Christians in the Indonesian province of Papua (Irian Jaya) are fearful that a violent campaign could be unleashed against them later this year as Laskar Jihad Islamic militants continue to flood into the province with the apparent collusion of the authorities.
1 July 2002
Moderate Muslims, women’s groups, Christians and other non-Muslim minorities have all reacted with horror to plans by Muslim opposition party PAS to impose full Islamic Shari’ah law in Malaysia’s Terengganu State.
A Pakistani Muslim convicted of alleged religious blasphemy was shot dead by a fellow prisoner yesterday afternoon in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat Central Jail.
A Jordanian Christian widow threatened with loss of the legal guardianship of her two children was assured in late May by representatives of her government that the children will not be removed from her custody.
Two lawyers known for defending Pakistani Christians and Muslims over alleged blasphemy charges received death threats over the weekend, part of a series of overt warnings dished out to perceived “enemies of Islam” by local extremists during the past two weeks.
Filipino Christians, Danilo de Guzman, 38, and Benjamin Diaz, 40, were deported to the Philippines last Saturday after spending more than a month in prison.
In a shocking turn of events, the radical Laskar Jihad has been banned from the Moluccas and its combative leader placed under arrest.
A group of Hmong Christians living in the highlands of Vietnam have filed a complaint about violent incidents that they say took place amongst this tribal group last year.
Protestant pastor Ahmet Guvener goes on trial in Turkey’s southeastern city of Diyarbakir in late May, accused by the state prosecutor of making illegal changes in the architectural plan of his nearly completed church building.
Christians in the Maluku provincial capital of Ambon are appealing to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to send peacekeeping forces in the wake of recent terrorist attacks.
A Yemeni court sentenced a man to death on Saturday for the murder of three U.S. missionaries last year because he wanted to get closer to God. Abed Abdel Razzak Kamel testified in court that he killed the Americans to defend Islam because he believed they were sterilizing Muslim women and trying to convert Muslims to Christianity.
An uncertain number of leaders of a major house church movement in China have disappeared in what at first was thought to be a massive government raid. Now cult activity is suspected.
The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Organization, VHP) is secretly conducting large-scale conversion drives in India’s Marxist-ruled state of West Bengal. More than 16 tribal Christians were forced to re-convert to Hinduism on April 22 at a purification ceremony in Chopra village in the Malda district about 300 kilometers from Calcutta, NGO sources said. Ten other animist tribals were also converted to Hinduism in the village.
A Presbyterian church close to the Kashmir border was attacked by a group of Islamic extremists on Sunday April 7.
A three-day Baptist convention for 100,000 people, which was due to be held in Burma, has been cancelled on the orders of the junta.
Two Filipino Christians were quietly whisked away from their homes near Jeddah early Wednesday morning, April 10, according to the Washington, DC based human rights organization, International Christian Concern (ICC).
A Presbyterian church close to the Kashmir border was attacked by a group of Islamic extremists on Sunday April 7.
Two well-known Baptist ministers from Dagon North Township were arrested by the military junta on 5th April. They are currently detained in Burma’s notorious Insein prison.
When fleeing Palestinian fighters forced their way into Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity April 2, Israeli soldiers found themselves laying siege to one of Christianity’s holiest sites.
Some time ago I was invited to present a two-day seminar in a church about the Middle East conflict. During the course of those sessions, we used an abundance of scriptures, carefully presented in their context, to clearly explain why the land is God’s, that He entrusted it to Israel as a permanent possession, and what are the challenges of Islam. At the end of the two days, the senior Pastor told a couple in his church: “Well, I’d like to hear the Palestinian side…”