An avalanche of media coverage of an Afghan man facing the death penalty for converting to Christianity has apparently sparked the arrest and deepening harassment of other Afghan Christians in the ultra-conservative Muslim country.
A prominent Christian rights activist who was recently released last month after spending two years in jail, was under strict secret service surveillance Tuesday, February 14, as part of efforts by the authorities to monitor his activities, a watchdog said.
Three separate attacks on Christians in Madhya Pradesh, central India, have occurred within a period of four days, leaving a number of people needing hospital treatment. Latest reports suggest that yet more attacks on Christians have since taken place in the communally tense state.
Prosecuted Chinese house churches on Saturday, January 21, were expecting more legal support after a group of top Chinese lawyers and legal scholars announced the establishment of an association dedicated to defending Chinese Christians.
In a shocking display of brutality, Aroun Voraphorn, an itinerant evangelist, pastor and father of four children, was murdered in southern Laos the week before Christmas.
An influential house church leader who was reportedly kidnapped along with his son by Chinese security forces was released Monday, November 21, just hours after American President George W. Bush left China, a religious rights group said.
Beijing authorities on November 4 ordered a Chinese legal firm to suspend activities for a year, hours after top lawyer Gao Zhisheng filed court documents in defense of Pastor Cai Zhuohua.
Pastor Cai was abducted from a bus stop and dragged into a van by three plain-clothed State Security officers on September 11 2004. According to a former fellow inmate, Pastor Cai was repeatedly tortured with electric shocks and forced to give false confessions to serious charges.
China’s government has ordered a top law firm in Beijing to close for one year because of its involvement in defending Christians, including house church leaders, and other religious minorities, a religious rights watchdog said.
The leader of six house churches in China’s capital Beijing, who was detained by security officers last year, is held at a detention facility where he is forced to carry out hard labor, human rights investigators said Friday, October 28.
Shahjahan Mollah, 35, lives in the village of Butia about 120 miles north of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Shahjahan, a former Muslim, converted to Christianity in 1991. He currently pastors a church of some 27 Muslim converts to Christianity in Butia.
Over 200 evangelical Christians and members of minority churches have been detained in Eritrea this week in unprecedented coordinated raids by the African nation’s security forces, BosNewsLife learned Thursday, October 6.
A Pentecostal church in Romania which seeks a spiritual “revival” in the post-Communist nation urged the European Parliament Thursday, October 6, to halt plans by the Romanian government to restrict activities of religious minorities.
About 150 evangelicals – 40 families – will be expelled from their homes in San Nicolas, Hidalgo state, at the end of October, according to a town council vote on Saturday, October 1.
Authorities in the Son Ha District of Quang Ngai Province incited a mob to burn down the home of evangelist Dinh Van Hoang on August 21 because he would not sign a paper denying his Christian faith.
Messianic Jews have called for international protests against violations of religious freedom in Israel. Orthodox Jews have harassed a congregation in the desert town of Arad in Southern Israel for more than 18 months.
The state government of Rajasthan, ruled by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), plans to present an anti-conversion bill to the state assembly during its next session, beginning on September 26.
Burma’s military government has closed down a major evangelical church and movement in the capital Rangoon as part of a fresh crackdown on Christian congregations across the Asian nation, a well informed advocacy group said Wednesday, September 7.
Local authorities shut down a 500-member, international church here on Saturday, August 27. The church had sought a permit to meet since its inception eight years ago.
Bektas Erdogan never expected his Christian faith of 11 years to jeopardize his career as a fashion designer in Turkey.