European ambassadors to Belarus have met with the leader of New Life Church in the capital Minsk to discuss “threats” by authorities to “destroy” one of the country’s largest evangelical churches by confiscating its building, a former cowshed, church officials said in a statement obtained by Worthy News Thursday, August 27.
Some 50 Protestant pastors, many of whom were punished for religious activities, have written to President Aleksandr Lukashenko complaining of long-standing restrictions, an advocacy group said Tuesday, August 25.
Turkish Christians remain concerned about rising nationalism and hostility towards non-Muslims in Turkey, following the killing of a Christian businessman and the attack against an evangelist, Worthy News monitored Tuesday, August 11.
Turkish Christians fear those responsible for murdering three Christian publishers will not face justice and that authorities will be unable to tackle “structural injustice” towards the country’s Christian minority, trial observers said.
An evangelical church in the Belarus’ capital Minsk faced uncertainty Thursday, July 16, as authorities threatened to close it because a foreign pastor preached at a worship service.
There was uncertainty about the future of one of the largest evangelical churches in Belarus Tuesday, June 2, after authorities ordered it to abandon its building in the capital Minsk.
The leader of the 250,000 member Chinese House Church Alliance was free Tuesday, April 7, after he was apparently briefly detained in Beijing by over a dozen police officers and “threatened with death”, following a baptism service.
The lawyer of two Turkish Christians on trial for “insulting Turkishness” plans to take their case to the European Court of Human Rights after they were fined for taking “illegal” church offerings, trial observers said in comments monitored by Worthy News Saturday March 28.
Bulgaria’s government is planning to appeal a ruling of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which found Bulgaria guilty of violating religious rights of over 100 Bulgarian Orthodox priests, bishops and lay-workers, who were violently thrown out of their churches, Worthy News learned Monday, March 23.
Christian workers in southern Turkey faced a tense day Friday, February 20, after their bookshop was vandalized for the second time in a week by suspected Muslim militants, Christians said.
Two new suspects were behind bars Friday, February 13, for their alleged involvement in torture-murders of three Christian missionaries in the city of Malatya, in 2007.
There was concern Wednesday, July 16, that Turkish authorities were involved in last year’s murder of three evangelical Christians at a Christian publishing house in the city of Malatya.
An evangelical pastor in Turkey faced a possible jail term Wednesday, June 18, just days after a prosecutor began investigating him on charges that included to blasphemy against Islam, Christian rights investigators said.
A Protestant church in the Turkish capital Ankara faced an uncertain future Monday, June 16, after authorities ordered it to close down, rights investigators familiar with the situation said.
A German evangelical development worker who was kidnapped at gunpoint from a restaurant in the Afghan capital Kabul has been freed, her organization and Afghan officials confirmed Monday, August 20.
Turkish police reportedly released an American Christian from prison late Friday, April 27, after he and three other evangelists were detained in Istanbul this week for charges that included “missionary activity” and “insulting Islam.”
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT, READERS’ DISCRETION ADVISED
There was increased concern Thursday, April 26, about the plight of active Christians in Turkey after investigators revealed that three evangelical believers were “satanically tortured” last week before being killed.
In a gruesome assault against Turkey’s tiny Christian community, five young Muslim Turks entered a Christian publishing office in the southeastern province of Malatya yesterday (April 18) and slit the throats of the three Protestant Christians present.
Assailants on Turkey’s Black Sea coast vandalized a Protestant church this weekend, days after nationalists from the region murdered a well-known Armenian journalist.
Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer has blocked a key piece of reform legislation passed last month to broaden religious freedoms in Turkey.