General

Families of murdered Nigerian pastors mourn their loss

August 4, 2016 Nigeria Abuja, Eunice Elisha, Fulani herdsmen, Joseph Kurah, Nasarawa

Joseph Kurah, murdered on 30 June, and Eunice Elisha, who was killed 10 days later.Twitter: @uncanny_sam / World Watch Monitor Thousands of people, including journalists from around the world, attended the funeral of Father Jacques Hamel, the French priest murdered on 26 July while presiding over Mass. The attack . . . Read More

Indian Supreme Court rules compensation for worst-ever anti-Christian violence ‘not enough’

August 4, 2016 India Hindu nationalism, Kandhamal, Odisha

India’s Supreme Court Chief Justice has ordered that adequate compensation has not yet been paid to the victims – in 2008 – of religiously-motivated violence by Hindus against Christians in the Kandhamal district of Odisha (formerly Orissa), eastern India. The success of the petition, brought by Raphel Cheenath, the local . . . Read More

Myanmar’s Christian population grows to 6.2 per cent

August 3, 2016 Myanmar Buddhist nationalism, Kachin, Ma Ba Tha, Myanmar, UN

Tower of a Catholic church next to a Buddhist statue, Myanmar Nov. 2015World Watch Monitor Myanmar’s Christian population has increased dramatically, according to the latest figures in a supplement to the 2014 Population and Housing Census, conducted by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA). Christians now make up 6.2 per cent . . . Read More

Nigerian women lose husbands, homes and sometimes their minds to extremist violence

August 3, 2016 Nigeria Boko Haram, Rebecca Dali, Trauma, Women

For a woman, the loss of her husband is the beginning of hardship for her and her children.CCEPI Forty-something Agnes, from Benue state in Nigeria’s Middle Belt region, was married to university lecturer John while still young; the couple had nine children. One morning in 2008 Agnes rose to . . . Read More

Egypt convert’s legal limbo finally brings him ‘back to Islam’

August 2, 2016 Egypt Apostasy, Islamic extremism, Mohammed Hegazy, Port Said

During Hegazy’s periods of incarceration, he was subject to different forms of abuse.World Watch Monitor Egyptian lawyer Karam Ghobrial was clearly distraught as he talked about the saga both he and his client, once Muslim-turned-Christian Mohamed Hegazy, have endured over the past month. That was before Hegazy – the . . . Read More

Anti-Christian violence in India at an ‘alarming level’

August 2, 2016 India Anti-conversion law, BJP, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Hindu nationalism, Madhya Pradesh, Narendra Modi, Pentecostals

A message is held aloft at a protest march against anti-Christian violence – in Bangalore in February 2015.World Watch Monitor The leader of a Christian advocacy group in India says that incidents of anti-Christian violence in the country have reached an “alarming level”, with more than 30 incidents a . . . Read More

2 years after IS drove them from their homes, Iraqi Christians ‘are still in survival mode’, bishop says

August 1, 2016 Iraq Ankawa, Assyrians, Islamic State, Nineveh Plains, Peshmerga, Refugees

U.S. State Department Deputy Secretary Antony Blinken at the Washington Conference on Threats to Religious and Ethic Minorities Under ISIL, 29 July in Washington, D.C.Video capture / U.S. Office of Policy Planning and Public Diplomacy Two years after being driven from their homeland by the so-called Islamic State, displaced . . . Read More

Copts attacked, forced to settle for nothing, in absence of Egyptian justice

July 27, 2016 Egypt Al-Azhar, Anba Macarius, Bishop Angaelos, Churches, Copts, Egypt, Islamic extremism, Luxor, Pope Tawadros II, Salafism, Sharia, Soad Thabet, Sunni

Eight Christian homes were attacked and an equal number of Copts were detained after Muslims in an Egyptian village went on a rampage following rumours of a house church being built. The attack last week in Saft el-Khirsa (180km south of Cairo) trails more than a dozen others that have, . . . Read More

The murder of a French priest has horrified the world. The same thing happens to Christians in lesser-reported places

July 27, 2016 Global News -- No Particular Country Central African Republic, Charlie Hebdo, Egypt, France, Jacques Hamel, Kenya, Niger, Nigeria, Paris, Sudan

Rev. Jacques HamelEglise Catholique de Rouen The 26 July killing of a Catholic priest in his church in St. Etienne du Rouvray, France, once again has pushed jihadist violence into the headlines. The so-called Islamic State claimed responsibility for the murder, committed by two knife-wielding attackers who were shot and . . . Read More

UPDATE: Fresh attacks on Christian villages in Benue, Central Nigeria

July 27, 2016 Nigeria Agatu, Benue, Fulani herdsmen, Islamic extremism, Joseph Kurah

The aftermath of an attack, which claimed hundreds of lives, in the central Nigerian state of Benue, Feb. 2016.World Watch Monitor UPDATE (27 July): A fresh attack in the central Nigerian State of Benue by suspected Fulani herdsmen has left at least 14 dead in the predominantly Christian area . . . Read More

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