News

Turkey’s religious freedom record slides

  April 9, 2012 Turkey Greek Orthodox, Malatya, Orhan Picaklar, Religious freedom, Turkey

Sentiment against Christians in Turkey has persisted long enough for a U.S. religious rights monitor to recommend it as a “Country of Particular Concern,” and pastor Orhan Picaklar knows such anti-Christian hostility first-hand. Picaklar, of Agape Church in Samsun, lives in the Black Sea region, a bastion of Turkey’s unique . . . Read More

Lao officials confiscate church buildings

  April 6, 2012 Laos Churches, Laos, Luang Namtha, Luang Prabang, Savannakhet

Lao officials on Thursday (April 5) confiscated and sealed a church building in southern Laos after holding a two-day seminar warning against religious belief, according to advocacy group Human Rights Watch for Lao Religious Freedom (HRWLRF). Besides sealing the church building in Khamnonsung village, Saybuly district, they also warned that . . . Read More

Court in Egypt sentences young Christian for ‘insulting Islam’

  April 6, 2012 Egypt Asyut, Blasphemy, Copts, Egypt, Islamic extremism, Prophet Muhammad, Salafism

In a show of partiality to Muslims who go unprosecuted for like offenses against Christianity, a juvenile court in Egypt on Wednesday (April 4) sentenced a Coptic Christian teenager to three years in prison for allegedly insulting Islam. Gamal Abdou Massoud, 17, denies the charges. The court claimed that he . . . Read More

Southern Sudanese Christians fear forced repatriation

  April 6, 2012 Sudan Khartoum, Omar al-Bashir, Sharia, South Sudan, Sudan

Christians from South Sudan who have until Easter Sunday (April 8) to try to become citizens of Sudan or be deported fear authorities will use the occasion to rid the country of Christianity, church leaders said. More than 500,000 citizens of southern ethnic origin who have been living in Sudan . . . Read More

Explosion at Christian meeting in Kenya kills boy, woman

  April 3, 2012 Kenya Al-Shabaab, Islamic extremism, Kenya, Mombasa, Sharia

An 8-year-old boy died today from injuries after suspected Islamic extremists on Saturday (March 31) threw a grenade into a Christian revival meeting near Kenya’s coastal town of Mombasa that instantly killed a woman and injured at least 30 people. Kenyan Internal Security Minister George Saitoti said Islamic extremists from . . . Read More

Drive to release rights lawyer in China pushes forward

  March 30, 2012 China China, Gao Zhisheng, Human rights, Xinjiang

Confirmation this week of China’s assertion in December that human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng is alive and serving out a prison sentence is key as efforts continue for his release, a human rights lawyer said. Gao, a Christian whose advocacy for religious minorities led to his conviction in 2006 for “subversion,” . . . Read More

Sudan’s aerial bombing aims at churches in Nuba Mountains

  March 30, 2012 Sudan Islamic extremism, Khartoum, Nuba Mountains, Omar al-Bashir, Refugees, Sharia, South Kordofan, South Sudan, SPLM-N, Sudan

After Khartoum denied that it had bombed civilians earlier this month, Sudanese aerial strikes last week were aimed at church buildings and schools in Kauda, South Kordofan state, a humanitarian aid worker said. Antonov airplanes dropped bombs on Thursday and Friday (March 22 and 23), destroying some houses and cattle . . . Read More

Briefs: recent incidents of persecution

  March 29, 2012 India Assam, Bangalore, Delhi, Hindu nationalism, India, Jabalpur, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, RSS, West Bengal

Police arrested five Christians on March 25 in Dhanegaon, Chhinwara, after Hindu extremists from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh attacked them and accused them of forceful conversion. A source told World Watch Monitor the extremists barged into the Sunday worship service of Bharatiya Pratna Bhawan (India Prayer Hall), beat pastor Harichand . . . Read More

Laos: five Christians arrested in southern village

  March 28, 2012 Laos Churches, Laos, Savannakhet, Vientiane

Officials in a village in southern Laos on Sunday (March 25) arrested and detained five Christians during worship and charged them with leading a religious movement without official approval, according to advocacy group Human Rights Watch for Lao Religious Freedom (HRWLRF). The five Christians from Palansai district were attending a . . . Read More

Salafist leaders celebrate death of Coptic Pope in Egypt

  March 23, 2012 Egypt Al-Nour Party, Copts, Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, Salafism

As Christians across Egypt continued to mourn the loss of Pope Shenouda III this week, Islamist leaders of the Salafist movement issued a litany of insults, calling the late leader of the Coptic Orthodox Church the “head of the infidels” and thanking God for his death. The vitriol indicated the . . . Read More