The US State Department has published its International Religious Freedom (IRF) Report for 2020, providing an overview of religious freedom and persecution around the world, International Christian Concern reports. This year’s IRF condemned countries including Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and China for their abuses of religious freedom, and stated that the US would continue to address the issue.
In the first such move by any major US Christian denomination, the Sierra Pacific Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) has elected a transgender person to serve as Bishop, Christian Headlines reports.
In the third such incident this year, a Christian nurse has been hounded and threatened into hiding by Muslim colleagues who accused her of blaspheming against Islam last week, Morning Star News reports. Pakistan ranks 5th on the US Open Doors Watch List of countries where Christians are persecuted.
Finnish lawmaker Päivi Räsänen faces imprisonment after being charged with three counts of “hate speech” because she publically shared her Biblical views on marriage and sexuality, ADF International reports. Räsänen was subject to lengthy interviews and a year of waiting before the Finnish Prosecutor General finally decided to bring charges against her.
A major annual report issued by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) earlier this month, has highlighted China’s five-year campaign to suppress religious faith, including Christianity, in the country, CNS News reports. The Chinese Communist party is pursuing a program of “sinification” or “sinicization” of religion that began in 2018 and is set to run until 2022.
More than a century after one of the worst massacres of Christians, U.S. President Joe Biden formally declared the systemic killing and deportation of some 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Empire forces “genocide.”
Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) has published a report showing that around 5.2 billion people live in countries where religious freedom is severely violated and restricted, International Christian Concern reports. These countries include China, India, and Pakistan, which have the world’s largest populations.
Devoted Christians in Europe and North America are increasingly among those being persecuted for their faith in Christ, a rights report shows.
A Christian college in Missouri has filed suit against the US government, claiming that President Joe Biden’s ‘Executive order on Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation’ violates the school’s First Amendment right to exercise freedom of religion.
Authorities in Laos have released a pastor who was jailed early last year for refusing to halt worship services at the church he founded in the southeast Asian country, International Christian Concern reports. Pastor Sithon Thippavong was freed on April 9 after just over a year in prison.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled late Friday that California’s COVID-19 restrictions on in-home religious gatherings, limiting worship to families from a maximum of three households, could not continue.
Officials in Alberta, Canada, shut down a church that broke coronavirus restrictions by erecting chain-link metal fencing around the building.
Authorities in Somalia’s breakaway region of Somaliland seek long prison terms for at least six people who converted from Islam to Christianity, Worthy News established Thursday.
Christian rights activists and other advocates urged Vietnam Tuesday to release four prisoners of conscience in Vietnam, including pastors, amid concerns about their health.
Gujarat has become the latest Indian state to pass anti-conversion legislation which primarily targets Christians and Muslims accused of forcing poor Hindus to convert to their respective faiths, International Christian Concern reports. Gujarat is currently led by the Hindu nationalist party Bharathiya Janatha Party (BJP), which is also India’s governing power.
While Christians in Ethiopia were already subject to persecution, they have seen intensified attacks against them amid the extreme violence of the current conflict between the Ethiopian government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), International Christian Concern reports.
Rights groups report that Christian persecution in India has worsened since Hindu nationalist prime minister Narendra Modi came to power in 2014. Whereas in 2013 India ranked 31st on the Open Doors’ 2021 World Watch List of countries where Christians are persecuted, it now ranks 10th.
An abducted Christian schoolgirl, who refused to convert to Islam, has given birth to a second child while held captive by Islamist militants, several sources confirmed.
Religious minorities in Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco suffer persecution through the application of “harsh and disproportionate” laws, International Christian Concern reports.
The 2020 Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and the Muslim countries of Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, may benefit not only Jewish communities in traditionally hostile Middle Eastern nations, but also other faith minorities in the region, including Christians, International Christian Concern reports.