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]!’
While attacks against the Christian minority has increased in Nepal, the Himalayan country’s parliament passed a bill criminalizing religious conversion and the “hurting of religious sentiment,” aiming to restrict evangelism. The move is likely to further escalate Christian persecution.
The Nepali parliament passed a Bill on 8 August criminalizing religious conversion and the ‘hurting of religious sentiment’. It is expected to become law once the approval of the president has been given.
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.