Group of Seven leaders expressed their concern about tensions between China and a number of other Asian countries over resources in the East and South China Seas and warned against any use of force.
World food prices rose in the first quarter of the year for the first time since their all-time high in August 2012, driven by rising demand in China, drought in the United States and unrest in Ukraine.
Thousands of Christians who worship in private “underground” churches across China are now facing public persecution, according to International Christian Concern.
China Aid reports raids on two house churches and a home Bible study in Xinjiang last month.
Of the 15 worst violators of religious freedom in the world, 10 are Islamic states.
Eight of the top 10 persecutors of Christians worldwide are Islamic states, according to the Open Doors’ 2013 World Watch List.
The government of Mengka Township in Yunnan Province has a long history of suppressing the spread of Christianity by persecuting missionaries and banning personal Bibles.
A blind activist who became a symbol of the fight more religious and political rights in China has fled to the United States embassy in Beijing after escaping from house arrest, but others close to him have been detained, Christian rights activists told Worthy News.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom recommended that the Secretary of State name Pakistan as a Country of Particular Concern in its 2012 Annual Report.
China has unexpectedly released a prominent house church leader from prison amid international concerns about his health, his family and rights activists confirmed Monday, September 19.
Last Sunday five members of a house church in Fangshan tried to worship with members of the embattled Beijing Shouwang house church in a public square in Beijing.
Fifteen house church leaders from remote regions of China are being detained while local police attempt to extort money from their families for their release.
Pastor Shi Enhao, deputy chairman of the Chinese House Church Alliance, has been sentenced to two years of “re-education through labor,” an extra-judicial punishment handed out by police that requires no trial or conviction of a crime, Worthy News has learned.
A leader in China’s growing underground church movement who disappeared last month was actually in police custody.
Held on “suspicion of using superstition to undermine national law enforcement,” Shi Enhaoi is one of 150 million Chinese Christians who refuse to join the Communist Party’s Three-Self Patriotic Movement: the only officially sanctioned Protestant church on the mainland.
Chinese authorities recently expelled yet another member of Beijing’s largest unregistered house churches.
Chuan Liang was the second member of the Shouwang “keeping watch” Church to be expelled from the city since authorities compelled the congregation to meet outdoors; the first expulsion came after Shouwang Church held its fifth consecutive outdoor Sunday worship service when 15 members were taken to 10 police stations across Beijing, but most were released within 24 hours.
At least four incidents of Christian persecution were reported from the former Soviet country of Uzbekistan this week. According to an analysis and report researched and written by Fernando Perez for the World Evangelical Alliance – Religious Liberty Commission, a Christian woman was beaten into concussion, another woman was fined $1,465 by a court for giving the New Testament to a child, a Christian man was threatened with axe attack by a police official and another man was assaulted by police.
Police detained 16 more members of Beijing’s Shouwang House Church and placed others under house arrest: two were held in protective custody while the rest were sent to 10 different police stations; most were released by Sunday morning.
A prayer center complex, known as “Prayer Mountain”, was destroyed in China after several elderly Christians were forcibly removed, and then watched helplessly as their building was demolished according to ChinaAid, Worthy News has learned.
One of China’s best known Christian dissidents, missing for over a year and feared dead, is apparently alive and staying in mountains known for Buddhist pilgrimages, Worthy News monitored Tuesday, March 30.
The US-based Christian charity World Vision said Wednesday, March 10, it has suspended operations in Pakistan after militants stormed its offices, killing six staff members and injuring several others.