Christians in India’s southern state of Andhra Pradesh on Wednesday, March 14, were preparing to rebuild their church, hours after it was burnt down by Hindu militants, while elsewhere in the country several Christian leaders were recovering from injuries following violent attacks against them.
An Uzbek criminal court has sentenced Christian pastor Dmitry Shestakov to four years in a prison colony for alleged “illegal†religious activities.
One person was killed, a number injured and over 35 arrested in Harare on Sunday, March 11, after hundreds of armed riot police used shotguns and teargas to shut down a prayer meeting about the deteriorating situation in Zimbabwe.
There was mounting concern Tuesday, March 13, about the whereabouts of an evangelical Sri Lankan pastor, his two sons, and another Christian young man who disappeared this month amid intense fighting between Sri Lanka’s government forces and the independence seeking Tamil Tiger rebels, Christians said.
A Christian pro-democracy activist was released by Vietnamese authorities Tuesday, March 13, after spending over 12 hours in police custody, but the whereabouts of a human rights lawyer remained unknown, dissidents told BosNewsLife.
Police officers and members of a Hindu extremist group in Andhra Pradesh on Sunday (March 11) lured a pastor into a remote forest, where the extremists tied his hands and feet and beat him with wooden clubs as they accused him of offering money for Hindus to convert to Christianity.
Hindu extremists have extended to the northern state of Himachal Pradesh a movement to bring Christian converts back to the Hindu fold through dubious “reconversion†events.
A Salem Voice Ministries missionary in Jammu and Kashmir was attacked on March 6 in Kupwara in Jammua and Kashmir, India.
A prominent Mennonite pastor and his wife were recovering Sunday, March 11, from “brutal” beatings by Vietnamese security forces as part of a government crackdown on dissidents, a key activist told BosNewsLife.
A major human rights watchdog accused the Vietnamese government on Friday, March 9 of “flouting” its commitments on human rights by launching “one of the worst crackdowns on peaceful dissidents,” including Christians, “in 20 years.”
Prominent Protestant pastor Dmitry Shestakov was sentenced Friday, March 9, to four years’ exile within Uzbekistan for his evangelistic activities, Christian rights watchers observing the trial said.
Muslim students twice have set fire to a high school chapel here since it was rebuilt last August, after Islamists burned it down three years ago.
After intensive international pressure, local police released 33 arrested house church leaders and three leaders from South Korea.
Dozens of Christian leaders, including three church officials from South Korea, were detained by Chinese security forces Tuesday, March 6, as part of an apparent government crackdown on independent Christian groups, representatives said.
There was mounting concern Monday, March 5, about the whereabouts of a key leader of an indigenous house church in Vietnam’s Central Highlands after Vietnamese security forces reportedly raided a village and detained several Christians.
One of the top Islamic leaders in Iran accepted Christ and left the country after facing death threats and imprisonment, according to an Iranian pastor living in the U.S.
Islamic militants in Benin destroyed a church established by Christ Power Ministries (CPM) in the latest attack against the indigenous evangelical mission group in the African nation, missionaries told BosNewsLife Friday, March 2.
One of Cuba’s most prominent Christian prisoners, Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, has said he has been forced to watch abuses “that threaten the decorous behavior of a civilized society” but stressed he trusts God to one day end his “unjust sentence,” in a letter published by BosNewsLife Saturday, March 3.
The elderly mother of a well known Chinese church activists remained behind bars Thursday, March 1, after a Chinese court sentenced her to two years imprisonment, representatives confirmed.
A Christian child has been sentenced to five years in juvenile detention in Northern Iraq for fatally stabbing her Muslim uncle while he beat her for converting to Christianity, her lawyer said.