News

In new report on religious freedom, US government turns its attention to blasphemy laws

  August 10, 2016 Blasphemy, Boko Haram, Islamic State

The U.S. State Department on 10 Aug. released its 2015 International Religious Freedom Report. Required by U.S. law, the report contains an assessment of the conditions supporting, or suppressing, freedom of religion or belief in nearly 200 countries, excluding the United States. The annual document influences American diplomacy and assistance . . . Read More

Iraq: 2 years since Nineveh fell to IS, displaced Christians pray for ‘liberation’

  August 8, 2016 Iraq Islamic State, Karamles, Kurds, Mosul, Nineveh Plains, Qaraqosh, Refugees

It’s been two years since thousands of Christians fled their homes in Mosul and the Nineveh Plains to run away from the advancing armies of the so-called Islamic State. But now, as Iraqi forces plan to retake Mosul, the Christians are praying they will soon be able to return home. . . . Read More

Iraqi Christians confront two-year trauma with drama

  August 5, 2016 Iraq Christina Abada, Erbil, Iraq, Islamic State, Kurds, Lebanon, Qaraqosh

Part of a play performed by Iraqi Christians forced to flee to Kurdistan after the self-proclaimed Islamic State seized their northern town of Qaraqosh.Video capture / World Watch Monitor   “The streets are empty! Why are the streets empty?” The shocked actor shouts at the top of his lungs: “Qaraqosh, . . . Read More

UPDATE: Attack by suspected militants leaves 7 dead in DRC

  August 5, 2016 Democratic Republic of the Congo ADF, Beni, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Joseph Kabila, North Kivu, Oicha

UPDATE (5 August): Seven people have lost their lives following an attack by suspected Ugandan Islamist rebels from the ADF – in Oicha, in DRC’s troubled eastern North-Kivu province. The 30 July attack took place at about 5.30pm, local sources told World Watch Monitor; the Congolese army, supported by UN . . . Read More

Unlawfully detained for months, Sudan church leaders finally in court

  August 5, 2016 Sudan Abdulmonem Abdumawla, Apostasy, Bahri, Churches, Hassan Taour, Khartoum, Kuwa Shamal, Mariam Ibrahim, NISS, Nuba Mountains, Peter Yen, South Sudan, Sudan, Sudanese Church of Christ, Yat Michael

After nearly eight months of legal limbo, a Sudanese court has finally seen three detained Christian leaders, while charges against them remain officially “unknown”. Hassan Abduraheem Taour and Kuwa Shamal, both Sudan Church of Christ (SCC) pastors, and Abdulmonem Abdumawla Issa Abdumawla, appeared at the Bahri Criminal Court for a . . . Read More

‘We have no voice’: Christians in Jordan 2 years after fleeing N. Iraq

  August 5, 2016 Iraq Genocide, Islamic State, Jordan, Lebanon, Mosul, Qaraqosh, Refugees, Tel Kaif, Women

Bahar (left), 81, with her daughters, Samira and Bahija. IS beat Bahija and ransacked their home in Tel Kayf, outside Mosul. Bahar’s family shares a one-bedroomed house in Amman with another family of three, who sleep in the lounge.World Watch Monitor   Bahija, 65, a housekeeper, told me she cries . . . Read More

Families of murdered Nigerian pastors mourn their loss

  August 4, 2016 Nigeria Abuja, Eunice Elisha, Fulani herdsmen, Joseph Kurah, Nasarawa

Joseph Kurah, murdered on 30 June, and Eunice Elisha, who was killed 10 days later.Twitter: @uncanny_sam / World Watch Monitor   Thousands of people, including journalists from around the world, attended the funeral of Father Jacques Hamel, the French priest murdered on 26 July while presiding over Mass. The attack . . . Read More

Indian Supreme Court rules compensation for worst-ever anti-Christian violence ‘not enough’

  August 4, 2016 India Hindu nationalism, Kandhamal, Odisha

India’s Supreme Court Chief Justice has ordered that adequate compensation has not yet been paid to the victims – in 2008 – of religiously-motivated violence by Hindus against Christians in the Kandhamal district of Odisha (formerly Orissa), eastern India. The success of the petition, brought by Raphel Cheenath, the local . . . Read More

Myanmar’s Christian population grows to 6.2 per cent

  August 3, 2016 Myanmar Buddhist nationalism, Kachin, Ma Ba Tha, Myanmar, UN

Tower of a Catholic church next to a Buddhist statue, Myanmar Nov. 2015World Watch Monitor   Myanmar’s Christian population has increased dramatically, according to the latest figures in a supplement to the 2014 Population and Housing Census, conducted by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA). Christians now make up 6.2 per cent . . . Read More

Nigerian women lose husbands, homes and sometimes their minds to extremist violence

  August 3, 2016 Nigeria Boko Haram, Rebecca Dali, Trauma, Women

For a woman, the loss of her husband is the beginning of hardship for her and her children.CCEPI   Forty-something Agnes, from Benue state in Nigeria’s Middle Belt region, was married to university lecturer John while still young; the couple had nine children. One morning in 2008 Agnes rose to . . . Read More