KABUL, AFGHANISTAN (ANS) — More than 50 foreign staff members of the US based Christian aid organizations International Assistance Mission (IAM) and Serve began leaving Afghanistan Saturday, September 1, after the Islamic Taliban regime closed their offices Friday.
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN (ANS) — Afghanistan’s Islamic Taliban regime threatened Wednesday, September 5, to execute eight foreign Christian relief workers, as Western diplomats and relatives desperately tried to meet them.
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN (ANS) — The Foreign Minister of Afghanistan’s Islamic Taliban regime denied Thursday, September 6, that his hard-line movement was considering a prisoner swap with the United States to free eight detained Western Christian relief workers. Reports from the region said that relatives of blind Egyptian militant Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, currently serving a life term in the United States for terrorism, proposed the prison exchange.
ISTANBUL, September 10 (Compass) — Taliban authorities arrested 35 more Afghan aid workers over the weekend, bringing the total to more than 50 Afghans jailed by the strict Islamist regime since early August on suspicion of aiding covert Christian missionary work.
JANUARY
Taliban leader Mohammed Omar declares on Radio Shariat that any Afghan caught professing Christianity or Judaism would be executed, and that any non-Muslim found “trying to win converts” would also be killed.
In recent weeks, unknown assailants have targeted Christian churches in Indonesia with attempted bombings and bomb threats.
Mr. Xiao Bi-guang and Mr. Zhang Yi-nan were arrested last Friday morning in Ping Ding Shan city, Henan Province, China. Sources in China reported that more than 20 Public Security Bureau (PSB) officers made the arrest. The location where the two men are being held is unknown at this time. Their families have received no official notification, in violation of Chinese law which says the family of arrested persons will be notified of their location within 24 hours after arrest.
Authorities in Vietnam’s Kontum province have found a way to add cruel symbolism to their unwarranted persecution of Christians.
Police in the Eritrean capital of Asmara continued the country-wide crackdown against independent Protestant congregations this month, arresting another 12 evangelicals on September 7 while they were meeting in a private house for prayer and worship.
Egyptian Christian Bolis Rezek-Allah was pulled off an international flight this afternoon in Cairo, Egypt, and is being held by Egyptian secret police. Rezek-Allah, who had been granted an immigrant visa to Canada, was on the plane to leave Egypt when police arrested him.
More than four years after the tragic murder of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons, prime suspect Dara Singh and 12 others were convicted of the killings today by the district and sessions judge of Orissa state, India.
Nagaland, one of the world’s most mysterious lands tucked in the mountainous, jungle covered northeastern corner of India near the Burmese border, has 10,000 missionaries poised to take the Gospel to nearby lands.
Three Chinese church leaders incarcerated since July 13 were released after international pressure mounted due to publicity of their case.
Protestant Christians in Azerbaijan are fearing for the future of their children after police raided a Sunday school using old Soviet style “KGB methods”, reports said Thursday September 4.
Bruce Balfour, the 52-year-old Canadian Christian charged with spying for Israel, has been found innocent by a Lebanese military court.
Barring a miracle, an innocent U.S. citizen is going to spend five years in a Russian prison for a crime he did not commit. Andrew Okhotin’s four months under house arrest and upcoming show trial should outrage anyone who believes in justice. It should also move them to do whatever they can to help.
Baptists and other Protestant groups in two of the most oppressive republics of the former Soviet Union faced fines and possible liquidation Monday, September 1, unless they stop church meetings, reports said.
Christians belonging to a small house church in northern Nepal were attacked by Buddhist and Hindu villagers on July 26, resulting in hospitalization for at least one church member. The mob attacked and destroyed houses and cornfields belonging to Christian villagers.
Over 100 well-armed Muslim militants swarmed into three Christian villages in northern Nigeria on Monday, August 25. Seven people were reportedly killed, 30 homes burned and 140 families displaced when the attackers invaded the villages about 8 p.m., setting houses ablaze and destroying food items in storage facilities.
Fifty-seven teenage Eritrean Christians jailed last week under severe punishment for having Bibles at their military training camp remain locked in metal shipping containers, inside sources confirmed today.