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.
Iraq’s first new church under the US occupation opened its doors in the northern city of Kirkuk, the region’s Chaldean archbishop told AFP.
Pastor Yerzhan Ushanov of New Life Protestant Church in Taraz is looking at two years’ imprisonment if criminal charges for injuring an individual’s health ever come to court, Christian rights investigators said.
Farshid Fathi was in solitary confinement for months before he was told that he could be free on $200,000 bail; with great difficulty, his family came up with the cash after selling his father-in-law’s home, but when Fathi was ready to to walk out the prison door, the chief interrogator from the Iranian public prosecutor’s office ordered him back for further questioning.
Christians in Iran have challenged news reports that the death penalty for Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani has been annulled pointing out that in reality the Supreme Court appears to have added a precondition requiring him to renounce his faith or face execution, according to an international Christian rights group.
Iran’s secretive supreme court has reportedly overturned a death sentence handed down to an evangelical pastor for leaving Islam, surprising trial observers who were earlier informed about an execution ruling.
A hard-line Jewish ultra-Orthodox group in Israel has launched a campaign against Christian missionaries and Jewish Christians, known as Messianic Jews, who they view as a security threat.
Baptist Pastor Mario Felix Lleonart Barroso and his wife, Yoaxis, were part of the 23 Christians detained by Cuban police in Santa Clara, said Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), a major religious rights group.
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.
An Iranian pastor, convicted of apostasy and sentenced to death, may have only hours or days to live, according to a US-based Christian ministry acquainted with the facts of his case.
Franklin Graham this past weekend held Spanish speaking meetings (Festival De Esperanza) – Festival of Hope – at The Home Depot Center, in Carson, California, where the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association’s Trevor Freeze says hundreds of Hispanic hearts were warmed and changed forever by the saving power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
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.
The general director of comparative religious studies in Iran claimed the enemies of Islam donate approximately $50,000 a year to Iranian house churches that often have memberships of only 15-20 members.
Being a Christian in Uzbekistan can be costly. Just ask Galina Shemetova who was ordered to pay a fine of 2,486,750 som, 50 times the minimum monthly pay for giving a colleague a children’s Bible. This amounts to $60,320US, four times the yearly pre-tax salary of a 40 hour-a-week minimum wage earner. Miss Shemetova not only had to pay the fine, but she was also beaten physically by police, a fact known by the Tashkent Court of Appeals.
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.
Sudanese Military agents killed one Christian and Islamic militants another last week after attacking churches in Sudan’s embattled South Kordofan state.
Uzbekistan continues to persecute Christians exercising their religious rights. Recently a Christian in eastern Uzbekistan was beaten by police, another was threatened with death by an axe while a Baptist congregation was promised prison for failure to co-operate in a pre-trial investigation of their pastor.
Poland has granted asylum to 16 Christian refugees who accompanied Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski on a flight back from Tunisia.The Foreign Ministry said Friday, June 17, that the six adults and 10 children were “political refugees” from Eritrea and Nigeria, whose lives have been upturned by recent turmoil in North Africa.
An international advocacy group urged the U.S. government Friday, June 17, to condemn Indian authorities for reportedly asking three American Christians to leave India because they allegedly participated in evangelism.
Christians in Pakistan remained fearful Thursday, June 16, after a court in Pakistan acquitted 70 Muslims who were suspected of killing Christians in one of the country’s worst sectarian clashes in recent memory.