the past week.

One of Pakistan’s longest held Christian prisoners faced another uphill battle Saturday, October 7 as he “feels forgotten by the Church,” amid alleged pressure by fellow inmates to covert to Islam and health problems, friends and investigators told BosNewsLife.