RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA (ANS) — In a rare criticism of the kingdom’s powerful religious police, Saudi media have accused the force of hampering efforts to rescue 15 girls who died inside a blazing school, Reuters news service reports.
As believers who claim their rights have been violated by the state authorities debate and argue over the best way to resolve such violations, Keston News Service has discovered that Rafik Aliev, chairman of the State Committee for Relations with Religious Organisations, has repeatedly warned believers not to take their complaints to foreigners.
Unidentified terrorists hurled grenades into a Protestant worship service in the diplomatic quarter of Pakistan’s capital city yesterday, killing five worshippers and wounding another 40 members of the congregation.
The treatment of Chinese Christians–who now outnumber Chinese Communist Party members–must be placed near the top of the agenda when President Bush meets Friday with Chinese President Jiang Zemin.
Terry Madison, U.S. president and CEO of Open Doors with Brother Andrew has said that Saudi Arabia’s treatment of two expatriate Christians is further proof of why this desert Kingdom is among the world’s worst persecutor of Christians.
Christians in Vietnam are virtually being denied the right to exist, according to a visit there by a representative of a Washington, DC, based ministry recently.
Christians in Laos still suffer from strict oppression of religious activity, according to recent reports, while at least one brother’s Christian work is being tolerated.
In addition to their unhappiness over the very need for re-registration of religious organisations and the way the compulsory re-registration process has been run, believers of a variety of religious denominations have complained to Keston News Service over the demands made of them by the State Committee for Relations with Religious Organizations, which is handling the process.
A once-maligned Christian ministry native to Cambodia is experiencing open doors as it reports a rich harvest among Cambodians.
A series of violent attacks on both the Muslim and Christian communities is threatening to derail the peace process in Indonesia.
Most Christians understand the threat posed by Islamic fundamentalism around the world, but few are aware of a virulent strain of Hindu radicalism targeting believers in India.
Sources of the The Voice of the Martyrs in Indonesia say members of the militant Islamic group Laskar Jihad are likely responsible for a bus bomb blast near Poso on Wednesday. VOM has learned more details about the attack that killed at least four people and injured 17 others.
Christian Aid’s contact in Indonesia said Sunday that Christians in some villages that have been taken over by Laskar Jihad militant Muslims are being offered the opportunity to leave their villages, but on one condition: They must relinquish all right to their homes, businesses and properties, and never return to their villages again.
With the U.S. military assistance to the Philippine government to help rescue Christian missionary couple Martin and Gracia Burnham from their abductors the Abu Sayyaf Group, an Islamic rebel leader told ASSIST News Service that the abductors will use the Christian missionaries as their human shields when a U.S.-Philippine military joint rescue operation commences.
Six members of a Baptist congregation in the town of Khazar (formerly Cheleken) were fined in mid-January for holding “illegal services”, Keston News Service has learned. The instruction to fine them came from the political police, the KNB (former KGB), the six were told. The Turkmen authorities routinely fine members of unregistered religious congregations for holding religious meetings, even if such meetings take place in private homes.
There were fresh reports about persecution of Christians throughout the former Soviet Union Monday January 20, including the arrests of Pentecostal leaders and the banning of the world famous Jesus film in several regions.
Amid growing pressure on Protestant congregations, two leaders of the unregistered Pentecostal church Living Stones have been arrested and given fifteen-day prison terms, Protestant sources in the Azerbaijani capital Baku have told Keston News Service. The two – Yusuf Farkhadov and Kasym Kasymov – were detained in Sumgait, a town close to Baku, when police and National Security Ministry officers raided a prayer meeting last Friday (18 January) held in a private flat in the town’s 9th micro-district.
Fourteen Churches in Zamfara State, in Northern Nigeria are now facing demolition threat by the state government, which claims that there are too many Christian worship centers in the state. Zamfara state, which spearheaded the adoption of Islamic law in northern Nigeria contrary to the country’s secular constitution, is predominantly Muslim, populated with less than a five percent Christian population.
An American missionary couple held hostage in the southern Philippines for eight months by the Muslim rebel group Abu Sayyaf has cried out for help, at a time of emotional and physical pain.
Soon after winning the right to host the 2008 Olympics, China is showing the world that being a non-registered Christian is a most dangerous sport.