In early March, China adopted the new Regulations on Religious Affairs, first announced by the government in December 2004. The government claims the new regulations are a step towards religious freedom. However, some Christian leaders have expressed serious concerns, particularly with the issue of church registration.
A leading evangelical pastor disappeared off the streets of Asmara four days ago, presumably detained by Eritrean security forces and jailed at some unknown location.
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was to attend a church service for Palm Sunday in Beijing, aides said Saturday, March 19, just hours after a Christian news agency published letters of alleged persecuted Christians.
Correspondence reveals personal trials, challenges facing house church Christians in China.
Last Sunday evening, Eritrean security police arrested 16 Protestants for watching a Christian video together in a church member’s home in the town of Adi-Kibe.
Hindu extremists have violently assaulted several Christians in Rajasthan, India, over the past two weeks. Local observers say the attacks are a strategy to push forward the enactment of anti-conversion laws in the state.
The last 30 from a group of 131 Sunday school leaders and children have been released from custody, but a further church leader has been arrested.
Two Christian prisoners, one of whom has spent ten years behind bars, have recently been declared innocent in Peru. The first, Lucio Vilca Galindo, was arrested for the second time in April 1995. He was accused of treason against the state – a crime for which he had already been tried and acquitted. His first trial in 1993 was in a Naval Court where he was accused along with a group of others of being part of the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) and participating in subversive acts. The co-accused, however, stated in various forms that they had never met Lucio before and he was released.
An Iranian Colonel who, despite Western protests, was jailed last month for his alleged “illegal” conversion to Christianity is held at Tehran’s notorious maximum-security prison with well-known political and religious dissidents, a Christian news agency reported late Friday, March 11.
The criminal trial of Egyptian Christian Shafik Saleh Shafik, begun in mid January, has been ordered postponed until February 20 by the presiding judge, who accepted defense petitions to summon key witnesses and police reports related to the case.
Another 31 Eritrean Christians have been jailed by police in towns north of the capital Asmara over the past 10 days. The latest police sweeps brings the total to 187 arrests for “illegal” Christian activities in Eritrea since the beginning of January.
Eritrea’s controversial President Isaias Afwerki ended a three day official visit to Pakistan Sunday, February 27, pledging to respect “democratic values” amid pressure at home to release hundreds of Christians, including children.
At least 10 foreign evangelical church leaders including eight Americans, one Taiwanese and an unknown number of South Koreans were detained and later deported by Chinese authorities, a Christian human rights watchdog said Thursday March 3.
Two American Southern Baptist missionaries held under house arrest in Dubai for distributing Bibles and Christian literature are expected to be released this weekend, BosNewsLife learned Thursday, March 3.
Muslim militants attacked the Christian community in Demsa village, Adamawa state, northern Nigeria, on Friday, February 4, killing 36 people, destroying property and displacing about 3,000 others. The surviving Christians have taken refuge in Mayolope village in the neighboring state of Taraba.
Police in Indonesia pledged today to provide tighter security for churches during Christmas and New Year celebrations, after one of their own was arrested in connection with the murder of a Christian village chief on the island of Sulawesi.
A Hindu fundamentalist group has accused a Christian school in Sukma district, Chhattisgarh, of forcibly distributing copies of the New Testament to students with intent to convert them.
Opposition to Christian evangelism on the campuses of two Nigerian institutions of higher learning has resulted in the murder of Sunday Nache Achi, a fourth-year architectural student at Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University in the northern city of Bauchi.
Assailants simultaneously attacked two churches in the town of Palu, Central Sulawesi, during church services on Sunday night, injuring at least three people.
Hindu villagers have constructed a temple on the grounds of St. John’s Church of England in Jatni in the eastern state of Orissa, India, triggering a knotty battle over the rights of minority Christians.