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UN chief ‘personally concerned’ about return of Christians to Iraq and Syria

June 21, 2018 Afghanistan, Al-Shabaab, Antonio Guterres, Asylum seekers, Bashiqa, Human rights, IDPs, Iraq, Islamic State, Kachin, London, Migrants, Myanmar, Patriarch Kirill, Refugees, Somalia, South Sudan, Southeast Asia, Syria, UN

Tree and Arabic painting on the wall in Bashiqa, a town near Mosul in Iraq where Christians are slowly returning, saying: "Tomorrow will be more beautiful." (will be better) (Photo: World Watch Monitor)

The UN’s Secretary General has stressed the importance of Christians returning to the areas from which they fled in Iraq and Syria. “I am fully convinced that after the stability of the situation in Iraq and Syria and the adoption of a certain political decision, it is very important to . . . Read More

Egypt to pay for Coptic bomb attack victim’s surgery in Germany

June 21, 2018 Egypt Cairo, Copts, Egypt, Islamic extremism, Pope Tawadros II, Women

It’s been 18 months since Coptic Christian Samiha Tawfiq was badly injured in the bomb attack on Cairo’s St. Peter and Paul church, which claimed 27 lives and injured 49. It also took away one side of Samiha’s face. Samiha and her husband Koleny were sitting in the respective women’s . . . Read More

Tajikistan: Christian convert’s burial delayed as relatives call for husband to return to Islam

June 20, 2018 Tajikistan Apostasy, Burial, Central Asia, Converts, Islamic extremism, Minorities, Tajikistan

When an elderly Christian woman from a Muslim background died last week in a Tajikistan hospital, her husband Mihrab* and children – all of them Christians – organised a funeral ceremony and invited people from their church. But Mihrab’s Muslim relatives also invited local Muslims, including a cleric, who demanded . . . Read More

Iraqi Christian Rita was sold four times on the IS sex slave market

June 19, 2018 Iraq Iraq, Islamic State, Mosul, Peshmerga, Qaraqosh, Quran, Rape, Syria, Trauma, Turkey, Women, Yazidis

Iraqi Christian Rita Habib was sold four times on the ISIS sex slave market. (Photo: Still from video)

Rita, a Christian woman from the Iraqi town of Qaraqosh, was 26 when Islamic State invaded her town and took her captive. She was sold and bought four times as a sex slave before she was freed in 2017 and reunited with her father in April this year, almost four . . . Read More

What churches can do to help victims of sexual violence in conflict to stay ‘part of us’

June 19, 2018 Global News -- No Particular Country Central African Republic, Children, Iraq, Islamic State, Minorities, Rape, Religious freedom, Seleka, Trauma, UN, USA, Women, Yazidis

Women affected by violence in the Central African Republic, have formed self-help groups in the capital Bangui and run a small shop where they sell their products. (Photo: Open Doors International)

Adrienne* survived a brutal sexual attack during a conflict with ex-Seleka militants in Central African Republic (CAR), only to be ostracised from her own community. Adrienne was alone in her greatest time of need, and the baby born to her nine months later bears the same vulnerabilities, and a label: a . . . Read More

Did Mozambique beheadings signal emergence of jihad in southern Africa?

June 19, 2018 Ahlu Sunnah Wa-Jamâ, Cabo Delgado, East Africa, Mocimboa da Praia, Mozambique, Sahel

Mozambique experienced its first confirmed Islamist attack on October 2017. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)

Recent attacks attributed to Islamist militants in Mozambique have raised alarms over the emergence of a jihadist movement in the southern half of Africa – a section of the continent previously relatively untroubled by violent Islamist extremism. Little, if anything, was known about the group behind the attacks, in October . . . Read More

India: Police slow to register case after church burnt down by suspected Hindu extremists

June 15, 2018 India BJP, Churches, Hindu nationalism, Hindutva, India, Pentecostals, Police, Puducherry, RSS, Tamil Nadu

A church in Puducherry in southern India was set ablaze recently, after upper-caste Hindu neighbours had objected to worship services in the area. Puducherry, formerly Pondicherry, was a French colonial settlement until 1954. Pastor David Santosham and members of the Bible Presbyterian church in Karaikal District left for home after . . . Read More

Copts’ homes attacked after they protest Muslim men swimming naked in front of them

June 15, 2018 Egypt Beni Suef, Copts, Egypt, Upper Egypt

Coptic houses were attacked in a village in Upper Egypt last week, after Copts objected to a group of young Muslim men swimming naked in a canal in front of their homes, as Coptic women sat outside. The incident took place on 4 June in the village of Tarshoub, in . . . Read More

A ‘dire time for human rights in Russia’ as World Cup begins

June 14, 2018 Russia Crimea, Dagestan, Don Ossewaarde, Football, Human rights, Jehovah's Witnesses, Oryol, Religious freedom, Russia, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, Yarovaya Law

The 2018 FIFA World Cup started today with a kick-off at the Luzhniki stadium in the capital Moscow. (Photo: Sandra Montanez - FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)

“This is a very dire time for human rights in Russia,” according to the Russia programme director for Human Rights Watch, Tanya Lokshina, speaking ahead of the start of the 2018 Football World Cup, which kicked off in Moscow earlier today. Since Vladimir Putin became Russia’s president again in 2012 . . . Read More

Algerian pastor ‘amazed’ as three churches told they can reopen

June 13, 2018 Algeria Aïn Turk, Algeria, Bejaia, Kabylie, Mâatkas, Oran, Protestant Church of Algeria, Tizi Ouzou

Three churches recently closed down by authorities in Algeria’s northern province of Oran have been told they can reopen. The three churches, located in Oran city, Ain Turk (30km west of Oran), and El Ayaida (35km east of Oran), were closed between November 2017 and February 2018. On Sunday, two . . . Read More

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