Underground Churches in North Korea Growing
Christianity is spreading in North Korea as more North Koreans are rejecting the regime of Kim Jung-un and searching for faith a defector told The Telegraph.
Christianity is spreading in North Korea as more North Koreans are rejecting the regime of Kim Jung-un and searching for faith a defector told The Telegraph.
As reported earlier this year, the first quarter of 2017 saw 248 persecution incidents wherein Christians were harassed, threatened or attacked for their faith in India. More recent records indicate the number of incidents in first six months of 2017 is now up to 410 incidents. This represents an enormous increase in persecution as there were only 441 incidents reported in 2016 for the entire year.
The North Korean regime has continued to position itself as one of the world’s worst persecutors of the religious, torturing and killing people who practice their faith, according to a State Department report released Tuesday.
International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that the Jharkhand Assembly, a state legislative body in northeastern India, passed the Jharkhand Freedom of Religion Bill-2017, also known as ‘Jharkhand Dharma Swatantra Adhiniyam,’ on Saturday, August 12. The bill will now be sent to the governor, following whose approval it would go to the president for final assent. The bill was passed by the BJP-led government despite significant opposition from religious groups, civil society, and the tribal groups across Jharkhand.
After 19 long months of investigative detention following his Dec. 16, 2015 arrest, renowned human rights attorney Nguyen Van Dai was finally charged with a crime on July 30.
For nearly three decades, one Christian human rights group has carried out an unusual aerial offensive to encourage North Korea’s secret believers.
Hyeun-soo Lim, the Korean Canadian church leader sentenced to life in prison with hard labour, has been freed today (9 August) ‘on sick bail’, says a North Korean state news agency. Convicted in December 2015 by the country’s Supreme Court of numerous charges, including an attempt to overthrow the government, he had been detained in North Korea since February 2015.
Hard-line Hindus used steel rods and a butcher’s knife to attack a father-son pastoral team in Tamil Nadu state, India, injuring the elder clergyman, sources said.
CSW’s new report on freedom of religion or belief in Indonesia warns that religious minorities are increasingly fearful of intolerance.
Berating and slapping a pastor for reading the Bible instead of Hindu texts, police in Uttar Pradesh state, India last month detained six Christians under “unlawful assembly” laws for worshiping together, sources said.
A pastor in northern India’s Punjab state was shot dead in front of his church premises two months after Hindu extremists took offense at a gospel event celebrating his church’s 25th anniversary, sources said.
A court in Nepal has dropped a case against eight Christians, the first religious freedom dispute since the country’s new constitution was implemented last year.
Christianity in Myanmar is growing at a dramatic rate despite threats from Buddhist nationals, according to the UN Population Fund.
Last month in Punjab state, India, a Christian was severely beaten after he protested the desecration of a Christian graveyard by local Hindus.
Seven Christians were arrested for distributing biblical handbooks to hundreds of students in the Dolakha district of Nepal.
In the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Christians are considered to be “untouchable” and as such are often relegated to lowly labor employment.
A Christian villager was tortured for his faith last month in Chhattisgarh state.
The arrest of a pastor, his wife and another church member in Satna, India, on May 22 symbolically fell on the two-year anniversary of Narendra Modi’s oppressive Hindu nationalist government.
Police arrested a Christian in Chhattisgarh, India, for distributing brochures printed with excerpts from the Gospel.
As Pastor Dang Ba Nham, his wife and a church elder were praying with a recent convert to Christianity along a busy roadside, a large pickup truck with military plates suddenly veered across the street and struck them.