Tajikistan (Mission Network News) — A network of churches in Tajikistan is under heavy scrutiny. Their crime? Having children and teens under the age of 18 at religious services. In Tajikistan, it’s illegal for underage minors to engage in religious activities, even if they’re with their parents. Several security officers attended Sunday services in two […]
JUBA, South Sudan (Morning Star News) – Police accused staff members of a Christian school in Sudan of obstructing the work of a Muslim-owned business trying to take it over, sources said. Police in Omdurman, across from Khartoum on the Nile River, on Monday (March 27) arrested 12 staff members of a Christian school and the […]
LAHORE, Pakistan (Morning Star News) – A young Christian sanitation worker was gunned down in Pakistan on March 20 for refusing an influential Muslim’s order to clean his outhouse on his day off, sources said. Noman Munir Masih, 20, of Sheikhupura in Punjab Province, was the sole breadwinner of his Pentecostal family after his father died […]
(Evangelical Focus) — Intolerance against Christians has increased considerably in Indonesia, specially since Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama “Ahok” stepped into the role from the deputy post without election in 2014, when his predecessor, Joko “Jokowi” Widodo became president of the country. Ahok, a Christian of Chinese descent, is currently on trial on blasphemy charges, […]
(World Watch Monitor) — After facing beatings, imprisonment and eventually exile from his home village, Lauro Pérez Núñez and his family are starting a brand new life. He and his wife Amalia, converts to evangelical Christianity, were first ordered to leave La Chachalaca, in Oaxaca, southern Mexico, in 2015, together with their four children. They […]
BEIJING (ChinaAid) — As China commenced a meeting of the National People’s Congress (NPC) the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) on March 5, Beijing police detained two Christians who had travelled to pray for the proceedings. Officers patrolling the Great Hall of the People in Beijing detained Zhou Jinxia from Dalian, Liaoning, and Shi […]
Malaysia (Mission Network News) – Mystery and frustration surround the abduction of a Malaysian pastor. His disappearance reads like the script of an action movie. On Feb. 13, a group of masked men surrounded 62-year-old Raymond Koh and whisked him off the streets, all while another person stood recording the incident. It took 40 seconds […]
(China Aid/Morning Star News) – China Aid’s 2016 Annual Persecution Report details a seismic shift in the Chinese government’s approach to religious policy that is expected to lead to further persecution. The report’s core subject tracks a deviation in the Chinese government’s ideological approach to religious management. During the National Conference of Religious Work held […]
BABILE, Ethiopia (Open Doors USA) — Four teenage believers, three of them minors, served a one-month jail sentence after being convicted on charges of distributing Christian literature and “inciting religious violence.” The girls were reported to be “in good health” following their release from prison on Dec. 22. Gifti, 14; Mihiret, 14; Eden, 15; and […]
(Open Doors USA) — In parts of Mexico, going to church is risky and dangerous. Drug cartels are treading on the heels of churches in Mexico, extending their gripping power beyond the northern states where, for many years, they have been harassing entire communities ruthlessly. A very common practice drug traffickers have implemented to control whole […]