A court in Pakistan has granted bail to a Christian couple charged with blasphemy, a move which a UK rights group described as a landmark break from the “norm,” UCA News reports.
As Myanmar continues to reel under the violent conflict instigated by the Buddhist Burmese army at least 29 Christians, including children, were killed in an air strike on a camp for internally displaced people (IDPs) in Kachin state earlier this month, the Open Doors international Christian aid group reports.
Eighteen more pastors were arrested in India’s Uttar Pradesh state last week, on false charges of forcibly converting Hindus to Christianity, CBN News reports.
The International Christian Concern (ICC) aid organization reports that Christians in India’s Uttar Pradesh state are on high alert; emboldened by upcoming state elections, radicalized Hindus have intensified their attacks on believers, imprisoning a greater number of them.
A Christian in school in South Sulawesi Province, Indonesia, has been told its permit will be withdrawn following pressure applied on local officials by Muslims, including members of the banned Islamic Defenders Front (IDF), Morning Star News (MSN) reports.
Radical Hindu nationalists attacked a group of newly Christian believers in India’s Chhattisgarh state recently, causing a number of victims to be rushed to hospital, International Christian Concern (ICC) reports. Ruled by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, India ranks 11 on the US Open Doors World Watch List 2023 of top 50 countries where Christians are persecuted.
A pastor in Nepal has lost his appeal against conviction on false charges of forcibly converting Hindus to Christianity and will now spend a year in prison, International Christian Concern (ICC) reports. Nepal is no longer officially a Hindu state, but Nepalese Christians are subjected to persecution from radical Hindu groups who want the country to return to Hinduism.
A plaintiff in Malaysia who converted to Islam to marry a Muslim woman has been told by a civil high court that he cannot now renounce his Islamic identity and return to his original identity as a Christian, Free Malaysia Today (FMT) reports.
Authorities in southern Laos have told dozens of Christian converts to leave their homes because their faith goes against “the dominant village religious belief in animism or traditional spirits cults,” Christians told Worthy News Thursday.
Christian villagers in southern Laos have been threatened with detention and “huge fines” if they continue their church services, well-informed Christians told Worthy News.
A large group of around 50 Muslims conducted an anti-Christian protest at a shophouse church in Depok City, Indonesia, last month, angrily shouting and pushing against the fence surrounding the building, International Christian Concern (ICC) reports.
US Christian groups are urgently calling for Congress to address Myanmar’s military junta’s ongoing persecution of Christians, Baptist News Global (BNG) reports. Ruled by the Buddhist extremist Tatmadaw army, which overthrew the country’s democratically elected government in a military coup in 2021, Myanmar ranks 14th on the US Open Doors World Watch List 2023 of the top 50 countries where Christians are persecuted.
There have been 525 attacks by Hindu nationalists against Christians across India this year alone, Christian Today (CT) reports. Ruled by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, India ranks 11TH on the US Open Doors World Watch List 2023 of the top 50 countries where Christians are persecuted.
Bowing to pressure from Hindu extremists, and with no evidence or witnesses, authorities in India’s Uttar Pradesh state charged Pastor Bajarang Rawat with forcibly converting Hindus to Christianity, and jailed him for 23 days before releasing him on bail, Morning Star News (MSN) reports.
A Christian couple remains in jail in Pakistan’s Punjab province as a judge decided to keep them behind bars for allegedly desecrating the Koran, deemed a holy book by Muslims, sources told Worthy News.
In a move perceived by local church leaders as hostility toward Christianity, authorities in India’s Madhya Pradesh state have refused to renew the permit of Christian orphanage to receive international charitable funding, the Christian Post (CP) reports.
A Christian couple in Punjab Province, Pakistan have been charged and detained under the country’s notoriously harsh blasphemy laws, just weeks after mobs of Islamic extremists attacked more than 80 Christian homes and churches in the region, the Christian Post (CP) reports.
Concerns remained Sunday about a pastor in eastern Pakistan who was reportedly detained for “faking” a shooting incident, although Worthy News and others witnessed him in hospital.
The Indonesian Bethel Church Solagracia in Padang, West Sumatra has reported that a service it held in a rented home on August 29 was disrupted by neighbors who broke a window while threatening them and demanding they stop worshiping, International Christian Concern (ICC) reports.
Pakistani Christian human rights activist Samuel Inayat, who was in urgent need of a kidney transplant after Muslim extremists beat him, has died, his family told Worthy News on Saturday.