News

Analysis: Distinction between ‘moderate Islamists’ and ‘militant extremists’ is misleading for Western governments

  November 14, 2014 Iraq Islamic extremism, Islamic State, USA

  The fight against Islamic State is now a top-priority of the international community. Islamic State was seriously underestimated, not only by the US. It took the international community so long to acknowledge the threat of Islamic State and to confront them, that they now seem already rather well settled . . . Read More

Jailed Egyptian convert awaits appeal hearing

  November 12, 2014 Egypt Egypt, Mohammed Hegazy, Port Said

Hegazy’s lawyer Karam GhobrialWorld Watch Monitor   A jailed Egyptian Muslim convert to Christianity is scheduled Sunday, Nov. 16 to appeal his conviction on a misdemeanor — if he can get to the courtroom. But according to his lawyer, prison and security police officials have not confirmed they will permit . . . Read More

Pakistani Christian couple brutally killed by mob for alleged ‘blasphemy’

  November 5, 2014 Pakistan Blasphemy, Bonded labourers, Gojra, Islamic extremism, Pakistan Muslim League, Punjab, Shahzad Masih, Shama Bibi

A Pakistani mob beat to near-death a Christian and his pregnant wife for her alleged ‘blasphemy’, then threw them both into the large kiln where they both worked as bonded laborers. The incident happened on Tuesday 4th Nov, some 60 kilometers from Lahore, the capital of Punjab in central Pakistan – . . . Read More

Second Turkish trial implicates authorities in planned attack on church leaders

  November 4, 2014 Turkey Istanbul, Izmit, Malatya, Turkey

Pastor Emre Karaali of the Izmit Protestant Church on the steps of the Courthouse in Izmit with his lawyer after the 3rd hearing on Oct. 21, 2014World Watch Monitor   In a surprise October decision, a Turkish judge has filed a criminal complaint against a police chief and an army . . . Read More

Tension simmers following attack on Christians in troubled Bastar

  November 3, 2014 India Ghar Wapsi, Hindu nationalism, India, Pentecostals

Man injured in the attackWorld Watch Monitor   Scores of policemen are camping in a remote Indian village following an Oct. 25 attack on Christians by Hindu fundamentalists. Government officials characterize the violence in Madhota village, in the Bastar district of Chhattisgarh state in central India, as a “clash between . . . Read More

Turkish public education system to offer class in Christianity for first time

  October 30, 2014 Turkey Armenians, Children, Education, Europe, Islamic extremism, Shia, Sunni, Turkey

The Turkish education system’s mandatory religion classes are not fair to students who do not follow the country’s majority Sunni Islam and must amend its policies, according to a recent verdict of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). As Turkey is a signatory of the European Convention on Human . . . Read More

‘We’re tired, so tired …there’s so much to do and we’re only human’

  October 29, 2014 Syria Aleppo, Bibles, Lebanon

‘We are tired, so tired…It is going on so long and there is so much to do. We are only human.’ Sylvia works in her home town of Aleppo with internally displaced people (IDPs) who’ve fled other parts of Syria. She’s one of a group of young Syrians speaking about . . . Read More

India minister says no special caste status for Christians

  October 27, 2014 India BJP, Caste, Converts, Dalits, Haryana, Maharashtra

Winnowing grain in a Dalit village near Madurai, Tamil Nadu. 2006 photo.Matteo / Flickr / Creative Commons   India should not extend government job and education assistance to the country’s poorest Christians, India’s social justice minister, Thavar Chand Gehlot, said this month. For one thing, he said, there are no . . . Read More

Malatya murder trial defendants exploit Turkish government ‘witch-hunt’

  October 22, 2014 Turkey Fethullah Gülen, Malatya, Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Suspects accused of helping to orchestrate the brutal murders of three Christians in southeast Turkey in 2007 are now blaming the crime on the Hizmet movement, an influential Islamic group accused of treason by the ruling Turkish government. Testimony from two former military officers and an Islamic university researcher dominated . . . Read More

Attack on India prayer meeting puts 25 in hospital

  October 22, 2014 India Andhra Pradesh, Anti-conversion law, Hindutva, RSS

As Cyclone Hudhud churned toward India’s southeastern coastline earlier this month, about 200 Christians in the path of the storm gathered to pray for safety. Twenty-five of them were hospitalized, three of them with serious injuries — not because of the cyclone, but because of a violent mob that accused . . . Read More