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.
Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann has formally launched her campaign for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination. Bachmann is not the best known Republican running for president for next year, but she does have a growing national following among conservative voters who are looking for an alternative to the current front runner, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.
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.
An Indonesian court sentenced an Islamic cleric to one year in jail for provoking hundreds of people to riot, attacking police and burning churches.
The High Commissioner of police in Bejaia ordered all Christian churches closed, including places of worship still under construction; if not, the commissioner threatened “severe consequences and punishments” would result.
Hundreds of mainly Christian refugees from Eritrea are jailed or or held by kidnappers in Egypt, where they face torture, beatings and sexual assault, according to Christian aid workers who contacted Worthy News.
A Dutch missionary who was murdered when armed robbers stormed a mission center in Kenya where he supported orphans, was buried Monday, March 7, in the Netherlands.
A Christian mother of seven who last August was kidnapped, raped, sold into marriage and threatened with death in Pakistan’s Punjab province was free Sunday, March 13, after police rescued her, right activists and Christians said.
The often prosecuted founder of one of India’s largest evangelical mission groups that rescues orphans and abandoned children has died after a long battle with health problems, his family and organization confirmed Saturday, December 4.
The father of a Christian executive kidnapped in Pakistan’s Punjab province said Sunday, November 28, he fears his son will be killed on orders of senior Muslim managers.
Israeli authorities continue to investigate an arson attack on a Jerusalem church building that church officials say has long been a focal point for anti-Christian sentiment in a Jewish ultra-Orthodox-leaning neighborhood.
Nearly two weeks after toxic sludge flooding in Hungary killed at least nine people and injured over 120 others, villagers are returning home. The arrivals come shortly after the government ordered the resumption of production at the MAL Zrt aluminum plant that has been linked to the disaster.