Religious freedom group Open Doors USA has been told that Christians in Iran are risking their lives to help fellow citizens with food and hygiene parcels during the coronavirus outbreak, Fox News reported Thursday. Known internationally for its radical Islamic terrorism, Iran is the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Middle East.
Authorities in the U.S. state of Rhode Island have banned a blind woman from a public park and library for speaking about her faith in Christ, her lawyers confirmed Wednesday.
The US Department of Health published a new rule Friday asserting that protection against “sex discrimination” in health care applies only to people who are biologically male or female. Focussed on Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, the final rule rolls back an Obama-era regulation which had added “gender identity” as grounds under which a person could suffer health care discrimination. Religious and conservative groups have welcomed the rule as protecting freedom of conscience and allowing federally funded medical practitioners and insurance companies to refuse the provision or coverage of transgender treatments. However, human rights groups are concerned the rule will leave trans-Americans without access to standard needed health care that is unrelated to sex change.
A human rights group supports a European court case against Hungary for “failing to protect its citizens” and “causing death” by emptying hospitals during the coronavirus pandemic.
U.S. social media giants have reacted differently to China’s mounting censoring pressure, Worthy News monitored Friday.
At least nine people were killed in alleged Israeli airstrikes targeted Syrian defense factories near the city of Masyaf in northwest Syria on Thursday night, according to Syrian reports.
The state of Minnesota will start an investigation into the Minneapolis Police Department’s (MPD) policies and procedures over the last ten years, to determine if officers “engaged in systemic discriminatory practices,” the Star Tribune reported. The inquiry follows the death of George Floyd, who died on May 25 after an arresting officer kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes as he lay face down on the road, unarmed and with his hands cuffed behind his back.
Protestors in Europe and other countries have joined demonstrators in the United States to express outrage over the death of George Floyd. The unarmed black man died in the U.S. city of Minneapolis after a white police officer pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck until he stopped breathing.
An airstrike in eastern Syria on Sunday killed five non-Syrian fighters backed by Iran, a Britain-based war monitor said.
Leading rights groups and church officials will hold Thursday their annual protest and prayer vigil against the reported massive persecution of Christians in Eritrea for the first time online, amid ongoing coronavirus lockdown restrictions in Britain.
There was mounting uncertainty Saturday over the health of Chechen autocratic leader Ramzan Kadyrov after conflicting reports over whether he suffers from the coronavirus disease COVID-19.
Four former Muslims who became Christians and part of Iran’s leading house church movements have been freed from an Iranian jail, Christian activists confirmed Thursday. Kathrin Sajadpour, Moslem Rahimi, and another Christian, of the ‘Church of Iran,’ were reportedly freed on a reduced bail of 200 million tomans ($11,500) this week, Wednesday.
Hungary’s Parliament has approved legislation that bans transgender people from changing the gender they were assigned at birth on official documents.
Terrorist groups have established a way to siphon off European funds designated for Palestinian civil society, Israel’s Strategic Affairs Ministry (SAM) has said in a new report. The SAM publication follows a European Union announcement that it would continue to fund Palestinian “civil society organizations,” even if such groups include terrorists, Israel Hayom reports.
A leading democracy watchdog has suggested that Hungary has become the first non-democratic European Union member state, prompting an angry reaction from the government. Washington-based Freedom House also warned that Poland is heading towards the same direction.
The presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden has stated insurance companies should treat genital reconstruction surgery as a medical necessity for transgender people, the Washington Examiner reports.
Israeli airstrikes in eastern Syria have killed 14 Iranian and Iraqi fighters, a group monitoring the Syrian war says.
An independent Christian adoption and fostering agency in England has been downgraded by a government regulator for “unlawful discrimination against same-sex couples” in that it only places children with opposite-sex Christian couples. The agency is seeking Judicial Review of last year’s decision and the case will be heard in Leeds High Court on Wednesday and Thursday.
Christians in south-eastern China were recovering of serious injuries Tuesday after suffering attacks during a Sunday service amid a government crackdown on unregistered churches, rights activists told Worthy News. Church properties were also damaged in the May 3 violence against Xingguang Church in Xiamen city in China’s Fujian province, added advocacy group Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW).
The Philippines faces international pressure to end one of the world’s most repressive coronavirus lockdowns, with 120,000 people detained and some killed or abused for curfew violations in the past month. Witnesses, including Christian single mothers, have told Worthy News of intimidating police and military checkpoints.