The United Nations envoy for Burma, Ibrahim Gambari, arrived in the country Saturday, September 29, to urge the junta to end its violent crackdown on those opposing the regime, a day after satellite images confirmed that government-backed forces massively burn villages of predominantly Christian Karens.
Chinese securities forces have detained a prominent Christian human rights lawyer and family members, amid an apparent new government-led crackdown on house churches, observers following the case said Thursday, September 27.
Christians in northwest Pakistan on Sunday, May 13, worshiped amid heightened tensions after they received threatening letters warning them to shut their churches and convert to Islam within the next few days as anti-Christian violence spreads across Pakistan, officials confirmed to BosNewsLife.
A Degar Montagnard who worshipped in a house church in Vietnam’s Central Highlands was free Monday, May 7, after weeks of imprisonment and torture in March and April, fellow believers said.
Evangelical Christians in Cameroon faced an uncertain future Sunday, April 29, amid fresh reports that local authorities are seeking to control the “surging numbers” of Pentecostal churches in Western African nation.
Hindu extremists in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh have raised the incidence of attacks on believers to an unprecedented high, including a slander campaign against the state’s chief minister, Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, a Christian.
An influential Christian politician was in hiding in Vietnam Tuesday, April 24, after being harassed by Vietnamese security forces who also attacked other dissidents planning to meet US officials, a leading human rights activist confirmed to BosNewsLife.
Following the March 29 sentencing of Father Nguyen Van Ly to eight years in prison for distributing “material harmful to the state,†two Protestant lawyers charged with the same “crime†are expected to face equally harsh sentences in what Human Rights Watch has called the harshest crackdown in 20 years.
There was mounting concern Monday, March 5, about the whereabouts of a key leader of an indigenous house church in Vietnam’s Central Highlands after Vietnamese security forces reportedly raided a village and detained several Christians.
Islamic militants in Benin destroyed a church established by Christ Power Ministries (CPM) in the latest attack against the indigenous evangelical mission group in the African nation, missionaries told BosNewsLife Friday, March 2.
One of Cuba’s most prominent Christian prisoners, Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, has said he has been forced to watch abuses “that threaten the decorous behavior of a civilized society” but stressed he trusts God to one day end his “unjust sentence,” in a letter published by BosNewsLife Saturday, March 3.
With the governor of Himachal Pradesh approving an “anti-conversion†bill last week, India now has seven states with legislation banning unregistered or unethical religious conversions — to the glee of Hindu extremists who arbitrarily invoke them to quash Christian growth.
The 76-year-old mother of a well-known Beijing house church activist was said to be behind bars Saturday, February 10, on charges of damaging public and private properties.
A major Christian rights group expressed concern Wednesday, February 7, about Uzbekistan’s “harshening crackdown on religious freedom.”
A high profile official from Iraq’s Assyrian Christian community and former deputy director of Iraqi Airways has been shot and killed by militants near his home, BosNewsLife monitored Thursday, February 8.
Kenyan police on Thursday, February 1, continued an investigation into the murders of two American missionaries who were shot and killed last weekend in a carjacking, BosNewsLife established.
Two prominent human rights activist remained in custody Tuesday, January 30, a day after Vietnamese security forces arrested them in Ho Chi Minh City formerly known as Saigon, fellow dissidents said.
China detained at least over 600 Christians last year amid an ongoing crackdown on unregistered ‘house churches’, a report released Tuesday, January 30, showed.
Vietnamese security forces have detained 24 house church Christians who support a religious rights group which investigates the reported persecution of members of the, predominantly Christian, Montagnard Degar ethnic minority, friends told BosNewsLife Monday, September 11.
The military government of Burma has launched a new violent campaign against a largely Christian ethnic group and its churches, BosNewsLife learned Friday, September 8.