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Iranian Christian out on bail after 3-week hunger strike

July 27, 2017 Iran Amin Afshar Naderi, Ebrahim Firouzi, Hadi Asgari, Iran, Kaviyan Fallah-Mohammadi, Maryam Naghash Zargaran, Victor Bet-Tamraz

An Iranian Christian sentenced to 15 years in jail has been released on bail, three weeks after writing an open letter to the authorities, asking what he had done to “make you hate me this much” and declaring that he had decided to “terminate my life slowly” through a hunger . . . Read More

Crimea also affected in first year of Russia’s ‘anti-missionary law’

July 27, 2017 Russia Crimea, Don Ossewaarde, Jehovah's Witnesses, Pentecostals, Russia, Soviet Union, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, Yarovaya Law

A cross seen over the construction site of a bridge across the Strait of Kerch linking Crimea to mainland Russia. (Photo by Vladimir Smirnov via Getty Images)

Since Russia’s President Vladimir Putin signed into law what some commentators referred to as an “anti-missionary bill” in July last year, individuals and groups have been targeted because of their religious affiliation in both Russia and the annexed Crimea. After the annexation in March 2014, religious organisations in Crimea had . . . Read More

Nigerian woman wins UN award for work re-integrating Boko Haram victims

July 26, 2017 Nigeria Chibok girls, EYN, Nigeria, Rebecca Dali

A Nigerian aid worker who works with victims of Boko Haram’s insurgency in the north-east has won the 2017 UN Sergio Vieira de Mello Award. Dr Rebecca Dali, Executive Director of the Centre for Caring, Empowerment, and Peace Initiatives (CCEPI), won it because her centre is “at its best” in . . . Read More

Family of Egyptian Copt held without charge accuse police of ‘torturing him to death’

July 25, 2017 Egypt Copts, Egypt, Hosni Mubarak

The family of a Coptic Christian who died in police custody last week have called for legal action to be taken against the two arresting officers, who they accuse of torture and murder. Gamal Kamal Aweida, 41, died in a room at Manshiyat Naser police station, in central Cairo, on Wednesday . . . Read More

Turkey: Malatya murderers’ 39-year prison sentences upheld

July 25, 2017 Turkey Gaziantep, Islamic extremism, Malatya, Turkey

Six months after five Turkish men were convicted of the grisly murders of three Christians in southeast Turkey ten years ago, an appeals court has upheld their three consecutive life sentences in prison. The regional Gaziantep 3rd Criminal Court of Appeals decision on 18 July confirmed the incarceration of Emre . . . Read More

Jailed Christian on hunger strike to protest against treatment of Iranian converts

July 21, 2017 Iran Amin Afshar Naderi, Bahram Nasibov, Converts, Ebrahim Firouzi, Eldar Gurbanov, Exile, Hadi Asgari, Iran, Karaj, Kaviyan Fallah-Mohammadi, Mohammad Reza Omidi, Naser Navard Gol-Tapeh, Rasht, Saheb Fadaie, Tehran, Victor Bet-Tamraz, Yasser Mossayebzadeh, Youcef Nadarkhani, Yusif Farhadov

Another imprisoned Iranian Christian has begun a hunger strike to protest against the recent rash of sentences against Christians in Iran. Ebrahim Firouzi, 30, who has five years left of his own sentence for “acting against national security”, followed fellow convert to Christianity Amin Afshar-Naderi in writing a statement criticising . . . Read More

Four Chibok girls to start university in US in August

July 21, 2017 Nigeria Boko Haram, Chibok girls, Education, Nigeria

It’s many thousands of miles from the Government Secondary School in Chibok, Borno, Nigeria, to university in the United States. But, following their kidnapping on 14 April 2014, it’s a journey that a handful of young girls from remote, rural north-eastern Nigeria have now made. (Their fellow escapees remain in Nigeria, . . . Read More

Eritrean Patriarch’s first appearance in decade dismissed as ‘fig leaf’

July 21, 2017 Eritrea Abune Antonios, Asmara, Eritrea, Eritrean Orthodox Church

A brief public appearance from the Eritrean Orthodox Patriarch after ten years under house arrest has been dismissed as a “fig leaf” to cover over the regime’s “appalling human rights record”. Patriarch Abune Antonios participated in a Mass at St Mary’s Cathedral in the capital, Asmara, on Sunday (16 July), . . . Read More

Murdered pastor was told: stop preaching or we’ll kill you

July 21, 2017 India India, Ludhiana, Punjab

The son of a church leader shot dead in north-western India on Saturday (15 July) has revealed that his father had received threats that if he continued to preach, he would be killed. Alisha Masih, 22, who is also training to be a pastor, said his father, Sultan, who was . . . Read More

Philippines reconsiders bill for autonomous Bangsamoro

July 20, 2017 Philippines Abu Sayyaf, Bangsamoro, Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, Cotabato, Islamic State, Moro Islamic Liberation Front, Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, Zamboanga

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte (C) shakes hands with Al-Hajj Murad (L), chairman of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), as Ghazali Jaafar (R), vice chairman of MILF, looks on during a ceremony where a draft of the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) was submitted to the president at the Malacanang Palace in Manila on July 17, 2017. (Photo: Getty Images)

A new law that will govern the creation of a new autonomous Muslim region in the southern Philippines was submitted as a bill to the government on Monday (July 17) for approval by Congress. President Rodrigo Duterte received the draft “Bangsamoro Basic Law” (BBL), crafted by a 21-member commission that . . . Read More

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