(Morning Star News) – After 19 long months of investigative detention following his Dec. 16, 2015 arrest, renowned human rights attorney Nguyen Van Dai was finally charged with a crime on July 30. Vietnamese authorities charged Dai, 35-year-old legal associate Le Thu Ha and four other human rights activists, including Pastor Nguyen Trung Ton, 45, […]
JOS, Nigeria (Morning Star News) – Suspecting corrupt police and accusing the Nigerian government of failing to contain a rash of kidnappings, Christian leaders announced that a pastor abducted last week was freed on Wednesday (Aug. 9). Jen Tivkaa Moses, kidnapped by young Fulani men on Friday (Aug. 4) on the highway from Jos to Abuja in Plateau state, […]
(World Watch Monitor) — In the first six months of 2017, Indian Christians were harassed, threatened or attacked for their faith in 410 reported incidents (248 in the first quarter) – almost as many as the total for the whole of 2016 (441). This is according to figures compiled by partners of Open Doors, the […]
(Forum 18) — A local Protestant pastor and five foreign visitors were fined for holding baptisms in hot springs near Kazakhstan’s commercial capital Almaty. One of the foreigners–a United States-based Canadian citizen—was ordered deported. A court in Akmola Region overturned a summary police fine on a Baptist pastor for leading a church that chooses to […]
(World Watch Monitor) — An Ethiopian Christian suffered deep wounds to the back of his head when he was attacked while alone in his home by a group of local Muslims with machetes. The attack on July 16 left the 27-year-old man needing life-saving surgery. The man—who, for security reasons, cannot be named—was attacked in […]
CAMBRIDGESHIRE, U.K. — A Christian prison worker in the U.K. who was barred from participating in chapel services after quoting a Scripture that references homosexuality has lost his appeal, as an Employment Appeals Tribunal was not convinced that he had suffered discrimination. The tribunal concluded that the policies at HMP Littlehey, a prison for sex offenders, were […]
(World Watch Monitor) — Vietnam has released a Lutheran pastor and deported him to the United States, reports UCA News. Nguyen Cong Chinh, was serving an 11-year prison sentence for “undermining national solidarity” through religious activities with ethnic groups in the country’s Central Highlands. He was also a director of the Vietnam-U.S. Lutheran Alliance Church. A […]
YANGON, Burma (Morning Star News) – About 150 angry Buddhists and monks this month attacked newly converted Christians in Burma (Myanmar), destroying their homes and property and injuring seven people. In Thi Taw village in northwest Burma’s Sagaing Region, the mob threw stones and broke into houses on July 6, two days after two families put their […]
HYDERABAD, India (Morning Star News) – Berating and slapping a pastor for reading the Bible instead of Hindu texts, police in Uttar Pradesh state, India last month detained six Christians under “unlawful assembly” laws for worshiping together, sources said. After traveling from Etah village to a church in nearby Pujaripurvah, the six Christians were detained for nine […]
HANGZHOU, Zhejiang (ChinaAid) — As China clamps down on the freedoms of its state-run churches, officials in the country’s eastern Zhejiang province have recently issued orders aimed at closing Sunday schools and keeping children from Christian events over the summer months. “For a long time, teenagers and students have not been allowed to participate in […]