ISTANBUL, September 27 (Compass) — The Taliban Supreme Court announced it will resume trial proceedings on Saturday against eight Western aid workers who have been jailed in the Afghan capital for the past two months on charges of preaching Christianity.
KABUL/ISLAMABAD (ANS) — The trial of eight Western aid workers accused of spreading Christianity in mainly Moslim Afghanistan resumed in the Afghan Capital Kabul Sunday, September 30, as family members pleaded to United States President George W. Bush to postpone retaliatory action against the country.
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN (ANS) — As the United States began a second day of air and missile attacks against Afghanistan Monday October 8, round the clock prayers intensified for twenty-four Christian aid workers held in a prison of the country’s ruling Taliban regime.
ISTANBUL (Compass) — As aerial military strikes by U.S. forces continued to pound Afghanistan for the fourth consecutive day, the defense lawyer for eight Western relief workers imprisoned in Kabul left Pakistan this morning via the Khyber Pass to return to the Afghan capital.
KABUL/BUDAPEST (ANS)– There were new fears Thursday that 16 Afghan and eight foreign workers of the German based Christian relief agency Shelter Now International (SNI) may be executed, as the country’s Islamic rulers prepared to arrest more Christians, including children.
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN (ANS)– 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.
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN (ANS) — More than 50 foreign staff members of the US based Christian aid organizations International Assistance Mission (IAM) and Serve began leaving Afghanistan Saturday, September 1, after the Islamic Taliban regime closed their offices Friday.
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN (ANS) — Afghanistan’s Islamic Taliban regime threatened Wednesday, September 5, to execute eight foreign Christian relief workers, as Western diplomats and relatives desperately tried to meet them.
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN (ANS) — The Foreign Minister of Afghanistan’s Islamic Taliban regime denied Thursday, September 6, that his hard-line movement was considering a prisoner swap with the United States to free eight detained Western Christian relief workers. Reports from the region said that relatives of blind Egyptian militant Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, currently serving a life term in the United States for terrorism, proposed the prison exchange.
ISTANBUL, September 10 (Compass) — 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.
JANUARY
Taliban leader Mohammed Omar declares on Radio Shariat that any Afghan caught professing Christianity or Judaism would be executed, and that any non-Muslim found “trying to win converts” would also be killed.
ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN (ANS) — 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.
Mr. Xiao Bi-guang and Mr. Zhang Yi-nan were arrested last Friday morning in Ping Ding Shan city, Henan Province, China. Sources in China reported that more than 20 Public Security Bureau (PSB) officers made the arrest. The location where the two men are being held is unknown at this time. Their families have received no official notification, in violation of Chinese law which says the family of arrested persons will be notified of their location within 24 hours after arrest.
Police in the Eritrean capital of Asmara continued the country-wide crackdown against independent Protestant congregations this month, arresting another 12 evangelicals on September 7 while they were meeting in a private house for prayer and worship.
Egyptian Christian Bolis Rezek-Allah was pulled off an international flight this afternoon in Cairo, Egypt, and is being held by Egyptian secret police. Rezek-Allah, who had been granted an immigrant visa to Canada, was on the plane to leave Egypt when police arrested him.
Three Chinese church leaders incarcerated since July 13 were released after international pressure mounted due to publicity of their case.
Bruce Balfour, the 52-year-old Canadian Christian charged with spying for Israel, has been found innocent by a Lebanese military court.
Over 100 well-armed Muslim militants swarmed into three Christian villages in northern Nigeria on Monday, August 25. Seven people were reportedly killed, 30 homes burned and 140 families displaced when the attackers invaded the villages about 8 p.m., setting houses ablaze and destroying food items in storage facilities.
Fifty-seven teenage Eritrean Christians jailed last week under severe punishment for having Bibles at their military training camp remain locked in metal shipping containers, inside sources confirmed today.
(Boston, MA) — The American Center for Law and Justice, an international public interest law firm, announced today it has filed a federal lawsuit charging religious discrimination against a school district in Massachusetts that has refused to permit a Christian organization to use its facilities after-hours – just days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that such discriminatory action is unconstitutional.