News

Parents torn over loss of daughter in Nigeria

  March 22, 2012 Nigeria Bauchi, Nigeria

Nearly seven months after their 24-year-old daughter disappeared during a wave of Islamic extremist violence here, Helen and Dakim Gyang Bot can only assume that the voice on the other end of her cell phone that told them “we have killed her” was telling the truth. The body of Simi . . . Read More

Christians targeted in Sudan’s ‘ethnic cleansing’

  March 20, 2012 Sudan Episcopal Church of Sudan, Islamic extremism, Kadugli, Nuba Mountains, Omar al-Bashir, Refugees, Sharia, South Kordofan, South Sudan, SPLM-N, Sudan

The “ethnic cleansing” that Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has undertaken against black Africans in the Nuba Mountains is also aimed at ridding the area of Christianity, according to humanitarian workers. By targeting Christians among people who are also adherents of Islam and other faiths in the Nuba Mountains, military force . . . Read More

Parents, Islamic extremists beat young woman in India

  March 20, 2012 India India, Islamic extremism, West Bengal

A young woman was thrown out of her home this month for daring to give thanks for healing in Christ’s name in a predominantly Muslim village in India’s West Bengal state, and then her parents helped Islamic extremists to beat her nearly unconscious. The attack on Rekha Khatoon, 22, took . . . Read More

Crackdown hits official churches

  March 16, 2012 Iran Ahwaz, Assemblies of God, Assyrians, Converts, Dezful, House churches, Iran, Isfahan, Kermanshah, Pentecostals, Proselytism, Shiraz

In a rare crackdown on a concentrated area, Iranian authorities have arrested Christians living in the country’s third largest city in what is seen as a tactic to discourage Muslims and converts to Christianity from attending official churches. Since last month officials have arrested about 12 Christian converts in Isfahan, . . . Read More

Nuns traumatised after school attack in Egypt

  March 16, 2012 Egypt Aswan, Egypt, Islamic extremism, Trauma

Two nuns in Upper Egypt faced “unimaginable fear” – with one later hospitalised over the emotional trauma – when 1,500 Muslim villagers brandishing swords and knives trapped them inside a guesthouse last week and threatened to burn them out. The next day, the assailants frightened children at the school; attendance . . . Read More

Survivors desperately seek loved ones in Jos, Nigeria blast

  March 13, 2012 Nigeria Jos, Nigeria

One man rendered a widower by the Islamist suicide bombing at a Catholic church on Sunday (March 11) discovered his wife had been killed only after finding her severed hand with her wedding ring on it. Another could identify his wife only by the clothing left on her remains. Both . . . Read More

Pakistani woman charged with ‘blasphemy’ for refusing Islam

  March 12, 2012 Pakistan Blasphemy, Pakistan, Prophet Muhammad, Punjab, Women

A young mother has been falsely accused of “blaspheming” Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, because she rebuffed attempts by relatives who had converted to Islam to force her to renounce her Christian faith, family members said. Police in Khichiwala, Bahawalnagar district, in Punjab Province, charged 26-year-old Shamim Bibi, mother of . . . Read More

Another church in Jos, Nigeria hit by suicide bombing

  March 11, 2012 Nigeria Boko Haram, Jos, Nigeria

Two weeks after a suicide bomb attack by the Islamist sect Boko Haram during a church service here left at least three Christians dead, a similar blast during a Catholic Mass today killed at least three people. As in the Feb. 26 bomb blast outside the church walls of the . . . Read More

Two Christian hospital workers abducted in Karachi, Pakistan

  March 7, 2012 Pakistan Islamic extremism, Karachi, Kidnapping, Pakistan, Proselytism, Sindh, Taliban

Authorities do not know who abducted two Christian hospital employees in Karachi last week, but police sources said they suspected the kidnappers had links with banned terrorist organisations. There is a strong possibility that Islamic extremists took the two workers of South Korea-based Good Samaritan Hospital, Issac Samson and Indrias . . . Read More

Egyptian court sentences priest from attacked church building

  March 7, 2012 Egypt Aswan, Egypt

A priest in Egypt was sentenced this week to six months in jail for a minor construction violation at his church building, while no one in a mob that burned the same structure down has been arrested. The Rev. Makarious Bolous of the Mar Gerges Church in Aswan was sentenced . . . Read More