After nearly two years in a Turkish prison, hopes for the release of American pastor Andrew Brunson have been deferred. A Turkish court ordered 50-year-old pastor to remain bars until at least his next hearing on October 12.
Andrew Brunson, an American pastor who’s been locked up in a Turkish jail for more than 500 days, could spend the rest of his life in prison.
Andrew Brunson, the American pastor who has been imprisoned in Turkey for nearly a year on dubious terrorism charges, is now facing new charges: ‘gathering state secrets for espionage, attempting to overthrow the Turkish parliament and government, and to change the constitutional order.’
The Turkish government has seized control of six church buildings in the country’s Diyarbakir region.
In April, Turkey detained an American evangelist and ordered him held for a month with a view to his deportation.
Four Muslim men detained by police for attacking a church building in the Black Sea region of Turkey last week shouted jihadist slogans after they were released from custody.
The Malatya Administrative Court ruled last week that the Turkish government was negligent in its duty to protect three Christians who were tortured and killed in 2007 and ordered it to pay one million lira ($333,980) in compensation for their families.
Theoretically, Turkey allows non-Muslims to be exempted from compulsory religious education if their religion is on record with the state. But parents have complained that some schools have refused to allow their children to be exempted.
Thirty-seven Christian families fleeing from the Islamic State are being relocated to the Czech Republic.
One of the oldest churches in Turkey reopened this month.
According to AINA, a worship service was recently held in the 160-year-old Mardin Protestant Church after extensive restorations as the building had been left in ruins for 60 years.
A family that fled the violence in the Middle East only to to return to Iraq after being persecuted by Syrian Islamists in a refugee camp in Freising is just one example of how badly Christians are being treated by Muslims in Germany.
Two British converts from Islam have been plagued by the persistent presence of mobs outside of their home in Bradford.
Twelve Armenians who were baptized last month in Istanbul were among the many former Muslims who are now openly embracing Christ after their ancestors were forced to follow Islam during the Armenian and Assyrian genocides that killed millions of Christians one century ago.
An electrical fire in Istanbul’s Bible Correspondence School on Dec. 7 is thought to have been from an arson attack after security cameras caught a man leaving the building just after the fire started, according to Barnabas Aid.
A lawyer in Diyarbakir estimated that land grabs have targeted thousands of Christians and Yazidis in southeastern Turkey, according to Al-Monitor.
A Christian bakery in Northern Ireland must pay compensation or face legal action after an equality commission declared that it was guilty of committing “unlawful religious, political and sexual orientation discrimination” for declining to bake a “gay” cake, according to Christian News.
A Scandinavian rights group has filed a lawsuit against the Swedish government on behalf of a Christian midwife who was fired for refusing to perform abortions, according to International Christian Concern.
A Turkish legislator is demanding an investigation into why the website of a Turkish church was classified as pornography and blocked online from Turkey’s Grand National Assembly, according to Morning Star News.
A Baptist church in the UK was recently investigated by police after displaying a sign suggesting that unbeleivers would “burn in hell,” according to the Mail Online.
Last year, the Church of Scotland’s General Assembly decided that it couldn’t condone same-sex marriages or civil partnerships, yet its commissioners approved a proposal that allowed individual congregations to hire gay ministers while the assembly continues to debate their ordination.