General

We’ll close one church every week, Indian Christians told

August 6, 2018 India Churches, Converts, India, Maharashtra, Proselytism

church Maharashtra (World Watch Monitor)

Christian villagers in a rural district of India’s Maharashtra state have been told that one church will be closed down every week because they have been “destroying” local tradition and culture by “luring” others to convert to Christianity. Since June, over a dozen houses belonging to Christians have been attacked . . . Read More

‘Only jihadists want to see Christians leave the Middle East’

August 6, 2018 Arab Spring, Arabs, Cairo, Canada, Churches, Egypt, Europe, Islamic extremism, Lebanon, Middle East, Migrants, Minorities, North Africa, Palestinian Territories, Refugees, Syria, USA

Around 300 Christians went to Bartella during the Easter weekend of 2017, to have the very first Easter celebration in three years in their home town. A convoy of about 15 buses travelled from Erbil, crossing several Kurdish and Iraqi army checkpoints to reach the church. The people still live in Erbil and cannot go back to Bartella to live or to rebuild. But for this day many take the chance to celebrate Easter in their own church again. (Open Doors International)

“The only people that want to see all Christians leave are some of the violent jihadists,” concludes a new book. “Everyone else, including some we might term as Islamists, desires their continued presence. They recognise that it is Christians who are the leaven that permeates the whole of society.” The . . . Read More

Religious minorities fear backlash as Sunni Islam declared state religion of Comoros

August 3, 2018 Comoros Comoros, Constitution, Sharia, Shia, Sunni

On Monday 30 July, the “Yes” vote recorded an overwhelming victory in the referendum on constitutional reforms in the southeast African island nation of Comoros, declaring Sunni Islam the “religion of the state”. “The state draws from this religion the principles and rules of Sunnite observance,” the amended constitution reads. . . . Read More

Hindu extremist violence on the rise in southern Indian states

August 3, 2018 India Andhra Pradesh, Bajrang Dal, BJP, Caste, Churches, Converts, Dalits, Hindu nationalism, House churches, Hyderabad, India, Narendra Modi, Police, Religious freedom, RSS, Telangana

Good Fruit Ministries church in Sangameshwar village of Siddhipet District, Telangana state was demolished by a bull dozer on the directions of uppercaste Hindus who follow Vaastu shastra.

Religious freedom advocate ADF India has noted a rise in incidents of religiously motivated violence in India’s two Telugu language-speaking southern states, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, including the brutal murder of an elderly Christian woman. So far this year, ADF India says it has verified 17 incidents of anti-Christian persecution . . . Read More

Buhari does not stop Fulani because they are his ‘kith and kin’ – Christian Association of Nigeria

August 2, 2018 Nigeria Adamawa, Boko Haram, Chibok girls, Christian Association of Nigeria, Dapchi, Fulani herdsmen, Leah Sharibu, Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria

Nigeria under President Muhammadu Buhari’s leadership is more divided than at any time in the country’s history, the Christian Association of Nigeria’s Adamawa State chapter has declared in a letter sent to him yesterday (1 August). Condemning the “mindless massacre” of the predominantly Christian farming communities by Fulani herdsmen, CAN . . . Read More

Brunson’s third Turkish hearing focused on PKK allegations

July 31, 2018 Turkey Andrew Brunson, Izmir, Kurds, PKK, Suruç, Syria, Turkey

No hard evidence was produced against US pastor Andrew Brunson at his latest trial hearing on 18 July by the three prosecution witnesses called to give verbal testimony before Izmir’s Second Criminal Court. Judicial interrogations at this hearing focused almost entirely on the pastor’s connections with ethnic Kurds. Although one . . . Read More

UN tells Algeria to ‘guarantee freedom of religion to all’ after church closures

July 31, 2018 Algeria Abdelaziz Bouteflika, Algeria, Protestant Church of Algeria

The UN Human Rights Committee has urged the Algerian government to stop harassing its Christian minority, after several churches and other religious institutions were closed down in recent months. Since November 2017, six churches have been forcibly closed in the Maghreb country – three were later reopened – as well . . . Read More

Sri Lankan Christian: ‘They took everything from us’

July 31, 2018 Sri Lanka Converts, Minorities, Sri Lanka

This is the story of a Sri Lankan brickmaker who received death threats after his conversion to Christianity, which is often seen as a “foreign” religion, even though it arrived in the Indian sub-continent almost two thousand years ago. Nimal is illiterate, but attended Bible school. He says when he talks . . . Read More

More than 8,000 Rwandan churches closed following government directive

July 27, 2018 Rwanda Churches, Constitution, Kigali, Rwanda

The Rwanda Governance Board continues to close churches it says fail to meet requirements laid down at the beginning of the year. New requirements set in place for those congregations that want to continue ministry are also complicating efforts to comply. Many see the closures as part of an effort . . . Read More

Home after 21 months, but US pastor Andrew Brunson now can’t leave house till October trial

July 26, 2018 Turkey Andrew Brunson, Binali Yildirim, Coup, Fethullah Gülen, Izmir, PKK, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey, USA

A crowd of Turkish Christians from Andrew Brunson’s Izmir Resurrection Church greeted their pastor with cries of “We love you, Andrew!” as he arrived home under police escort on Wednesday afternoon, 25 July. After nearly 22 months in detention, Brunson was released at 5.30pm from Izmir’s Kiriklar maximum security prison . . . Read More

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