The kidnapping of the Bengali evangelist known as “Moses” the last week of May confirms a worrying trend of violence against Christians in Bangladesh. An evangelist with Gospel for Asia (GFA), Moses was taken hostage by a Muslim terrorist group which then demanded a large ransom. GFA has not released the real names of the evangelist or the terrorist group for security reasons.
Pentecostal Christians in the ex-Soviet republic of Georgia are not allowed to gather for worship amid death threats, while a Baptist church was set on fire amid a government backed crack down against religious minorities, reports suggested Monday June 16.
Judges have handed down a three-year sentence to Rev. Rinaldy Damanik, an Indonesian pastor accused of illegal weapons possession. Damanik and his defense team now have a week to decide whether they will accept the sentence or appeal the judge’s decision.
The government of India’s Gujarat state has again started gathering community-based information in villages of the Patan district in northern Gujarat, heightening suspicions among local Christians that census information will be misused by fundamentalist Hindu organizations to stir up trouble in an area that suffered 443 major clashes between religious groups between 1970 and 2002.
Two and one-half weeks after an Ethiopian Christian was deported from Saudi Arabia for alleged “Christian activities,” a fellow Christian prisoner of Eritrean citizenship remains jailed in Jeddah.