Six Christian men who were arrested in Uzbekistan amid a reported government-led crackdown on Christians and churches across the former Soviet republic have been released, their supporters told BosNewsLife Friday, September 8.
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.
Four executions on Wednesday in Afghanistan have speed up diplomatic efforts to free 24 aid workers, including eight foreigners, who were arrested by the country’s Islamic “Taliban” rulers, on charges of spreading Christianity.
An avalanche of media coverage of an Afghan man facing the death penalty for converting to Christianity has apparently sparked the arrest and deepening harassment of other Afghan Christians in the ultra-conservative Muslim country.
An Afghan man faced an uncertain future behind bars Monday, March 20, after a judge told him he may be executed for converting from Islam to Christianity.
A Protestant pastor kidnapped last Sunday morning escaped from his Islamist abductors overnight Monday, some 40 hours after he had disappeared on his way to church services in Quetta, capital of Pakistan’s Baluchistan province.
ISTANBUL, September 27 (Compass) — The Taliban Supreme Court announced it will resume trial proceedings on Saturday against eight Western aid workers who have been jailed in the Afghan capital for the past two months on charges of preaching Christianity.
KABUL/ISLAMABAD (ANS) — The trial of eight Western aid workers accused of spreading Christianity in mainly Moslim Afghanistan resumed in the Afghan Capital Kabul Sunday, September 30, as family members pleaded to United States President George W. Bush to postpone retaliatory action against the country.
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN (ANS) — As the United States began a second day of air and missile attacks against Afghanistan Monday October 8, round the clock prayers intensified for twenty-four Christian aid workers held in a prison of the country’s ruling Taliban regime.
ISTANBUL (Compass) — As aerial military strikes by U.S. forces continued to pound Afghanistan for the fourth consecutive day, the defense lawyer for eight Western relief workers imprisoned in Kabul left Pakistan this morning via the Khyber Pass to return to the Afghan capital.
KABUL/BUDAPEST (ANS)– There were new fears Thursday that 16 Afghan and eight foreign workers of the German based Christian relief agency Shelter Now International (SNI) may be executed, as the country’s Islamic rulers prepared to arrest more Christians, including children.
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN (ANS)– Parents of two American women have seen their daughters for the first time since they and 22 other aid workers were arrested August 5th on charges of spreading Christianity in Islamic Afghanistan. The Bakhtar News Agency (BNA) described the visit as an “emotional reunion” between the mother of Dana Curry, and the father of the other woman, Heather Mercy.
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN (ANS) — More than 50 foreign staff members of the US based Christian aid organizations International Assistance Mission (IAM) and Serve began leaving Afghanistan Saturday, September 1, after the Islamic Taliban regime closed their offices Friday.
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN (ANS) — Afghanistan’s Islamic Taliban regime threatened Wednesday, September 5, to execute eight foreign Christian relief workers, as Western diplomats and relatives desperately tried to meet them.
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN (ANS) — The Foreign Minister of Afghanistan’s Islamic Taliban regime denied Thursday, September 6, that his hard-line movement was considering a prisoner swap with the United States to free eight detained Western Christian relief workers. Reports from the region said that relatives of blind Egyptian militant Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, currently serving a life term in the United States for terrorism, proposed the prison exchange.
ISTANBUL, September 10 (Compass) — Taliban authorities arrested 35 more Afghan aid workers over the weekend, bringing the total to more than 50 Afghans jailed by the strict Islamist regime since early August on suspicion of aiding covert Christian missionary work.
JANUARY
Taliban leader Mohammed Omar declares on Radio Shariat that any Afghan caught professing Christianity or Judaism would be executed, and that any non-Muslim found “trying to win converts” would also be killed.
ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN (ANS) — In what was seen as an answer to the prayers of thousands of Christians around the world, eight Christian aid workers detained in Afghanistan arrived safely in neighboring Pakistan, Thursday November 15, after more 100 days in captivity.
Kurdish Christian Ziwar Mohammed Ismaeel was shot dead in front of his taxi stand last month in Zakho, the northern-most city in the Kurdish safe-haven of Northern Iraq.
WACO, Texas (Compass) — Imprisoned Christian aid workers Heather Mercer and Dayna Curry were freed from Afghanistan’s Taliban as the country fell, city by city, to opposition forces. But a homecoming worship service showed they haven’t forgotten believers still in captivity.