Tribal animists upset that Christians tried to bury one of their dead in a village in eastern India seriously injured a 13-year-old girl and others who tried to protect a Christian woman the villagers threatened to burn alive.
A recent Malaysia Federal Court ruling that apostasy cases should be heard in Sharia courts has led to disappointment for the country’s Christians, but determination from Islamic groups to prevent Muslims from converting out of their faith.
The body of a pastor in southern India was found hung from the thatched roof of his house early Saturday morning (Jan. 20), a week after he complained to police about opposition from Hindu extremists, sources said.
When Hindu extremists in India told pastor Karma Oraon they would not stop beating him until he worshipped the monkey god, he felt Christ close to him, he said.
International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that at least 23 religiously-motivated attacks took place during the 2017 Christmas season, including attacks on carolers and open threats against Christian celebrations. The attacks have led to several Christians’ hospitalization and imprisonment. The persecution created such fear among the Christian community that many Christians did not celebrate Christmas this year.
Indonesia reduced the sentences of over 9,000 Christian prisoners on Christmas day, including the sentence of a Christian governor jailed on blasphemy charges.
Christians and others in India celebrated Christmas despite fears of an anti-Christian backlash in some parts of the predominantly Hindu country.
Pakistani Christian mourners today (Monday) are burying their dead only days before they should be celebrating Christ’s birth.
Two suicide bombers attacked a church in Pakistan where hundreds of worshippers were attending service ahead of Christmas, killing at least nine people and injuring dozens of others, officials said.
Seven Christians in India have been booked on charges of hurting religious feelings after Hindu extremists savagely beat them when they gathered to pray for a sick man at his home, sources said.
Evangelist Franklin Graham said that multitudes responded to Jesus Christ during his two-day evangelistic crusade in Vietnam, and argued that the Communist government there is starting to warm up to Christianity.
Berating and slapping two pastors into signing an apology letter before police, Hindu extremists stopped a planned three-day gospel meeting in Chhattisgarh state, India minutes before it was to begin, sources said.
Dozens of Christian civilians were killed while others in the community bore the brunt of the six-month conflict on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao between the country’s military and militants allied to the Islamic State group, which ended last month, according to a detailed report by Amnesty International.
Two assistant pastors arrested by the Burma (Myanmar) army last December were sentenced to prison on Friday (Oct. 27) on false charges of unlawful association, defaming the military and spying, sources said.
Officials and police in Tamil Nadu state, India, have ordered 10 churches to discontinue worship services, sources said.
The President of Nepal Bidhya Devi Bhandari has signed into law legislation that makes religious conversion a crime, the international human rights group Christian Solidarity Worldwide has reported.
Six police officers in Pakistan have been arrested and charged with murder after they allegedly beat to death a Pakistani Christian teenager earlier this month, according to human rights advocates.
On September 17, 2017, suspected Hindu radicals attacked an Assembly of God church in India’s Karnataka state. After the attack, church attendance has plummeted as Christians in the area fear another attack. It is not surprising that attacks are increasing in Karnataka as state elections are scheduled to occur early next year. Hindu hardline groups want to silence Christians and ensure that they are unable to practice their faith.
Four Christians in Nepal sentenced to five years in prison on false charges of “witchcraft” and “violence” were released today after a high court annulled their convictions, church leaders said.
A band of Hindu extremists who had snuck into a house-church service beat a pastor with steel rods and sticks, one of them yelling that they would stop if he shouted, ‘Hail, Lord Ram [Jai Sri Ram]!’