Sri Lanka to Vote on Anti-Conversion Bill
The Sri Lankan government will cast a deciding vote on anti-conversion legislation in April, despite sharp criticism of the “Act for the Protection of Religious Freedom.”
The Sri Lankan government will cast a deciding vote on anti-conversion legislation in April, despite sharp criticism of the “Act for the Protection of Religious Freedom.”
Native Christian missionaries in rural Colombia are refusing to leave despite attacks from guerilla groups which they claim have “randomly confiscated multiple church buildings” and forced hundreds of villagers to flee to major cities, BosNewsLife learned Tuesday, March 22.
A simmering dispute over the closing of dozens of evangelical churches by the government broke into the open when a leading evangelical member of Costa Ricas Congress staged a protest by climbing the country’s principal monument.
In early March, China adopted the new Regulations on Religious Affairs, first announced by the government in December 2004. The government claims the new regulations are a step towards religious freedom. However, some Christian leaders have expressed serious concerns, particularly with the issue of church registration.
A leading evangelical pastor disappeared off the streets of Asmara four days ago, presumably detained by Eritrean security forces and jailed at some unknown location.
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was to attend a church service for Palm Sunday in Beijing, aides said Saturday, March 19, just hours after a Christian news agency published letters of alleged persecuted Christians.
Last Sunday evening, Eritrean security police arrested 16 Protestants for watching a Christian video together in a church member’s home in the town of Adi-Kibe.
An Iranian Colonel who, despite Western protests, was jailed last month for his alleged “illegal” conversion to Christianity is held at Tehran’s notorious maximum-security prison with well-known political and religious dissidents, a Christian news agency reported late Friday, March 11.
The criminal trial of Egyptian Christian Shafik Saleh Shafik, begun in mid January, has been ordered postponed until February 20 by the presiding judge, who accepted defense petitions to summon key witnesses and police reports related to the case.
Another 31 Eritrean Christians have been jailed by police in towns north of the capital Asmara over the past 10 days. The latest police sweeps brings the total to 187 arrests for “illegal” Christian activities in Eritrea since the beginning of January.
Eritrea’s controversial President Isaias Afwerki ended a three day official visit to Pakistan Sunday, February 27, pledging to respect “democratic values” amid pressure at home to release hundreds of Christians, including children.
At least 10 foreign evangelical church leaders including eight Americans, one Taiwanese and an unknown number of South Koreans were detained and later deported by Chinese authorities, a Christian human rights watchdog said Thursday March 3.
Two American Southern Baptist missionaries held under house arrest in Dubai for distributing Bibles and Christian literature are expected to be released this weekend, BosNewsLife learned Thursday, March 3.
Opposition to Christian evangelism on the campuses of two Nigerian institutions of higher learning has resulted in the murder of Sunday Nache Achi, a fourth-year architectural student at Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University in the northern city of Bauchi.
Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka have declared a “fast unto death” beginning December 12 if the government does not concede to a proposed constitutional amendment and the adoption of anti-conversion laws.
The ‘Believers’ Church’ in the village of Kammalawa in Kuliyapitiya came under attack on December 2. At about 5pm more than 100 people arrived at the church in western Sri Lanka and told the pastor to stop holding worship services.
Religious minorities and the Kosovo office of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) are seriously concerned by a draft religion law being discussed by Kosovo’s government.
New evidence has come to light, in secretly recorded tapes obtained by Freedom House’s Center for Religious Freedom, of oppression of native Mennonite leaders in Vietnam.
A quiet but steady hemorrhaging of Iraq’s ancient Christian presence is underway and little is being doWritten threats, kidnappings, bombings and murder by Muslim extremists are driving thousands of Iraq’s minority Christian population out of their ancestral homeland, fleeing for safety to neighboring Jordan and Syria.ne to stem the flow.
Concern is growing among Iran’s evangelical community for the safety of a pastor arrested four weeks ago by the Iranian security police.