Four Christian women were killed and five others injured when militants in a passing car raked their minibus with gunfire 80 kilometers (50 miles) west of Baghdad, an informed human rights watchdog confirmed Monday, January 26.
In an apparent attempt to settle an old grudge, a Pakistani man who converted to Islam several months ago has implicated a Christian acquaintance for alleged blasphemy.
Christian leaders in northern Nigeria report that enforcement of the Islamic legal code known as sharia is continuing despite protests and drastically impinges on the religious liberty of Christians and other non-Muslims in that part of the country.
Muslim protestors have attacked at least five Protestant churches over the past three weeks in the regions of East Java, West Java and North Sumatra.
Christians suffered further violence in the Buddhist-majority country of Sri Lanka on January 20, when a Catholic church was attacked near the capital, Colombo, despite the presence of a heavily armed police guard.
Anson Thomas, a Christian activist who has rescued scores of minors working as prostitutes in Mumbai, India, was recently accused of “unlawfully converting” Hindu commercial sex workers. Owners of Jamuna Mansion, one of the largest brothels in Mumbai, made the accusations.
Pakistani police arrested one suspect and seized a “huge” cache of powerful explosives in Karachi over the weekend, declaring both were linked to grenade and car bomb explosions at a local Bible Society shop on January 15.
Authorities have launched an investigation into the killing of a Baptist pastor and missionary in the northern Tajik town of Isfara, a region known for its devotion to Islam,
Stan Westrom, a former US Marine who became a missionary in East Africa, has died in a Nairobi hospital where he had been taken after being ambushed by bandits last Sunday (January 4).
After being beaten into a coma three months ago for alleged “missionary propaganda,” Turkish Christian Yakup Cindilli is slowly improving from a nearly helpless state at his home, where his family has given him constant care for the past month.
Since the Cambodian government closed the refugee camps in Mondulkiri and Rattanakiri provinces of Cambodia, the Vietnamese government has increased repression in the Central Highlands, arresting, imprisoning and killing the Montagnard Degar people to halt the spread of grass roots Christianity.
Muslim groups are taking advantage of a document issued by the Indonesian government to close several existing churches and prevent the building of new churches in Jakarta. Letter of Decision No. 137, issued in 2002, allows for churches in the Jakarta area to be closed down — even if they have the required government permit — should people in the surrounding community object to their existence or location.
Leaders of the Christian community in the northern state of Jigawa, Nigeria, report that Muslim extremists burned down 10 churches and over 100 church-owned properties in November during unprovoked attacks against Christians in the town of Kazaure.
One employee was killed and about eight others, including a nun, wounded when the Egyptian army attacked a Christian centre for mentally and physically handicapped children and orphans early Monday, January 5, a human rights watch-dogs said.
A Protestant pastor in Pakistan’s Punjab province was murdered in the early hours of January 5, just minutes after he left his home to catch a train to Lahore.
Following the disaster of December 26, native missionaries of Indonesia have been helping survivors on the northern tip of Sumatra Island, the single region with the most casualties.
Police and military units in the northeastern state of Yobe, Nigeria, ended a violent attempt by Muslim militants to carve out an Islamic Republic there.
Eritrean police arrested and jailed another Protestant evangelical pastor, taking him and seven of his church members to prison, according to a report from Compass Direct.
Iraq’s beleaguered Christian minority has ushered in the New Year amid grief and fears, after several bombs exploded and at least one believer was killed on a marketplace,
Registration is still a hot issue for China’s long-suffering house churches. The government insists on registration as the only means of legal existence for Protestant and Catholic churches. In practice, registration means subjection to the Communist Party’s Religious Affairs Bureau and other party organs, all of which are controlled by atheists.