4/16/2025 South Africa (International Christian Concern) — Following an intense gun battle, South African police have rescued U.S. missionary and pastor Josh Sullivan from his kidnappers. His rescue comes less than a week after masked armed men took him hostage at gunpoint as he preached a sermon last Thursday at Fellowship Baptist Church in Motherwell, […]

4/11/2025 South Africa (International Christian Concern) — Josh Sullivan, a U.S. Baptist missionary, was kidnapped at gunpoint as he preached Thursday evening at Fellowship Baptist Church in Motherwell, South Africa.   According to police, four masked gunmen entered the church late last night during a prayer meeting with about 30 attendees. The assailants robbed two […]

1/3/2025 Washington (International Christian Concern) — International Christian Concern (ICC) has released its renamed and revamped annual report for the new year.   ICC’s 2025 Global Persecution Index offers an in-depth analysis of drivers of persecution in 20 countries, complete with stories of Christians enduring persecution for their faith in Christ.  “ICC examined every corner […]

12/5/2024 Algeria (International Christian Concern) — Suleiman Bouhafs, an Algerian Christian convert, gained his freedom from prison on Sept. 1 after serving three years for blasphemy against Islam and alleged ties to terrorism. Bouhafs has denied the terrorism allegations.  A judge remanded Bouhafs to prison on Sept. 1, 2021, based on several allegations, including “insulting […]

11/8/2024 Iran (International Christian Concern) — After serving more than one year of his 10-year prison sentence, an Armenian-Iranian pastor recently gained freedom from Tehran’s Evin Prison following public outcry. Pastor Anooshavan Avedian, imprisoned on Sept. 18, 2023, was acquitted of his crimes and released on Sept. 24, 2024. Before his release, International Christian Concern, The […]

10/18/2024 United Kingdom (International Christian Concern) — The University of Nottingham in England has issued a “trigger warning” to students studying various medieval literature, in part because of Christian themes in the texts. The Daily Mail on Sunday discovered the warning through a Freedom of Information Act request.  The British university warned students that the course […]

9/5/2024 Nicaragua (International Christian Concern) — After months of diplomatic negotiations between the United States and Nicaraguan governments, 13 Nicaraguan pastors and attorneys affiliated with Mountain Gateway, a Texas-based ministry, were released from prison today.  “This is the day we have prayed and believed God for,” Jon Britton Hancock, founder of Mountain Gateway, said in […]

9/4/2024 Washington, D.C. (International Christian Concern) — International Christian Concern released its latest report focusing on the challenges faced by non-governmental and Christian organizations due to financial laws and regulations in India, China, Algeria, and Libya. These organizations, crucial for humanitarian aid, struggle against stringent laws that target foreign funding, making it difficult to support local […]

8/9/2024 Washington, D.C. (International Christian Concern) — International Christian Concern (ICC) recently sent U.S. government officials a formal sanctions request against Azerbaijan and prisons where Armenian prisoners of war and Christians were allegedly tortured.  ICC filed the sanctions request with the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of the Treasury under the Global Magnitsky Human […]

6/17/2024 Pakistan (International Christian Concern) — Sunny Mushtaq and Noman Asghar, both Christians, were arrested on June 29, 2019, in Pakistan on blasphemy charges for receiving cartoon drawings of the Prophet Muhammad on the popular messaging app WhatsApp.  Five years on, the two cousins, both teenagers at the time of their arrests, remain imprisoned on […]