General

Pakistani Christian sentenced to death for blasphemy

March 27, 2014 Pakistan Blasphemy, Joseph Colony, Lahore, Pakistan, Pakistan Muslim League, Prophet Muhammad, Sawan Masih, USA

Lahore, Pakistan – A year after Muslims devastated the predominantly Christian Joseph Colony; the man at the center of the controversy has been sentenced to death for blasphemy because of claims that he insulted Islam’s prophet, Muhammad. Sawan Masih’s sentence, handed down March 27, is based on a conversation that . . . Read More

3000 Syrian Christians flee Armenian village as Islamist rebels take control

March 27, 2014 Armenian Genocide, Armenians, Human rights, Islamic extremism, Syria, Turkey

An Armenian* Syrian pastor, whose family is from Kessab, close to Syria’s northern border with Turkey, has reported that they have fled the village after Syrian rebel jihadists took control of the area. The fighting in the predominantly Armenian Christian town started Friday March 21st. World Watch Monitor has seen . . . Read More

Sara got married

March 26, 2014 Turkey Assyrians, Islamic extremism, Kidnapping, Kurds, Malatya, Mardin, Marriage, Midyat, Mor Gabriel Monastery, Syriacs, Turkey, Women

On March 8, International Women’s Day, many of the people in southeastern Turkey only want to discuss one thing. She is Sara, an 18-year-old Assyrian/Syriac woman, who was allegedly kidnapped by sympathizers of Huda-Part, Allah’s party, the Kurdish equivalent to Hezbollah. Others say she merely followed her heart and converted . . . Read More

Kaduna villages’ death toll rises to 150, including pastor’s wife and three children

March 24, 2014 Nigeria ECWA, Fulani herdsmen, Kaduna

The death toll following a massacre across three villages in central Nigeria a week ago has risen beyond 150, according to the deputy Chairman of the Kaura Local Government Area in Southern Kaduna. Suspected Fulani herdsmen raided three mainly Christian villages Ugwar Sankwai, Ungwan Gata and Chenshyi (known also as . . . Read More

Mombasa church gun attack kills at least six, injures 21

March 24, 2014 Kenya Garissa, Islamic extremism, Mombasa, Nairobi, Pentecostals, Westgate

At least six people have died since masked gunmen stormed a church on Sunday in Kenya’s second city Mombasa, injuring about 21 others. The armed men, believed to be three or four in number, struck the Joy Jesus Pentecostal Church in the Sinai area in Likoni, on the mainland just . . . Read More

Global leaders emphasise continuing CAR chaos is ‘not about religion’

March 18, 2014 Central African Republic Catherine Samba-Panza, UN

L to R: Archbishop Dieudonné Nzapalainga; Imam Omar Kobine Layama; Rev. Nicolas Guérékoyamé Gbangou; UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in a photo taken March 13 at the United Nations in New York.UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe The three top religious leaders of the Central African Republic have once again travelled to the United . . . Read More

Nigeria attacks kill more than 150

March 17, 2014 Nigeria Boko Haram, Borno, Fulani herdsmen, Kaduna, West Africa

Attacks in Kaduna state, Nigeria, on March 14 left more than 114 people dead and many houses burned.World Watch Monitor More than 150 people have been killed since Friday in central and northern Nigeria in separate attacks on villages populated by a concentration of Christians. On Friday, March 14, . . . Read More

Pakistani university refuses prosperous work to Christians

March 17, 2014 Pakistan Dalits, Pakistan Muslim League, Shahbaz Bhatti

A public university in Pakistan defies court orders and misleads government authorities to avoid giving federally approved jobs to non-Muslims, a Christian politician in the nation’s ruling party says. In May 2009 the government passed a law requiring 5% of jobs to be allocated to religious minorities. The University of . . . Read More

Bombs heighten fears that Zanzibar autonomy movement targets Christians

March 13, 2014 Tanzania Acid attacks, Islamic extremism, Seventh-day Adventists, Stone Town, Tanzania, Zanzibar

A series of bomb blasts in Tanzania’s island of Zanzibar is stoking fears that an Islamist breakaway movement is increasingly targeting Christians. Since 2010, the cases have been on the increase and Christians and their leaders — many of them originally from mainland Tanzania — say they are anxious. In . . . Read More

Turkey returns less than half of monastery land it seized

March 13, 2014 Turkey Europe, Mardin, Mor Gabriel Monastery, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Syria, Syriacs

The Turkish Ministry of EU Affairs welcomed March 2 the return of property, seized by the country’s treasury, to the world’s oldest Syriac Orthodox monastery, Mor Gabriel. In February, the head of the Mor Gabriel Religious Foundation, Kuryakos Ergun, received the property deeds to 12 plots of land totaling 244,000 . . . Read More

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