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Saudi intellectual urges Muslim nations to treat Christians as equal citizens

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Saudi scholar Tawfiq writes that in the modern state, all citizens are equal in rights and obligations, regardless of their religion and social affiliation. (Photo: Dr Al-Sayf in a 2013 interview, MEMRI-TV)
The official designation of Christians as “protected people” in Islamic law is out of step with the modern concept of citizenship and should be abandoned, a Saudi intellectual has argued. Tawfiq Al-Sayf, a columnist for the Saudi daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat* noted that statements condemning the bombing of two Egyptian churches on . . . Read More

US nominates new religious freedom ambassador

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US nominates new religious freedom ambassador
US President Donald Trump intends to nominate Sam Brownback, a Republican Governor from Kansas, as Ambassador-at-large for International Religious Freedom, the White House has announced. He will become head of the State Department’s Office of International Religious Freedom which is dedicated to monitoring religious freedom abuses around the world. Religious . . . Read More

Myanmar Baptists face eight years in prison for helping journalist to photograph bombed church

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Myanmar Baptists face eight years in prison for helping journalist to photograph bombed church
Two Kachin Baptist pastors who helped a journalist to photograph a Catholic church bombed by Myanmar’s army face up to eight years in prison, reports the US-based Baptist Standard. Langjaw Gam Seng, 35, and Dumdaw Nawng Lat, 67, went missing on 24 December 2016 during a period of intense armed . . . Read More

Tajikistan: three-year sentence for pastor for ‘singing extremist songs’

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Bahrom Kholmatov
A Protestant church leader in Tajikistan has been handed a three-year sentence for “singing extremist songs in church and so inciting religious hatred,” reports regional news agency Forum 18. The agency reports that the Tajik authorities have also threatened family, friends and other church members if they reveal any details . . . Read More

DRC clergy call for ‘unconditional’ release of kidnapped priests

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Catholic church leaders from the diocese of Butembo-Béni, in the volatile province of North-Kivu, in north-eastern DRC, have called for the release of their fellow priests, kidnapped by unknown armed men ten days ago. Fr Pierre Akilimali and Fr Charles Kipasa were kidnapped by about ten armed men in camouflage, . . . Read More

‘Risk of genocide’ linked with level of religious freedom

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The civil war in Yemen has displaced over 3 million people like this woman who is sitting under a makeshift shelter at a camp for internally displaced persons in the northern district of Abs in Yemen's Hajjah province, on July 23, 2017 (Photo: STRINGER/AFP/Getty Images)
Yemen is the country where the risk of genocide, or mass killing, rose most last year, says Minority Rights Group International (MRG) in its 2017 Peoples Under Threat index, which also includes a large number of countries in which it is most difficult to live as a Christian. Nine of . . . Read More

Maldives told to retract criticism of UN Special Rapporteur

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UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Dr Ahmed Shaheed, has been accused by the Maldives' government of spreading "evil deeds" and of "irreligious activities". (Photo: Getty Images)
The Maldives should retract its accusations against the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) – its former Foreign Minister, Ahmed Shaheed – and condemn the calls for his beheading, says the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). USCIRF “strongly condemn[ed]” the accusations from the ruling . . . Read More

Indonesia bans Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir

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Indonesian Muslims wave Hizb ut-Tahrir’s flag during an anti-government rally in Jakarta on July 18, 2017, to protest against a Presidential Decree that allows the government to ban groups that oppose the country's official state ideology. On Wednesday the government ordered the disbandment of the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. (Photo: Getty Images)
The Indonesian government has ordered the disbandment of the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir “to protect Indonesia’s unity”, according to Freddy Hari, director-general of the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, as Al Jazeera reports. The decision follows a controversial presidential decree announced nine days earlier that gives the government more power . . . Read More