A Maoist group today claimed responsibility for killing Hindu extremist leader Laxmanananda Saraswati and four of his disciples in Orissa state on August 23, saying that fanatical Hindus’ claims that Christians murdered him were “lies.”
A Christian human rights organization has been monitoring the situation in Orissa, India and receiving status reports from those affected by what it calls “this massive outpouring of hate.”
Two persons, including a woman, were burned to death, a pastor critically injured and at least a dozen churches torched as anti Christian violence rocked the Indian state of Orissa, officials confirmed Tuesday, August 26.
More than 600 churches have been demolished, 4,000 Christians forced to flee from their villages, and at least 25 killed as a result of violent persecution in the state of Orissa in eastern India.
At least one Gospel for Asia missionary has been attacked, churches and homes have been destroyed and Christians are fleeing for their lives in India’s Orissa state in the wake of the murder of a leading anti-Christian activist leader.
On Sunday (August 17) a Muslim mob stormed a church service in Cipayung, East Jakarta, forcing Christians to flee and then erecting banners in the street declaring a ban on “churches and religious services.”
Authorities on Tuesday (August 5) locked up eight high school students at a military training school in metal shipping containers for objecting to the burning of hundreds of Bibles, sources told Compass.
Local Pakistani police declared the death of a young Christian man in May to be a suicide requiring no investigation, but a high inspector has reopened the case and taken two Muslim suspects into custody.
As China prepared for the opening of the Beijing Olympic Games Friday, August 8, a key Chinese house church leader and his wife remained detained amid signs government leaders fear Christians will use the event to highlight reports of religious persecution.
Vietnamese security forces reportedly murdered two Degar Montagnard Christian men in the Central Highlands after they returned from a protest against the detention of fellow believers, BosNewsLife monitored Monday, August 4.
Tensions remained high Saturday, August 2, in a village on the outskirts of the Pakistani city of Sargodha, where gun wielding Muslim militant ransacked a Christian family’s home, family members and police told BosNewsLife.
As elections approach in Madhya Pradesh state, Christian leaders say their community is increasingly targeted as part of an effort by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to consolidate Hindu nationalist (Hindutva) votes.
At least 125 Hindu extremists here yesterday attacked one of the oldest and best-known churches in Madhya Pradesh state, Masihi Mandir Church, brutally beating one of the fleeing members.
Some 20 evangelical Christians, most of them children in a troubled town of Mexico’s Guerrero State, were homeless Saturday, February 23, after they were reportedly expelled by authorities for their refusal to participate in festivals honoring Catholic saints.
Christian missionaries in Jordan faced more uncertainty Thursday, February 21, as the Jordanian government acknowledged for the first time that it has begun expelling foreign Christians for preaching and carrying out missionary activities.
A Christian doctor described receiving various death threats while kidnapped recently by Islamic extremists in an area of Pakistan reeling from extremist violence.
At least eleven Christians remained behind bars Sunday, February 17, in India’s troubled state of Orissa after deadly clashes with Hindu mobs attacking churches, Christian homes and other properties, a lawyer said.
A church in China’s autonomous region of Xinjiang faced uncertainty Thursday, February 14, after Chinese security forces raided its Sunday School, detaining church leaders and interrogating "terrified" children, investigators said.
Imprisoned Christian lawyers Nguyen Van Dai and Le Thi Cong Nhan, their sentences reduced by one year due to international pressure, received a rarely granted visit from non-family members when four pastors managed to see them on January 31.
Last January 12, state security officials arrived at the home of Alimjan Yimit, a Muslim convert, ethnic Uyghur and Christian house church leader in Xinjiang province, northwest China.