General

Sudan President’s amnesty releases Christian woman

April 12, 2013 Sudan African Union, Darfur, Nyala, Omar al-Bashir, Port Sudan, Sharia

It has been a little more than a week since Salwa Fahmi Suleiman Gireis, a 64-year old Sudanese accountant has been released from prison on Tues 2nd April. She was detained without charge for 7 weeks by the Sudanese security services, following arrest from her home in Khartoum. Amnesty International . . . Read More

Bangladesh PM rejects Muslim demand for blasphemy law

April 10, 2013 Bangladesh Awami League, Blasphemy, Dhaka, Hefazat-e-Islam, Jamaat-e-Islami, Sheikh Hasina

The Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has turned down the demand of radical Islamists to enact a blasphemy law to punish those who desecrate Islam and its prophet Muhammad. One hundred thousand activists belonging to Hefazat-e-Islam, an umbrella Islamic organization, had earlier rallied on 6th April in the capital Dhaka . . . Read More

Egypt’s Christians, fearing instability, seek security elsewhere

April 9, 2013 Egypt Arab Spring, Bishop Angaelos, Copts, Hosni Mubarak, Maspero, Mohamed Morsi, Muslim Brotherhood, Samalut

In downtown Cairo¬ mid-March, the multicolored pharaoh-motif tablecloths and dishtowels were missing from a fabric store once known for such items. The owner of the textile factory that produced them closed down and left Egypt soon after the country’s 2011 revolution. Assad Attiya, a clerk who has worked at the . . . Read More

Pakistan court overturns blasphemy conviction, death sentence

April 3, 2013 Pakistan Blasphemy, Lahore, Punjab

A Pakistan court Wednesday threw out the 2007 conviction of a Christian man sentenced to death for offending Islam. Younis Masih is at least the second Christian accused of blasphemy that Pakistan judges have exonerated since the country’s Supreme Court threw out a high-profile blasphemy case against a teen-aged girl . . . Read More

Anxiety high as rebels take over Central African Republic

March 25, 2013 Central African Republic Bambari, Bangassou, Bangui, Gambo, Michel Djotodia, Seleka

A three-month-old rebel uprising in the Central African Republic swept into the country’s capital Sunday, ousting the president and leaving ransacked Christian homes and churches in its wake. A source close to the Episcopal Conference of the Central African Republic told World Watch Monitor that many Christians’ properties have been . . . Read More

Church walls go up, then torn down by local government

March 25, 2013 Indonesia Bekasi, Bogor, Churches, HKBP Filadelfia, Java, Pentecostals, Sumatra

Cheers went up as a backhoe tore down the barely finished walls of the Batak Protestant Church near Jakarta, Indonesia on Thursday. The pile of rubble that remained was only the latest setback to Christians trying to retain a toehold in the world’s most populous Muslim country. The church, in . . . Read More

Kano bus bomb prompts religious leaders to joint call for urgent measures

March 22, 2013 Nigeria Ansaru, Boko Haram, Christian Association of Nigeria, Goodluck Jonathan, Jama'atu Nasril Islam, Kano, Nigeria, Sabon Gari, Sultan of Sokoto

A car bomb attack in a Christian enclave of Kano, the largest city in mainly-Muslim northern Nigeria, has heightened religious and ethnic tensions throughout the country. At least 25 people have been killed and at least 60 others injured, following the 18th March suicide bomb attack in a bus station . . . Read More

Libyan human-rights official flees country after death threats

March 21, 2013 Libya Benghazi, Human rights, Libya, Minorities, Muammar Gaddafi, Proselytism, Religious freedom, Tripoli

The head of the Libyan Parliament’s Human Rights Committee has resigned and fled to London, saying he’s received death threats. Hassan Al-Amin, prominent for his long opposition to the Gaddafi regime, recently spoke out against armed gangs and militias in his Misrata area. His self-imposed exile comes as hostilities against . . . Read More

India: Persecution Briefs

March 19, 2013 India Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, BJP, Chhattisgarh, Converts, Hindu nationalism, India, Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Pentecostals, Raipur, Tamil Nadu

India ranks No. 31 on the 2013 World Watch List, a ranking of the 50 countries where living as a Christian is most difficult. The list is created annually by Open Doors International, a worldwide ministry to Christians who live under pressure because of their faith. Most Christians live openly . . . Read More

Kenyan religious groups ready to work with President-elect, despite his war crime indictment

March 13, 2013 Kenya Elections, Kenya, Nairobi, Uhuru Kenyatta

Amongst their first formal meetings as President and Deputy President-elect of Kenya, Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto on Tuesday 12th March met senior religious leaders, even ahead of meeting outgoing President Mwai Kibaki. Kenyatta emerged the winner by garnering 6173,453 votes, meeting the threshold of the country’s Constitution which required . . . Read More

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