At least two detained Christians have died this month in Eritrea after a “long period of torture” in a notorious military prison camp, while the number of Christians jailed in the African nation because of their faith approaches 3,000, a well-informed Christian rights group said Wednesday, January 21.
Signs that Hamas has isolated itself in the world have merged from two fronts. Iran, on Tuesday, pledged that Hezbollah will not open a front against Israel along Israel’s northern border. Israel had been concerned that Hezbollah, in an act of solidarity with Hamas, might initiate a war along the Lebanese border; thus, dividing Israel’s attention and its forces.
As Israel’s offensive against militants of the Hamas group in the Gaza Strip continued Tuesday, January 6, around the world Arabic leaders, Palestinians and their supporters continued to pressure the Jewish state to end the operation.
A tense calm returned Sunday, January 4, to Kosovo’s second largest and most ethnically divided town of Mitrovica, following clashes between Serbs and ethnic Albanians in which at least six people were injured.
Several Christian volunteers and survivors of China’s worst earthquake in a generation remained missing Sunday, December 28, after Christmas Eve police raids on homes under construction in the devastated Sichuan province amid anger among authorities over the involvement of churches in relief efforts, an advocacy group said.
A Pakistani Christian boy’s quarrel with a Muslim policeman’s son has led to his father’s imprisonment, torture, paralysis, and five-year prison sentence.
Christians in several parts of China were behind bars on Christmas Day after a police crackdown on worship services and Bible study, a Christian advocacy group said Thursday, December 25.
Over a dozen Christians will spend Christmas behind bars in China after police raided a Christian leaders gathering in Henan province, while in the capital Beijing two officials of the banned Chinese House Church Alliance were detained, an advocacy group and Chinese Christians confirmed Thursday, December 18.
Pakistani police ransacked run-down homes of Christians living in a slum of Pakistan’s 10th largest city and “severely tortured Christian women” leaving several of them “critically injured”, local residents told BosNewsLife.
Four Christians remained missing Friday, December 12, more than a month after they were detained in China’s Hubei province amid a police crackdown on believers, including missionaries, in the region, a house church network said.
There were concerns Wednesday, December 10, that Chinese authorities would launch a nationwide crackdown on the growing ‘house churches, after the Ministry of Civil Affairs ordered the “abolishment” of a major umbrella group.
In recent months Chinese officials have attempted to build bridges with the Protestant house church movement even as police raided more unregistered congregations, arrested Christian leaders and forced at least 400 college students to swear they would stop attending such worship services.
Christians in Orissa state are anticipating Christmas with fear as Hindu extremists have called for a state-wide bandh, or forced shut-down on all sectors of society, on Dec. 25 – a move that could provide Hindu extremists the pretext for attacking anyone publicly celebrating the birth of Christ.
As the number of evangelical Christians in southern Mexico has grown, hostilities from “traditionalist Catholics” have kept pace, according to published reports.
Thousands of Muslim protesters on Sunday (Nov. 23) attacked a Coptic church in a suburb of Cairo, Egypt, burning part of it, a nearby shop and two cars and leaving five people injured.
Authorities in an Egyptian village arrested 50 Coptic Christians, whose shops were then looted, to pacify Muslims following violence that erupted on Nov. 4 over a Christian boy’s unwitting break with custom.
In violation of Vietnam’s new religion policy, authorities in Lao Cai Province in Vietnam’s far north are pressuring new Christians among the Hmong minority to recant their faith and to re-establish ancestral altars, according to area church leaders.
It has been nearly eight months since 15 year old Ami Ortiz was almost killed by an explosion while opening an innocent looking Purim basket on March 20th, however no arrests have been made despite the fact that the Ariel police have months of surveillance tapes and a considerable amount of evidence in their possession.
Chinese officials have yet to declare a new court date for Alimjan Yimit, a Christian house church leader and ethnic Uyghur in China’s northwest province of Xinjiang detained since his arrest on Jan. 12.
Concerns about the health and safety of the son of martyred Iranian pastor Hossein Soodmand are swirling around Ramtin Soodmand as he awaits trial for “promoting anti-government propaganda.”