More than a year after Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons, Timothy and Phillip, were brutally murdered in Orissa state, Christians in India continue to be harassed and persecuted. And according to church leaders, the Sangh Parivar (family of Hindu fundamentalist groups) sponsors much of it in Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat. These states have become the laboratory of “Hindutva” (cultural nationalism).
Two Chinese Protestant pastors accused of organizing an unauthorized Christian meeting are being held in labor camps near Beijing, a London-based religious rights group reported Thursday. Wang Li Gong, 34, and Yang Jing Fu, 36, are in two separate camps in Tianjing serving administrative sentences of one year, and one and one-half years, respectively, Christian Solidarity Worldwide said.
Six Christian missionaries participating in a gospel campaign called “Love Ahmedabad” were beaten so savagely in the state of Gujarat last week that one of the men may lose his arms and legs.
Chinese police have detained 47 members of a Protestant group in central Anhui province, according to the state press. The Jianghui Morning Daily said last week that six of the main leaders of the Quanfanwei (Holistic) Church face criminal charges for organizing an illegal sect and illegal gatherings.
At least 40 people were killed last week in continuing sectarian violence in Indonesia’s Moluccas, also known as the Spice Islands. According to news reports, the fatalities resulted from clashes between Muslims and Christians in the town of Galela on the island of Halmahera in North Malaku province.
The sentencing of six Protestant house church leaders to hard labor last December and the arrest of six more leaders of the Roman Catholic underground church are but “the tip of the iceberg” of religious oppression, according to five prominent house church leaders inside China, contacted by Compass in January.