News

Pakistan Supreme Court confirms decision to drop blasphemy case

  January 16, 2013 Pakistan Blasphemy, Islamabad, Pakistan, Paul Bhatti, Punjab, Quran, Rawalpindi, Rimsha Masih, Salmaan Taseer, Shahbaz Bhatti

The Pakistan Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out an appeal to reopen a blasphemy case against a Christian teen who had been accused of burning pages containing verses from the Quran. Rimsha Masih had been acquitted of the charges in November by the High Court in Islamabad.  The lower court’s decision was appealed . . . Read More

Hope in Mali rises with international military intervention

  January 15, 2013 Mali Bamako, Burkina Faso, France, Gao, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Sharia, Timbuktu, Tuareg, West Africa

French troops have launched a military operation in Mali, aiming at stopping the advance of Islamists from their bases in the north to the South. The French intervention started on Friday, Jan. 11 with air strikes, and had enabled the Malian troops to regain control of the cental town of . . . Read More

Colombia: Murdered evangelist’s widow also killed after threats

  January 9, 2013 Colombia Arauca, Colombia, ELN

Four months after guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (ELN) sent a murdered evangelist’s wife their first demand to abandon her home in northeast Colombia’s volatile Arauca department, the militants made good on their threats, report sources close to Open Doors, a ministry to persecuted Christians. On Monday, Jan 7th . . . Read More

Africa rises on World Watch List of worst persecutors

  January 8, 2013 Global News -- No Particular Country Africa, Al-Qaeda, Arab Spring, Bashar al-Assad, Boko Haram, Egypt, Eritrea, Hindu nationalism, Islamic extremism, Kenya, Mali, Mao Zedong, Niger, Nigeria, Sharia, Somalia, Syria, Tanzania, Uganda

Africa, where Christianity spread fastest during the past century, now is the region where oppression of Christians is spreading fastest, a new report says. The two-year-old Arab Spring has toppled autocrats across Northern Africa, but it also has energized militant Islamist movements that have killed hundreds of Christians and endanger . . . Read More

Nigeria – 30 Christians killed in eve of New Year massacres

  January 7, 2013 Nigeria Boko Haram, Borno, Christmas, Goodluck Jonathan, Maiduguri, Nigeria, Yobe

Thirty people were killed in two separate attacks carried out by armed men ahead of the New Year, in north-eastern Nigeria. 15 people were killed in a single attack which occurred on Sunday 30th, when armed men stormed a church service in Kyachi village, outside Chibok, near Maiduguri. According to . . . Read More

China’s Christians seize internet opportunities

  December 31, 2012 China Censorship, Religious freedom, Shaanxi, Shanghai, Shouwang Church, Zhang Kai

Chinese Christians are sharing their faith on Weibo, China’s giant, state-regulated, social network – and some are beginning to challenge the censor by speaking out against religious persecution. When Christian band Rainbow Come appeared on China’s equivalent of “The X Factor,” Christians turned to social networking to drum up votes . . . Read More

Gunmen kill 12 Nigerian Christmas-Eve worshipers

  December 25, 2012 Nigeria

UPDATE: In two separate attacks, gunmen shot and killed 12 worshippers who had gathered for Christmas-Eve services. One attack occurred in the northeaster Nigerian state of Yobe. Among the dead was the church’s pastor, according to news reports. The second attack occurred at a Baptist church in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state. . . . Read More

Book review: ‘Christianophobia: A Faith Under Attack’

  December 21, 2012 Global News -- No Particular Country Al-Qaeda, Arab Spring, China, Egypt, Iraq, Islamic extremism, Mao Zedong, Middle East, Mohamed Morsi, Muslim Brotherhood, Nigeria, Prophet Muhammad, Turkey

Jesus warned his followers that they would experience persecution, a prediction that was already coming true before the books of the New Testament were completed. Today, Rupert Shortt, author of Christianophobia: A Faith Under Attack, argues, “the greatest curbs on religious freedoms take place in Muslim majority countries.” Take Egypt, . . . Read More

Finally, Istanbul gives Syriac Christians a place to build: a cemetery

  December 18, 2012 Turkey Burial, Churches, Istanbul, Mardin, Midyat, Mor Gabriel Monastery, Turkey

Three years after a Syrian Orthodox foundation applied to build a church in Istanbul, the Greater Istanbul Municipality has granted them a large plot of land and a building permit. Banner headlines in the Turkish media praised the early-December decision as “a first in the history of the Republic,” declaring . . . Read More

Likely to lose constitution vote, Egyptian Christians gird for long struggle

  December 14, 2012 Egypt Constitution, Hosni Mubarak

Politically connected Christians in Egypt give credit to the Muslim Brotherhood for one thing: they can win elections. The Brotherhood got 13 million ordinary Egyptians, many of them poor, rural and illiterate, to the polls in June to vote for their presidential candidate, Mohamed Morsi. Governing has been a different . . . Read More