ASTANA / BUDAPEST , (ANS) — Leaders and other believers of non registered Baptist and Evangelical churches in the former Soviet republic of Kazakstan are experiencing a new period of persecution by central authorities, reports said Monday July 1.
The leader of a group of churches in Laos notified Christian Aid today that Lao authorities confiscated the Saybangnoun Church Saturday after Christians refused to surrender the facility to them Saturday noon. The church was located in Songkorn district, Savannakhet Province. The Christians gathered and worshiped in tears outside their confiscated church building Sunday.
Radical Islamic warriors are continuing their rain of terror on the Christians of Sulawesi Island, Indonesia. A VOM source has confirmed that 21 Christian villages in the Poso coastal area have been burned and destroyed and at least 7 people have been killed within the past week.
The events in Central Sulawesi are finally beginning to get the attention of major newspapers. An article in the New York Times December 1 said, “Thousands of Christian villagers on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi are fleeing attacks by armed Muslim paramilitary forces.” The article quoted a Roman Catholic priest, “Thousands have fled…What could they do? Their houses have been burned. The police came yesterday, but it was too late.”
A crucial paradox lies at the heart of China’s persecution dynamics. Over the past 30 years, conditions have improved for Christians in China. But during the past five years, they have deteriorated markedly.
The injured but rescued US missionary worker Gracia Burnham, who lost her husband but not her faith in Christ, hugged their three children Monday in Kansas City Monday June 10, after a year-long hostage drama in the jungle of the Philippines.
A Pakistani Muslim convicted of alleged religious blasphemy was shot dead by a fellow prisoner yesterday afternoon in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat Central Jail.
A group of Hmong Christians living in the highlands of Vietnam have filed a complaint about violent incidents that they say took place amongst this tribal group last year.
An uncertain number of leaders of a major house church movement in China have disappeared in what at first was thought to be a massive government raid. Now cult activity is suspected.
A Presbyterian church close to the Kashmir border was attacked by a group of Islamic extremists on Sunday April 7.
A Presbyterian church close to the Kashmir border was attacked by a group of Islamic extremists on Sunday April 7.
Two Christians have been killed in the Chinese government’s crackdown on pastor Gong Shengliang and his South China Church in central Hubei Province, according to a letter from members of the underground church revealing graphic details and new information about the persecution.
Christians in Vietnam face oppressive, often brutal, persecution from authorities. Despite official measures to kill Christianity, the church of Jesus Christ continues to grow.
Word has just been received out of China that authorities there recently martyred a member of the South China Church. Voice of the Martyrs sources have learned that the Public Security Bureau (PSB) informed family members of sister Zhong Ju Yu last summer that she was beaten to death while imprisoned in Hubei Province.
The Voice of the Martyrs is making an urgent appeal to Christians around the world to pray for Pastor Gong Shengliang. Pastor Gong was reportedly sentenced to death last month after a court in Hubei Province declared him guilty of using an “evil cult” to “undermine the enforcement of the law” and of “complicity of rape.”
The founder of the South China Church was sentenced to death after a secret trial on December 18, a Hong Kong-based human rights group said.
Christian Aid’s contact in Indonesia has just returned from a visit to the Poso and Tentena area and shares the following update on the current situation.–John Lindner, Editor
The Miracle of Answered Prayer
Radical Islamic warriors are continuing their rain of terror on the Christians of Sulawesi Island, Indonesia. A VOM source has confirmed that 21 Christian villages in the Poso coastal area have been burned and destroyed and at least 7 people have been killed within the past week.
Five weeks after Islamic extremists gunned down 15 Pakistani Christians in a Sunday morning worship service, church leaders across Pakistan admitted that their congregations remain “tense and fearful” as Christmas approaches.
More than a dozen foreign Christians remain jailed in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah, where local authorities have for months ignored inquiries and notes of protest from consulates requesting diplomatic access to their imprisoned citizens.