Since October 1999 some 23 Christians have been killed in public by firing squads on falsified criminal charges in North Korea reports Open Doors, the ministry begun 45 years ago by Brother Andrew, the Dutch-born author of "God's Smuggler."
25 April 2000 (Newsroom) – The Vermont legislature on Tuesday became the first in the United States to grant gay and lesbian couples all the benefits of marriage through civil unions. By a vote of 79-68 the state House of Representatives passed a final version of the bill, which Democratic Governor Howard Dean promised to sign perhaps by the end of the week. The Senate passed a version of the law last week.
25 April 2000 (Newsroom) — Indonesia vice president Megawati Sukarnoputri is visiting the Molucca archipelago this week in a further attempt to diffuse tensions between Muslims and Christians that have resulted in an estimated 3,000 deaths since January 1999.
LAGOS, 24 April 2000 (Newsroom) – Religious and political leaders have soundly condemned the attempt by a controversial senator to launch impeachment proceedings against Nigeria President Olusegun Obasanjo, a move they say is meant to embarrass the country’s first elected president in nearly two decades.
Nigerian police authorities reported that 123 churches were burned and 55 mosques razed during the Kaduna religious riots in late February that involved violent clashes between Christians and Muslims over the implementation of sharia (Islamic legal system) in northern Nigeria.
A Christian-Muslim conflict in Damboa in northeastern Nigeria's Borno state resulted in the deaths of 15 Christians, and four churches were burned.
Two Christian women were abducted by Muslim youths enforcing Sharia (Islamic law) in the capital of Zamfara state in northern Nigeria, according to the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN). The women managed to escape several hours later and reported their kidnapping to police.
19 April 2000 (Newsroom) — Russia's newly elected president is displaying mixed signals in his approach to church-state relations, according to the Keston Institute, a British-based monitor of religious liberty. Though Vladimir Putin has not publicly discussed his policy initiatives in the run-up to his May 7 inauguration, two steps he has taken during his term as acting president point in "entirely different directions," Keston says.
19 April 2000 (Newsroom) — The United Nations Commission on Human Rights on Tuesday approved resolutions that included condemnation of religious repression in Cuba, Burma, and Sudan.
18 April 2000 (Newsroom) – The Vermont Senate on Tuesday rejected a constitutional amendment that would define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. A bill permitting civil unions that would grant all of the rights and benefits of marriage to same-sex couples, the most comprehensive law of its kind in the United States, is scheduled for a vote today (April 19).
