Some 50,000 people rallied in Pakistan’s largest city Sunday, January 9, to oppose changes in a blasphemy law and to praise the alleged assassin of a provincial governor who campaigned against the controversial legislation.
The governor of Pakistan’s powerful Punjab province was shot and killed in the nation’s capital by one of his own bodyguards in apparent retaliation for his campaign against the country’s controversial blasphemy law, police and human rights activists said.
Tensions remained high Sunday, December 26, near Jakarta where a group of angry Muslims backed by police surrounded homes of Christians in protests against what they called “unauthorized religious services”, Worthy News learned.
Muslims began protests Friday, December 24, against plans to change Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, after an Islamic leader offered nearly $6,000 for the killing of a Christian woman he accused of offending Islam.
Christians of house churches and other non-recognized groups prepared Friday, December 24, for a tense Christmas, after security forces halted Christmas celebrations and detained believers in several areas of Vietnam, Vietnamese Christians and rights investigators said.
Human rights campaigners on Friday, December 17, urged the U.S. commander in war-torn Afghanistan, David Petraeus, to pressure the Afghan government to release two detained Christians who face the death penalty for “apostasy”, or abandoning Islam.
A Pakistani evangelist and pastor was still recovering Thursday, December 16, after he was set on fire by hard-line Muslims in Pakistan’s Punjab province, Christians and rights activists said.
The often prosecuted founder of one of India’s largest evangelical mission groups that rescues orphans and abandoned children has died after a long battle with health problems, his family and organization confirmed Saturday, December 4.
Christian rights activists asked Vietnam Monday, November 29, to release pastors who received long prison terms on charges of “undermining national unity.”
The father of a Christian executive kidnapped in Pakistan’s Punjab province said Sunday, November 28, he fears his son will be killed on orders of senior Muslim managers.
A Christian teenager “wrongly” convicted of “blasphemy” against Islam was still recovering Sunday, November 28, after Muslim inmates nearly stoned him to death in a prison in Pakistan’s northwest Punjab province, Christians and medics said.
A tense calm remained Saturday, November 27, in several villages of India’s troubled state of Orissa after Hindu militants reportedly attacked local Christians as police forces watched nearby.
Pakistan’s president Asif Ali Zardari will not immediately pardon a Christian who has been sentenced to death for allegedly insulting Islam, an official reportedly said Thursday, November 25.
Afghanistan has postponed the trial of a disabled man who faces the death penalty for allegedly converting from Islam to Christianity, trial observers and officials said Tuesday, November 23.
A major evangelical group has urged the government of India’s Punjab state to protect minority Christians after Hindu militants allegedly attacked a church and injured at least one Christian, Worthy News has learned.
Two years after losing relatives and property to anti-Christian violence, survivors in India’s Orissa state are still being pressured to “return” to Hinduism, according to a private investigation.
The 13 suspects in the September attack on two leaders of the Batak Christian Protestant Church will now go on trial after police gave their completed case files to the prosecution.
Relatives of a Pakistani Christian mother sentenced to death for “insulting” Islam’s Prophet Muhammad have filed an appeal against her conviction, Worthy News established Monday, November 15.
A Christian worker, his Muslim wife and their baby remained in hiding Sunday, November 14, nearly a month after some 20 armed Muslim gunmen allegedly attacked their rented house in an area of Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city.
Burma’s military government on Saturday, November 13, freed pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who spent most of the last two decades in detention.