Syria: Christian village now a ‘ghost town’
Homes have been vandalized and plundered while the bodies of Christians lie along the roads of a small Christian village north of Damascus after it was invaded by Islamist insurgents last Thursday.
Homes have been vandalized and plundered while the bodies of Christians lie along the roads of a small Christian village north of Damascus after it was invaded by Islamist insurgents last Thursday.
More than four months after Islamic rebels seized control of the Christian-majority Central African Republic (CAR), many non-Muslims are now faced with the prospect of being forced to live under Islamic law, according to Morning Star News.
Last month, a Christian children’s camp in Uzbekistan was raided by riot police; all the children were subjected to questioning and the homes of the camp’s organizers were searched, according to BarnabasAid.
A convert from Islam has been sentenced to ten years in jail for distributing 12,000 pocket-sized Gospels in the Islamic Republic of Iran, according to BarnabasAid.
Last week’s disappearance of an Italian Jesuit priest in Syria suggested foul play following the kidnappings of two other clergy in April, according to Morning Star News.
For nearly nine months, an Algerian Christian convert from Islam still waits for a ruling on his appeal to the severe sentence handed him for allegedly proselytizing and defaming Islam and its prophet, according to Morning Star News.
According to the Assyrian International News Agency, Assyrian Christians who have fled from an area of Syria called al-Thawrah (also known as al-Tabqah), have been told by rebels, “If you want to come back, convert to Islam, or you will be killed.”
Author Reza Aslan claims Jesus was just a lowly laborer who lacked the education required to read the Torah, or any other text no matter the language, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Every year, millions of Muslims, mostly women, go on pilgrimage to Marian shrines in Egypt, Syria, Portugal and Lebanon, according to Asia News.
Eritrean authorities are punishing 39 Christian high school students by subjecting them to beatings and hard labor, according to Open Doors.
China Aid reports raids on two house churches and a home Bible study in Xinjiang last month.
A Christian convert was tried in July by Branch 2 of the Revolutionary Court in Robat Karim.
Eight Iranian Christians received long sentences Tuesday after being convicted of “action against the national security,” a bogus charge often used against Muslim converts to Christianity, according to Morning Star News.
International Christian Concern is calling for the immediate release of a pastor in Kazakhstan who has been falsely imprisoned.
The pastor of Iran’s largest Persian speaking Pentecostal church has been “conditionally released” from prison but his congregation in the capital Tehran remains closed, Iranian Christians told Worthy News.
Another massacre reportedly carried out by Free Syrian Army militants has targeted the residents of al-Duwayr/Douar, a Christian village close to the city of Homs and near Syria’s border with Lebanon, according to Syria Report.
A Catholic priest has been publicly beheaded by suspected Islamic militants in northern Syria after accusations of collaborating with President Bashar Assad’s government, Worthy News established Tuesday, July 2.
Minority Christians in Iraq feared more violence Saturday, June 29, after several Assyrian Christian shops and one church were attacked, killing two people and injuring a dozen others, church representatives said.
While the world’s attention was focused on Iran’s presidential election, four converts to Christianity were found guilty by an Iranian court of no longer being Muslims.
Human Rights Watch described it as “a giant prison” and Reporters without Borders called it “the most repressive nation on earth”.