News

Vulnerability of women exploited to jeopardise Christian communities

  November 25, 2015 Boko Haram, Hilary Clinton, International Criminal Court, Women

“You know, the suffering of women knows no limits.” These were the parting words last week of a long-time Egyptian co-worker as we said good-bye after several days of working with women leaders of an empowerment program based on Christian teaching. “Why? Why do women suffer so?” I could have asked . . . Read More

Boko Haram ‘more deadly terror group’ in 2014 than IS

  November 20, 2015 Adamawa, Bauchi, Boko Haram, Cameroon, Chad, Denmark, Education, Gombe, Hamas, Islamic extremism, Islamic State, Israel, Kano, Lake Chad, London, Maiduguri, Middle East, Muhammadu Buhari, Niger, Nigeria, Paris, Quran, Terrorism, UN

Boko Haram was the world’s deadliest terror group in 2014, ahead of the self-proclaimed Islamic State, according to a report released on 18 Nov. by the Institute of Economics & Peace. It was responsible for 6,664 deaths in 2014, more than any other terrorist group in the world, according to the Global . . . Read More

‘You come here and take our jobs,’ Lebanese tell refugees

  November 19, 2015 Lebanon Beirut, Lebanon, Refugees, Syria, Turkey, UN

World Watch Monitor has an occasional diary from a church leader still in Aleppo, the Syrian city that is now a key battleground between rebels and President Assad’s forces. Recently, however, pastor Samuel* visited Beirut in neighbouring Lebanon to meet some of that country’s one million Syrian refugees. This is his edited . . . Read More

Egyptian Copt’s ‘faked Facebook blasphemy’ acquittal delayed

  November 17, 2015 Egypt Blasphemy, Copts, Sohag

Bishoy Garas has always maintained his Facebook profile was hackedWorld Watch Monitor   An Egyptian Christian, jailed for 38 months on unsubstantiated charges, has had his expected acquittal delayed again to February next year, his lawyer said. Bishoy Garas was sentenced to six years in prison from September 2012 for offending . . . Read More

Forces rally to defend Christian Syrian town from IS

  November 16, 2015 Syria Assyrians, Homs, Islamic State, Qaryatain, Sadad, Syria

Efforts are being rallied to save one of the last remaining centres of indigenous Christian presence in the Levant against a renewed jihadi attack. Militants of the theologically-based “Islamic State” have come within 3 kilometres of the Syriac Orthodox town of Sadad in western Syria, the Assyrian International News Agency . . . Read More

Myanmar’s Christians cautiously hopeful

  November 12, 2015 Myanmar Aung San Suu Kyi, Buddhist nationalism, Chin, Elections, Kachin, Ma Ba Tha, Myitkyina

In Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy , has won a landslide victory in the first freely-contested election in 25 years, winning the needed two-thirds of the vote to enable it to nominate the country’s new President. Even though she herself  is barred from that role, Suu Kyi has . . . Read More

BJP’s Bihar defeat a vote against ‘intolerance’

  November 12, 2015 India Beef, Bihar, BJP, Haryana, India, Narendra Modi

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the UK – a first visit by an Indian head of state for a decade – comes on the back of a heavy election defeat in the key state of Bihar. Modi is expecting an even greater reception in London than that which . . . Read More

Fleeing Boko Haram – nowhere to run, nowhere to hide

  November 12, 2015 Abuja, Adamawa, Boko Haram, Borno, Cameroon, Chad, Chibok girls, EYN, Genocide, Jos, Kaduna, Niger, Nigeria, Samuel Dali, UN, West Africa, Yobe, Yola

A special report by IRIN, built on field visits to Nigeria’s north-eastern region which the military has re-taken from the Boko Haram insurgency, reveals an unprecedented humanitarian disaster in the Lake Chad Basin region. In Europe, Syrian refugees with the means head for their country of choice, armies of aid . . . Read More

37 Assyrian Christians released in Syria

  November 9, 2015 Syria Assyrians, Hasakah, Islamic State, Jacques Mourad, Khabur, Qaryatain, Syria

The self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) has released another 37 Assyrian Christians kidnapped nine months ago in Syria, Assyrian sources said. The group, including men and women in their sixties and seventies, were among the 253 Christians snatched in IS attacks on Assyrian villages in northeastern Syria’s Hassaka province. Three thousand . . . Read More

India: village church attacked, Christians hospitalised

  November 6, 2015 India Chhattisgarh, Hindu nationalism, Pentecostals

Several Christians were hospitalised after the incident in Chhattisgarh state.Courtesy Open Doors International   Several Christians were hospitalised and others forced to reconvert to Hinduism, after a village church in India’s central Chhattisgarh state was attacked by Hindu hardliners. The Christians from the Independent Pentecostal Church in Kohkameta were attacked . . . Read More