Police this morning arrested a recent convert in Mayapuri, Madhya Pradesh state for the second time in three days in an apparent attempt to pressure him to give evidence that his pastor forcibly converted him. By nightfall in India, the new believer was charged with “insulting religious beliefs.”
Local police raided Qilin Mountain Villa in the suburb of Uramqi City, Xijiang Autonomous Region, when some Christians were having a Bible training program held by a Korean pastor from America.
Eight organizations supporting persecuted churches have urged Christians worldwide to pray for 200 million Christians who they claim suffer “interrogation, arrest and even death for their faith in Christ.”
Tensions are rising across the Horn of Africa – there is death and danger. Irredentist Somali Islamists have declared jihad against Ethiopia. Christians are being attacked and murdered by Muslims in Ethiopia. Eritrea, which is accused of arming the Somali Islamists, is exploiting an opportunity and has breached the 2000 cease-fire agreement by moving troops into the Eritrea-Ethiopia border buffer zone. Two Protestant Christians were recently tortured to death in Eritrea. The savagery of persecution appears to be escalating in proportion to regional tensions — and it could be about to get much worse.
There were hopes Tuesday, October 24, that at least five prominent Chinese church leaders jailed for their alleged role in resisting police forces while defending their church building would be released, after a prosecutor decided not to prosecute them because of “a lack of evidence,” supporters said.
Belarusian authorities may be preparing to reverse their position towards New Life Church in the capital Minsk, members of which have been on a hunger strike in order to resist efforts by the government to close them down.
China sentenced a crippled prominent house church leader to two years in prison on charges of “illegal business practices” after he printed and distributed Bibles for other Christians “free of charge”, fellow believers confirmed Friday, October 20.
A former Muslim sheikh remained in an Egypt jail Saturday, October 21, after 18 months of “provisional detention” for allegedly “insulting Islam” by becoming a Christian.
Religious rights investigators expressed concern Thursday, October 19, about the situation of evangelical Christians in Ethiopia after Muslim leaders reportedly attacked dozens of believers, seriously injuring 12 people, including a pregnant woman, outside Addis Ababa, the capital.
Eritrean security police tortured two Christians to death yesterday, two days after arresting them for holding a religious service in a private home south of Asmara.
A Muslim sheikh jailed in Egypt for 18 months has declared from his prison cell that he is under arrest for “insulting Islam†by becoming a Christian.
Up to eight Christian workers at a home for the destitute in India’s Karnataka state were in jail Wednesday, October 18, on charges of “wrongful confinement, abduction and cheating” after apparently incorrect television reports led to a riot around the facility, Christian investigators said.
Pakistan has released a psychiatrically disordered man who was accused of setting alight some pages of Quran, the Muslims holy book last year, ANS has learnt.
A Christian high school teacher at Government College in Keffi, in the northern state of Nasarawa, is on trial for blasphemy after he disciplined a Muslim student.
Leaders of Indonesia’s embattled Christian minority urged authorities Tuesday, October 17, to catch the killers of a Protestant pastor, whose church defended three Catholics before they were executed last month for alleged involvement in violence against Muslims.
News has just been received by ASSIST News Service that at around 9 am this morning (Monday, October 16, 2006), the acting head of the Protestant Church in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia, was assassinated. He was shot in the head on a street in Palu, the capital of Central Sulawesi, Indonesia — the same region where three Catholic Christians were recently executed.
A teenage girl was “mercilessly beaten and punished” by Muslim teachers at her school for “defending” her faith in Christ and wearing a cross, amid growing concern over violence against Christian women and girls in the Asian nation, Pakistani Christians said Friday, October 13.
A new report details for the first time the extent of religious freedom violations in Colombia, including targeted assassinations of pastors or church leaders, the kidnapping or forced disappearance of at least three others, and the attempted assassination of a pastor that left more that 70 bullets embedded in his body, BosNewsLife monitored Wednesday, October 11.
A church in Uttar Pradesh’s Jaunpur district cancelled its weekly meeting yesterday (October 10) due to tensions in the region following false reports of conversions in newspapers. The reports led to two attacks in the past week.
Relatives of an Orthodox priest who was kidnapped and beheaded three days later said Thursday, October 12, that the captors demanded his church condemns the pope’s recent comments about Islam and pay a US$350,000 ransom.