KADUNA, Nigeria, 13 March 2000 (Newsroom) — About 300 Christians of the Kabe ethnic group in the city of Kaduna were abducted and forced to renounce their faith by their Muslim captors during religious clashes in the state last month, according to a human rights group.
About 300 Christians of the Kabe ethnic group in the city of Kaduna were abducted and forced to renounce their faith by their Muslim captors during religious clashes in the state last month, according to a human rights group.
Baptists in Turkmenistan fear that national security police are following through with a two-phase plan to deport missionaries and “strangle the remaining Christians in the country,” the Keston News Service reported. Church members claim that officers of the KNB (formerly KGB) issued that threat following a raid on a church in the capital Ashgabad last year.
A Baptist leader who had been held in prison by Turkmenistan’s secret police (KNB) since February 2 was deported from the Central Asian state yesterday.
KADUNA, NIGERIA (March 8, 2000) (Assist Communications) — An Open Doors co-worker has provided a harrowing eyewitness report from violence-torn Kaduna, Nigeria, following a recent clash between Christians and Muslims. The fierce fighting resulted in more than 300 deaths as Muslim youths attacked Christians protesting the adoption of Sharia (Islamic law) in the state.
Two Turkish Christians arrested March 1 while selling and distributing Christian literature near the southern port city of Izmir were refused bail today, pending a court hearing scheduled for March 30.
A Christian Uzbek pastor jailed since February 1999 on contrived fraud charges is being subjected to physical beatings for witnessing to his cellmates, church sources in the Central Asian republic reported in early March.
29 February 2000 (Newsroom) — Turkmen authorities raided a Protestant house-church meeting on February 23 in Bezmein near the capital Ashgabad, according to the Keston News Service.
22 February 2000 (Newsroom) — After a respite of one month, Chinese house church leader Li Dexian was detained by police on Tuesday for the 10th time since October. Public Security Bureau officers arrested the 45-year-old Protestant evangelist as he led his weekly 10 a.m. Bible study in Huadu, west of Guangzhou, a source in Hong Kong told Newsroom.
KADUNA, Nigeria, 22 February 2000 (Newsroom) – The Nigerian government dispatched soldiers early Tuesday to help state police quell riots between Christians and Muslims over the proposed implementation of Islamic law. More than 20 people have been reported killed since Monday morning.
Dozens of people — including a Baptist seminary student — were killed when riots between Christians and Muslims broke out Feb. 21 in Kaduna, Nigeria.
After a respite of one month, Chinese house church leader Li Dexian was detained by police on Tuesday for the 10th time since October. Public Security Bureau officers arrested the 45-year-old Protestant evangelist as he led his weekly 10 a.m. Bible study in Huadu, west of Guangzhou, a source in Hong Kong told Newsroom.
21 February 2000 (Newsroom) — Vietnamese Communist authorities are negotiating with Protestant church leaders to normalize relations, reports the World Evangelical Fellowship (WEF). If successful, the talks could pave the way for recognition of house churches that existed before the Communists took control in 1975, according to some Protestant leaders.
Pastor Li De Xian preached twice this week in his usual Tuesday meeting in Huadu near Guangzhou, China without interference from Chinese authorities. This marks four consecutive weeks without arrest or interference for Pastor Li’s ministry.
The sentencing of six Protestant house church leaders to hard labor last December and the arrest of six more leaders of the Roman Catholic underground church are but “the tip of the iceberg” of religious oppression, according to five prominent house church leaders inside China, contacted by Compass in January.
Saudi Arabia released four Filipino Christians in Riyadh yesterday, 40 days after their arrest by the country’s strict Islamic police for conducting Christian worship services in a private home.
Baptist pastor Rahim Tashov and a colleague were hauled into police headquarters in their hometown of Turkmenabad (formerly Chardjou) last Thursday, February 3.
To observers of China’s Christian church scene the event was as sudden as it was unexpected. Just the day before the Chinese New Year celebrations of February 5, one of China’s most prominent house church leaders, Zhang Rongliang, was released quietly from prison in Fangcheng City, Henan Province, on grounds of poor health. The news was relayed quickly to journalists and China specialists outside of China by friends who had remained in close contact with Zhang for several weeks.
Saudi Arabia has once again taken the dubious distinction of being the country where Christians are more severely persecuted than any other in the world. This was revealed in the January 2001 release of the Open Doors “World Watch List” (WWL), which ranks countries according to their level of Christian persecution.
SANTA ANA, CA (February 7, 2000) — Saudi Arabia has once again taken the dubious distinction of being the country where Christians are more severely persecuted than any other in the world. This was revealed in the January 2001 release of the Open Doors “World Watch List” (WWL), which ranks countries according to their level of Christian persecution.