The leader of a Kenyan “Jesus” film team ministry supported by churches and individuals through Christian Aid narrowly survived a murder attempt April 3. However, three neighbors who rushed to his aid in the 3 a.m. attack were shot and killed by the attackers.
The wife and children of Baptist prisoner Shageldy Atakov in Turkmenistan have been told by the local mullah, administration officials and officers of the country’s political police, the KNB (former KGB), that they may not believe in Jesus Christ and must convert to Islam. According to a statement from local Baptists — passed on to Keston News Service by the German-based Friedensstimme mission — officials in the town of Kaakhka, close to Turkmenistan’s southern border with Iran, also warned Atakov’s wife, Artygyul, that the family home would be confiscated if Christians continue to meet there.
A fundamentalist Hindu mob attacked a church in the eastern Indian state of Tripura on February 25. Church leaders say the Krishnanagar Baptist Church in the capital Agartala was attacked as Christians were attending the Sunday service. The mob forced the pastor to stop the service.
Police in Pakistan’s Punjab province registered another questionable blasphemy case against one of its Christian citizens on April 1, jailing a respected high school principal for slander he allegedly spoke two months ago against Mohammed, the prophet of Islam. Pervaiz Masih, founding director of the Iqbal Memorial High School in Chelay Kay village near Sialkot, was arrested at his home on April 1 during a late-night police raid.
ISTANBUL, April 7 (Compass) — Two Turkish Christians imprisoned near Izmir for a month on concocted charges of insulting Islam were ordered released March 30, after prosecution witnesses admitted that local gendarmarie officials pressured them to sign prepared complaints.
The continued detention of 24 American aviators by the Chinese government should come as no surprise to Washington.
“The Chinese government is demonstrating its true color and unfortunately that color is Red,” says The Voice of the Martyrs spokesman Gary Lane.
A top leader of Timothy Training Institute in Mozambique was murdered Sunday in a robbery in Maputo.
AUSTIN, Texas, March 24 (Compass) — An evangelical Peruvian village leader was executed March 20 after Marxist guerrillas declared him guilty of taking part in police and military activities.
Work is underway to resettle Indonesian Christians rescued from violence that continues in this country’s Molucca Islands, while thousands more remain to be rescued.
SANTA ANA, CA (March 13, 2001) — One Christian was seriously injured and 35 more were hospitalized when about 100 Buddhist extremists assaulted the congregation of the Sanasum Sevana (New Life) Christian Center as they prayed on Sunday morning, February 18. The church is located in Nurwarawatte, near Hinguragoda, 220 kilometers northeast of the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo.
Legislation designed to further the United States’ involvement in helping end a Sudanese campaign marked by religious persecution has been reintroduced in Congress.
One Christian was seriously injured and 35 more were hospitalized when about 100 Buddhist extremists assaulted the congregation of the Sanasum Sevana (New Life) Christian Center as they prayed on Sunday morning, February 18. The church is located in Nurwarawatte, near Hinguragoda, 220 kilometers northeast of the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo.
Responding to urgent pleas for help, Christian Aid has joined a campaign to raise $1.2 million to rescue Christians feared targeted for conversion or extermination by Muslim jihad warriors in Indonesia.
Jorge Enrique Gómez Montealegre has prayed for years for Colombia’s guerrillas to lay down their arms and surrender to Christ. His family believes that now he’s preaching to them.
As a result of continued escalating violence, Open Doors USA President and CEO, Terry Madison, is urging Christians around the world to join in the “Wage Peace Upon Colombia” prayer campaign on July 28.
ISTANBUL, March 6 (Compass) — A Christian Uzbek pastor jailed since February 1999 on contrived fraud charges is being subjected to physical beatings for witnessing to his cellmates, church sources in the Central Asian republic reported in early March.
Mystery still surrounds a car accident, which resulted in the killing of a Coptic priest and three of his relatives in El Menya governorat. This morning, March 5/ 2001, a car accident caused the death of Father Antonios Zaki Ghobrial and three of his relatives.
ASHGABAD, TURKENISTAN (March 4, 2001) — The authorities of the Niyazov district of the Turkmen capital Ashgabad broke their own seals on the doors of the city’s Baptist church on 2 March and confiscated everything inside. The move was timed on the last working day before nearly a week of public holidays in the country.
The authorities of the Niyazov district of the Turkmen capital Ashgabad broke their own seals on the doors of the city’s Baptist church on 2 March and confiscated everything inside. The move was timed on the last working day before nearly a week of public holidays in the country. Keston News Service has been able to find no Turkmen local or national government official prepared to discuss why the contents of the country’s last Baptist church have been carted away in several lorry loads, despite repeated telephone calls.
Sharply different perspectives on religious persecution in Indonesia have been laid before the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.