The Prime Minister of Sri Lanka is calling for the establishment of an “anti-conversion” law he claims will “save this country” from the phenomenon of people converting from Buddhism to other religions, Christians say as a pretext for persecution.
The Burmese military allowed its jets to open fire on four Christian villages in the predominantly Buddhist country in March, killing 21 people and forcing thousands of others to flee to a neighboring region.
Iran has released a Christian woman who was jailed after refusing to reconvert to Islam, activists confirmed to Worthy News. Rokhsareh (Mahrokh) Ghanbari, 62, is among some 85,000 prisoners freed in recent weeks amid concerns about the spread of the new coronavirus COVID-19.
Police, state governments, and radical Hindu nationalist groups are joining together against Christians in India, marshaling the accusation that Christians are forcing people to convert to faith in Jesus.
A pastor in Nepal who made sure to fastidiously follow government regulations forbidding worship services was attacked by police anyway while at home with his family, the officers taunting him and Jesus.
Christians in China have reported ongoing harassment from government authorities during the coronavirus crisis. China is ranked as one of the world’s worst countries in the persecution of Christians, according to the Open Doors USA’s World Watch List.
A Christian watchdog group in the UK published a new report this week on the erosion of religious freedom in China under President Xi Jinping, whose ‘sinicization’ campaign has set out to absorb faith into the Chinese socialist system.
A pastor and a team of youth missionaries from his church were abused and falsely charged in India earlier this month for providing food and clothing to the poor, in another instance of police complicity with the radical Hindu nationalist agenda.
It is confirmed that four French Christian aid workers have been freed after they were kidnapped in Iraq in January. A statement from President Marcron’s office on March 27 informed that the Élysée Palace had made ‘every effort to reach this outcome.’ The statement thanked Iraqi authorities for their cooperation but gave no details or information about any conditions of the workers’ release.
Peter Tumbelaka wasn’t in a hurry to become the pastor of Jakarta’s largest Pentecostal churches where many Muslims convert to Christianity. “I thought I could remain an architect and an engineer. But God had different plans,” the 52-year-old preacher told BosNewsLife in Indonesia’s bustling capital.
A pastor in Nepal was thrown into prison for exercising his God-given authority over coronavirus after police disguised themselves as Christians in need of healing prayer.
A Montagnard Christian in Vietnam was released from prison in February following sixteen years of torture by the Vietnamese government for protesting its treatment of ethnic and religious minorities.
Two churches in Sudan have been burned down by arsonists in the last month, Sudanese Radio Dabanga reported. This is despite Christian hopes for religious freedom following the ousting of dictator Omar al-Bashir in April 2019. Radio Dabanga was notified of the attacks by Dimas Marajan, a local lawyer and human rights activist.
The Indonesian Baptist Church of Tlogosari has resorted to legal action in fighting local opposition to the construction of its church house. Referring to pressure being placed on the government to block his church’s legitimate building work, Pastor Wahyudi told Beritasatu.com: “We will continue to fight for this, because if left unchecked it will set a bad precedent for freedom of religion and worship in Semarang.”
In a tragic misunderstanding, the leader of a Hindu nationalist organization in India is vowing to prevent the spread of Christian faith across his country because of alleged child trafficking activities of the charity founded by Mother Theresa and purported forced conversions and marriages of Hindu girls by Muslim men.
A young pastor in India and his congregation were attacked by a 200-man-strong mob of Hindu nationalists brandishing hockey sticks last week, sending the Christians to prison, where they endured a demonic level of police brutality.
Christians in Utter Pradesh State, India, are experiencing a barrage of attacks after religious nationalists pinpointed 30 locations across the state where they claimed conversions to Christian faith were taking place.
A Christian family was driven into the jungle by tribal animists in India last week after Hindu nationalists instigated local animists against a pastor and destroyed his home.
China is using the widespread coronavirus outbreak within its borders as an opportunity to attack Christian faith, with the communist government demolishing churches or removing their crosses over the month of March.
The married-father-of-three has come a long way since he nearly blew up a Protestant church in Jakarta. Author Ahmad Quraisy, which isn’t his family name, was a commander of the feared Islamic State of Indonesia (NII), an Indonesian militant group. But the former Islamic terrorist now leads an underground movement in Indonesia converting Muslims to Christianity or, in his words, ‘personal faith in Christ.’