Christian Persecution – Asia

Local authorities accompanied by an Islamist mob attempted to demolish two buildings in a church compound used by three congregations in Jatimulya village, West Java province on June 14.

An evangelical pastor in eastern Sri Lankia was receiving treatment in hospital Tuesday, June 24, a day after he was attacked by militant government forces because of his Christian activities, local believers and investigators said.

Buddhist extremists have invited residents of Middeniya, a town in Hambanthota district, southern Sri Lanka, to attend a huge anti-Christian rally this Sunday (June 22), where they have promised to "expose the great [Christian] conspiracy."

Still struggling to rebuild their homes and lives after suffering large-scale attacks last Christmas season, Christians in Orissa state’s Kandhamal district continue to face ostracism and threats from Hindu nationalists.

Two Iranian converts to Christianity jailed for the past few weeks have been released by authorities, who demanded valuable property deeds as bail collateral, a Christian news agency reported Tuesday, June 3.

In yet another savage attack on Christians in India, news has just come out that some thirty Christian preachers were beaten by Hindu activists belonging to Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) at Bainsa town in the Adilabad district of Andhra Pradesh.

The leader of a rebel group fighting for autonomy and more religious rights of Burma’s predominantly Christian Karen community has died, a Christian humanitarian group confirmed Friday May 23.

Police in the southern Iran city of Shiraz this month cracked down against known Muslim converts to Christianity, arresting members of three Christian families and confiscating their books and computers.

Nearly all Christian families in a village on Indonesia’s Seram island, in the religiously volatile Maluku province, were homeless Wednesday, May 21, after a Muslim mob burned their houses and other properties as well as killing four believers and injuring dozens others, investigators told BosNewsLife.

Local officials in Lao Cai province have confiscated the land and home of a former opium addict because of his phenomenal success as an evangelist, local Christian sources said.

Three men, one of them armed with a gun and wearing gloves, threatened a Protestant church and its pastor in the Turkish capital city of Ankara yesterday. The culprits fled in a car before police could be summoned.

Muslim extremists and local government authorities last week threatened to tear down a church building under construction in North Sumatra even though church leaders met requirements of Indonesia’s draconian law on worship places, the church’s pastor said.

Native missionaries in Maharashtra, India’s third largest state, continued their activities Wednesday, May 7, amid mounting opposition against Christianity in the area, BosNewsLife learned.

Christian missionaries in Bhutan, a predominately Buddhist nation, faced new challenges Thursday, May 8, nearly a month after villagers were reportedly expelled from their home for becoming Christians.

Villagers in India’s state of Madhya Pradesh on Saturday, May 3, recalled that exactly one month ago a local Christian leader was killed because his faith in Christ was wrongly understood, BosNewsLife monitored.

The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Gujarat state has implemented an "anti-conversion" law passed in 2003, increasing Christians’ fears that it will open the door to false accusations by Hindu extremists.

Former police and security officers in North Korea told a U.S. government body that their superiors had instructed them to play the role of Christians and infiltrate "underground" prayer meetings in order to incriminate, arrest, imprison and sometimes execute believers in North Korea.