Two colleagues of prominent Chinese evangelist Li Dexian have been sentenced to 15 days in prison, an Australian-based monitoring group reported. Ah Yung and Ah Kong are among 13 Protestant house church members who have been arrested in the southern province of Guangdong since the weekend, according to the Sydney office of Voice of the Martyrs (VOM).
Six Christian missionaries participating in a gospel campaign called “Love Ahmedabad” were beaten so savagely in the state of Gujarat last week that one of the men may lose his arms and legs.
More than 60 Christians attending a two-day religious convention were beaten by a mob of suspected Hindu nationalists in a village about 100 miles northeast of Bombay. None of the injured were hospitalized.
by Alex Buchan LONDON (Compass) — Credible reports of seven Christians executed for their faith inside North Korea have reached reliable sources in China. The seven, all men ranging in age from 15 to 58 years of age, were executed in April. The circumstances surrounding their deaths cannot be revealed. North Korea, a fanatically communist state, continues to hound all religious believers. The U.S. Department of State’s 2000 Annual Report on International Religious Freedom said there were unconfirmed reports of 23 Christians executed between October 1999 and April 2000. Some say that a number of Christians were rounded up and … Read more
Christian communities in Indonesia’s Moluccas fear the onslaught of “religious cleansing” as some 3,000 extremist Muslim fighters prepare to converge on the archipelago, according to a British-based group that recently returned from a fact-finding mission. Many families already have fled to other islands as predominantly Christian villages have been razed, Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) said.
Chinese police have detained 47 members of a Protestant group in central Anhui province, according to the state press. The Jianghui Morning Daily said last week that six of the main leaders of the Quanfanwei (Holistic) Church face criminal charges for organizing an illegal sect and illegal gatherings.
Five house church leaders from the “Born Again” movement of Xu Yongze were arrested at their homes in China’s southern Henan province on December 27, 1999. Each was sentenced in February to two years hard labor, according to reliable sources inside the province. Another full-time evangelist — not with the same movement — was arrested in Guiyang and also given two years hard labor. Relatives asked that the names of those sentenced be withheld.
A communist rebel group in India’s Bihar state beat to death two tribal Christians and severely injured four others on April 4, according to the Times of India.
A Mongolian citizen of ethnic Kazakh descent has been sentenced to 13 years in a prison labor camp in western Mongolia on charges of propagating the Christian faith.
Two Turkish Christians imprisoned near Izmir for a month on concocted charges of insulting Islam were ordered released March 30, after prosecution witnesses admitted that local gendarmarie officials pressured them to sign prepared complaints.
At least 40 people were killed last week in continuing sectarian violence in Indonesia’s Moluccas, also known as the Spice Islands. According to news reports, the fatalities resulted from clashes between Muslims and Christians in the town of Galela on the island of Halmahera in North Malaku province.
An urgent plea for prayer for the Christians of Indonesia has come out of that nation from a recent visitor who has just returned from the Spice Islands.
Prosecutors in northern Vietnam rejected an appeal by a Protestant who was sentenced to prison in December for “interfering with an officer” while she hosted a Christian meeting.
Chinese house church leader Li Dexian was detained by police on Tuesday morning and released the same evening without harm. The Protestant evangelist was arrested by Public Security Bureau officers at his weekly 10 a.m. Bible study in Huadu near Guangzhou for the 11th time since October, a source in Hong Kong told Newsroom.
Two Turkish Christians arrested March 1 while selling and distributing Christian literature near the southern port city of Izmir were refused bail today, pending a court hearing scheduled for March 30.
A Christian Uzbek pastor jailed since February 1999 on contrived fraud charges is being subjected to physical beatings for witnessing to his cellmates, church sources in the Central Asian republic reported in early March.
After a respite of one month, Chinese house church leader Li Dexian was detained by police on Tuesday for the 10th time since October. Public Security Bureau officers arrested the 45-year-old Protestant evangelist as he led his weekly 10 a.m. Bible study in Huadu, west of Guangzhou, a source in Hong Kong told Newsroom.
The sentencing of six Protestant house church leaders to hard labor last December and the arrest of six more leaders of the Roman Catholic underground church are but “the tip of the iceberg” of religious oppression, according to five prominent house church leaders inside China, contacted by Compass in January.
Saudi Arabia released four Filipino Christians in Riyadh yesterday, 40 days after their arrest by the country’s strict Islamic police for conducting Christian worship services in a private home.
To observers of China’s Christian church scene the event was as sudden as it was unexpected. Just the day before the Chinese New Year celebrations of February 5, one of China’s most prominent house church leaders, Zhang Rongliang, was released quietly from prison in Fangcheng City, Henan Province, on grounds of poor health. The news was relayed quickly to journalists and China specialists outside of China by friends who had remained in close contact with Zhang for several weeks.