KABUL, AFGHANISTAN (ANS) — The German based Charity Shelter Now has warned the trial of its eight detained foreign Christian staff members in Afghanistan seems to have been put on hold. “No progress is being made,” the evangelical news agency Idea quoted Shelter Now’s Chairman, Joachim Jaeger, as saying.
Christians in the Indonesian province of Papua (Irian Jaya) are fearful that a violent campaign could be unleashed against them later this year as Laskar Jihad Islamic militants continue to flood into the province with the apparent collusion of the authorities.
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.
In what was seen as an answer to the prayers of thousands of Christians around the world, eight Christian aid workers detained in Afghanistan arrived safely in neighboring Pakistan, Thursday November 15, after more 100 days in captivity.
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.
Parents of two American women have seen their daughters for the first time since they and 22 other aid workers were arrested August 5th on charges of spreading Christianity in Islamic Afghanistan. The Bakhtar News Agency (BNA) described the visit as an “emotional reunion” between the mother of Dana Curry, and the father of the other woman, Heather Mercy.
Members of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have visited in Kabul eight Western and Sixteen Afghan aid workers, who face possible execution for allegedly spreading Christianity in war ravaged Afghanistan. The Sunday visit was the first contact the prisoners had with the outside world, since being detained three weeks ago under the Taliban regime’s strict interpretation of Islamic law.
NEW DELHI, India (BP)–Another day, another bombing.
That’s the impression being created, at least, by a mounting wave of attacks on Christians and churches in India.
LOS ANGELES, CA (ANS) — 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.
Listening via television to evangelist Billy Graham’s stirring words of spiritual comfort and encouragement at the national prayer and memorial service in Washington DC on Friday, I recalled that the last time I saw the towering World Trade Center was the same day I spoke at his ministry headquarters in Minneapolis. It was a great honor to address his staff of over 300 dedicated workers last August 6 just before boarding a plane to Newark airport on my way back to my home at the center of the world, Jerusalem Israel.
A militant Hindu hate website displaying the names of international evangelists, secular and Christian scholars from India, and other “enemies of Hinduism” on its “hit-list” was back on-line after it was salvaged by a radical Jewish organization in Brooklyn, New York. The website calls on militant Hindus to commit violence against the men and women listed.
CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA (ANS) — More than 200 Salvationist from throughout Australia gathered for a National Prayer Summit in Canberra recently. The aim of the summit was to gather representatives of the Army together to submit to God, seek his heart, and to pray, expecting transformations in the life of the nation.
Responding to urgent pleas for help, Christian Aid has joined a campaign to raise $1.2 million to rescue Christians feared targeted for conversion or extermination by Muslim jihad warriors in Indonesia.
Another day, another bombing. That’s the impression being created, at least, by a mounting wave of attacks on Christians and churches in India.
Reports of an “ethnic-cleaning” style religious war by Muslims against Christians on the Indonesian island of Ambon continue to be received from eyewitnesses on site.
Christians in Indonesia’s Maluku islands say their community remains under threat of extermination by thousands of trained Jihad troops that have entered the region since May.
Leaders of Christian communities who report they are under attack by jihad warriors in Indonesia’s Maluku islands are seeking emergency help from Europe.
Hindu militants in Orissa have announced that the man accused of masterminding the brutal killings last year of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons will be the chief minister candidate of their newly formed political party in the eastern state.
More than a year after Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons, Timothy and Phillip, were brutally murdered in Orissa state, Christians in India continue to be harassed and persecuted. And according to church leaders, the Sangh Parivar (family of Hindu fundamentalist groups) sponsors much of it in Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat. These states have become the laboratory of “Hindutva” (cultural nationalism).
Two colleagues of prominent Chinese evangelist Li Dexian have been sentenced to 15 days in prison, an Australian-based monitoring group reported. Ah Yung and Ah Kong are among 13 Protestant house church members who have been arrested in the southern province of Guangdong since the weekend, according to the Sydney office of Voice of the Martyrs (VOM).