General

Prosecutor demands ‘harshest punishment’ for pastors charged with highlighting Sudan Christians’ suffering

August 30, 2016 Sudan Abdulmonem Abdumawla, Hassan Taour, Khartoum, Kuwa Shamal, Nuba Mountains, Peter Yen, Petr Jašek, Religious freedom, Sharia, South Kordofan, South Sudan, SPLM-N, Sudan, Yat Michael

A trial of four men, including two Sudanese church leaders and a foreign aid worker, resumed on 29 August in Khartoum, with Sudan’s prosecution accusing the defendants of highlighting alleged Christian suffering in war-ravaged areas of the country. The four defendants are a Czech Christian aid worker named Petr Jasek; . . . Read More

‘ISIS on a mission to exterminate Christians’

August 26, 2016 Al-Qaeda, Hizb ut-Tahrir, Idlib, Iraq, Islamic extremism, Islamic State, London, Mosul, Salafism, Syria

Shiraz Maher, senior research fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King’s College London, in a 2015 photo.Morten Brakestad / Stortinget / Flickr CC The so-called Islamic State will not stop until it has “exterminated” all other religious groups, according to a former Islamic extremist . . . Read More

FARC: ‘Colombia wins, death loses’ in peace deal, but not everyone is convinced

August 25, 2016 Colombia ELN, FARC, Juan Manuel Santos, Latin America, Trauma

An anti-FARC march in 2008. The conflict has raged for over 50 years, claiming over 250,000 lives and creating the world’s largest population of internally displaced people – nearly 7 million.AlCortes / Flickr / CC The deal is done. The war, at least on paper, is over. After more . . . Read More

Report: Pakistan school textbooks riddled with religious ‘hate material’

August 25, 2016 Pakistan Balochistan, Education, Islamic extremism, Jamaat-e-Islami, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, Sindh, Taliban

A young girl does her school work in Karachi, Pakistan, in a 2011 photo.UN Photo / John Isaac / Flickr CC A report by Pakistan’s National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP) says the government has failed to keep its promise to eradicate religious “hate material” from textbooks used . . . Read More

Egypt’s Coptic Church rejects amendments to long-awaited church-building law

August 24, 2016 Egypt Copts, Islamic extremism

The Coptic Orthodox Church has voiced its dismay at amendments to a draft law that was hoped to put churches on a par with the country’s numerous mosques. “The Church did not expect to see so many unacceptable amendments and impractical additions,” the country’s largest Christian body said in a . . . Read More

Sudan pastors charged for ‘claiming persecution of Christians’

August 21, 2016 Sudan Hassan Taour, Khartoum, Kuwa Shamal

The trial of two Sudanese church leaders has started in Khartoum. They are among four Christians accused of trying to tarnish the image of Sudan’s government. According to the Sudan Tribune, Rev. Hassan Taour and Rev. Kuwa Shamal were charged on Sunday (21 August) with “fabricating videos of incidents of claimed . . . Read More

Nepal Christians attacked while trying to help

August 18, 2016 Nepal Constitution, Dalits, Hindu nationalism, Kathmandu

Eight Christians are still awaiting the outcome of their trial, after they became the first people to be charged under Nepal’s new rules on religious freedom. Their crime? Distributing pamphlets about Jesus during a trauma seminar in a Christian school, following last year’s devastating earthquake (see video below). But they . . . Read More

Nigerian Christians return to rebuild lives in communities liberated from Boko Haram

August 16, 2016 Nigeria Adamawa, Boko Haram, Fulani herdsmen, Joseph Kurah

Nigerian Christians displaced by Boko Haram are beginning to return home. They are being encouraged by the government, which has won back territory from the insurgents but which is also struggling to provide enough aid. World Watch Monitor received a first-hand account from church worker Isaac*, describing day-to-day living now . . . Read More

DRC pastor – ‘We don’t understand why this is happening to us’

August 15, 2016 Democratic Republic of the Congo ADF, Beni, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eringeti, IDPs, Joseph Kabila, North Kivu, Oicha, Uganda

A relatively unknown militant group has intensified attacks in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), raising fears of the emergence of a new jihadist organisation in central Africa. For years now, one of various rebel groups operating there, the Islamist Allied Democratic Forces-National Association for the Liberation of Uganda (ADF-NALU), . . . Read More

Seven charges against Sudan’s pastors unlawfully detained for months

August 15, 2016 Sudan Churches, Hassan Taour, Khartoum, Kuwa Shamal, Nuba Mountains, Sudan, Sudanese Church of Christ

After eight months of legal limbo, Sudan has finally accused two pastors of at least seven crimes, some punishable by death if proven. Hassan Abduraheem Taour and Kuwa Shamal, both pastors of the beleaguered Sudan Church of Christ, “are accused of complicity to execute a criminal agreement and waging war . . . Read More

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