The married-father-of-three has come a long way since he nearly blew up a Protestant church in Jakarta. Author Ahmad Quraisy, which isn’t his family name, was a commander of the feared Islamic State of Indonesia (NII), an Indonesian militant group. But the former Islamic terrorist now leads an underground movement in Indonesia converting Muslims to Christianity or, in his words, ‘personal faith in Christ.’
A pastor in India is in hiding after receiving charges for “illegal conversion” following a beating by more than 150 Hindu radicals.
More information has surfaced about an attack on Rohingya Christian refugees in a Bangladeshi refugee camp last month by their fellow Muslim Rohingya, confirming earlier reports about the brutal assault.
Hindu nationalists in India ran over an evangelical leader with motorcycles, accusing the Christian man of forcibly converting Hindus to Christianity.
A young Christian farm worker was killed in Pakistan by a Muslim landowner, who tortured the young man with farm equipment for rinsing himself after his day’s work in a well and ‘polluting’ it.
A Christian evangelist in India was targeted by tribal animists in his village, the assailants attacking his wife, mother, and 11 month-old son when he was discovered not to be home and destroying much of his property.
Significant attacks on Christians occurred in the days prior to US President Donald Trump’s first visit to India, during which religious freedom was expected to be a main item in discussions with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
A Christian man in Pakistan who felt led to gather all the local house churches together into one community has sustained critical injuries after Muslim neighbors surrounded his land and viciously assaulted his family.
Three Christians accused of forced conversion in India spent two months in prison despite police failing to find evidence of wrongdoing, but the unjust incarceration became an opportunity for the gospel.
Pakistan introduced a new law on Jan. 28 requiring social media outlets to remove ‘unwanted or slanderous’ content within 24 hours, and Christians fear it could extend the reach of blasphemy laws that already carry a heavy penalty.
Eight Christians in India falsely accused of trying to forcibly convert children to Christianity were acquitted after a two-and-a-half-year legal battle that saw them imprisoned for months.
A pastor in India and former carpenter who built his own house church nine years ago has seen his flock all but scattered after villagers, instigated by a local Brahmin with high political connections, dug a trench to prevent people from entering and harassed believers through the month of January.
A North Korean believer who escaped the hermit kingdom two years ago was recently baptized in the name of Jesus across the border in China, in a secret ceremony onlookers described as a ‘holy moment.’
Christians were harassed again at the end of January in the Rohingya refugee camps across the border from Myanmar, from which military persecution forced 700,000 Muslims and a smaller number of Christians to flee recently.
A 14-year-old Christian girl kidnapped from her school in Pakistan in January as been restored to her family, but not before receiving severe beatings and being raped by her captors, who are still threatening her family.
A pastor in India and his family were held hostage for several hours by Hindu radicals who accused him of carrying out forced conversions and defacing Hindu idols, police blaming and arresting the pastor afterwards.
At least 328 incidents of persecution against Christians occurred in India in 2019, according to Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) India, though Christian leaders there are expecting more to come in 2020.
A High Court in Pakistan has judged that Muslim men may marry underage Christian girls as long as they have had their first menstrual cycle, contravening an earlier law that forbade marriage for any girl under the age of 18 in the face of widespread abductions.
A group of Christians in Pakistan accused of killing two Muslims in 2015 in riots that followed Taliban suicide bombings on churches were acquitted last week after paying ‘blood money’ to the victim families.
Christian children in southern India were beaten by Hindu extremists and the congregation of which their families are a part framed for forced conversions on Jan. 19, as radical groups continue to pressure police to prosecute believers.