Open Doors with Brother Andrew – a worldwide ministry to the Persecuted Church – has received information from several sources that Iraqi Christians and churches are seriously affected by the internal turmoil in Iraq.
Violence in Kaduna which has claimed 1000 Christian lives and destroyed 63 churches just this year, “must stop” says the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN),in a report from the U.K-based Barnabas Fund.
A 100-year-old building that housed an unregistered Chinese house church was badly damaged on March 11, then completely destroyed March 31. The church was located in Dong Gang Xi village, Beilun District, Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province. This congregation included about 300 members, and had existed for the past 20 years. Liu Fuen, 50, pastored the church throughout its history.
A Christian Fellowship Church (CFC) in the Kalutara district of Sri Lanka was attacked on April 11, Easter Sunday, leading to minor injuries and damage to the church building. This latest attack adds to the total of more than 146 churches attacked since January 2003. Sixty of those attacks have occurred in the past four months.
The host of a Turkish TV news show was sentenced to nearly two years in jail last week for airing false provocations against Turkish Protestants.
Pastor Gong Shengliang, the imprisoned leader of the South China Church, told relatives during a prison visit Monday that he fears for his life in Hongshan Prison, Wuhan City, Hubei Province.
Fighting between paramilitaries and guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in Chocó, Colombia, abated during Holy Week. But war-weary Christians there know they cannot count on even a few days of peace in this hostile department (state) near the border with Panama.
Muslim fanatics burned down 10 Christian churches in the town of Makarfi in the northern state of Kaduna, Nigeria, on Saturday. Claims that a mentally retarded Christian teenager desecrated the Quran, the Muslim holy book, apparently incited the attack.
A criminal court in southeast Turkey has for the second time pressed charges against a Turkish Protestant pastor in Diyarbakir, this time accusing him of “opening an illegal church.”
The pastor of a small church in Pakistan was shot and killed last Friday in the village of Manawala, near Lahore, Pakistan.
Persecuted Chinese House Church leaders, including tortured and sexually abused women, have for the first time testified at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights amid claims that the Beijing government is increasing pressure on unregistered churches and active believers, ASSIST News Service (ANS) learned Monday April 5.
Religious violence that erupted in the central Nigerian state of Plateau a few weeks ago has spilled into more towns and villages in that state and beyond, resulting in the deaths of eight pastors and 1,500 Christian believers, and the destruction of 173 churches.
Human rights watchdog The Voice of the Martyrs (VOM) urged Christians Saturday, March 13, to pray for three representatives of China?s rapidly growing house church movement who it said were due to appear in a Chinese court on charges of “providing intelligence to overseas organizations.”
In January 2004, top cadres of China’s Religious Affairs Bureau and the policy-making United Front Work Department met for the annual National Religious Working Conference.
DUBLIN, December 22 (Compass) — Police in Indonesia pledged today to provide tighter security for churches during Christmas and New Year celebrations, after one of their own was arrested in connection with the murder of a Christian village chief on the island of Sulawesi.
After nine months in jail, two suspects accused of last year’s deadly Christmas night attack against a Pakistani village church have been released on bail for the duration of their trial.
A 30-year old woman who became a symbol of suffering endured by Muslim converts to Christianity was freed after nearly two months of torture and interrogation, a human rights groups announced Thursday, Dec. 4.
The Indonesian Central government has sent an additional 1,000 police officers to Poso,in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia, after the latest incident of violence against Christians.
Two Egyptian Coptic Christians jailed by Saudi authorities have been released 17 days after their arrest for establishing an expatriate house church in the capital of Riyadh.
Nigerian Christians were considering their options Tuesday, Nov 25, after local authorities in Kano reportedly banned Sunday services following Islamic attacks in which churches and dozens of Christian shops were destroyed.