News

India: Cross desecrations continue in Goa, despite arrest of Catholic ‘culprit’

  July 28, 2017 India BJP, Crosses, Goa, Hindu nationalism, India

Crosses continue to be desecrated in the Indian state of Goa, despite the police claiming to have captured the ‘culprit’, a 50-year-old Catholic who, from what police say, appears to be mentally ill. Francis Pereira was arrested on 14 July, but the desecrations have continued, most recently on 27 July . . . Read More

Iraqi Christians fear Kurdish agenda behind removal of mayor

  July 28, 2017 Iraq Alqosh, Assyrians, Baghdad, Iraq, Islamic State, Middle East, Nineveh Plains, Peshmerga, Syria

Iraqi Christians are increasingly fearful that the recent ousting of a Christian mayor by a pro-Kurdish council is evidence of a Kurdish agenda to usurp control of northern Christian-majority towns. Fayez Abed Jawahreh, the mayor of Alqosh, a Chaldean-majority town, was dismissed from office on 16 July by Bashar Al . . . Read More

Almost 500 Nigerian community leaders meet to resolve conflict, but Kaduna attacks continue

  July 27, 2017 Nigeria Fulani herdsmen, Kaduna, Kafanchan

The largest meeting so far on the long-running conflict in Southern Kaduna, Nigeria has seen about 480 people, including Christian and Muslim community leaders, try to map out ways of ending the violent attacks in the so-called ‘Middle Belt’ state. Rev. Gideon Para-Mallam, who organized the one-day meeting in Kafanchan, . . . Read More

Pakistani Christian’s mother says son killed for asking for an end to his slavery

  July 27, 2017 Pakistan Bonded labourers, Faisalabad, Pakistan, Punjab, Sheikhupura

The mother of a Pakistani Christian found dead last week says her son, who was 32, had to be on call 24 hours a day to serve local landlords (to reduce a big loan to his family) and was killed for expressing a desire to escape his “debt trap”. On . . . Read More

Iranian Christian out on bail after 3-week hunger strike

  July 27, 2017 Iran Amin Afshar Naderi, Ebrahim Firouzi, Hadi Asgari, Iran, Kaviyan Fallah-Mohammadi, Maryam Naghash Zargaran, Victor Bet-Tamraz

An Iranian Christian sentenced to 15 years in jail has been released on bail, three weeks after writing an open letter to the authorities, asking what he had done to “make you hate me this much” and declaring that he had decided to “terminate my life slowly” through a hunger . . . Read More

Crimea also affected in first year of Russia’s ‘anti-missionary law’

  July 27, 2017 Russia Crimea, Don Ossewaarde, Jehovah's Witnesses, Pentecostals, Russia, Soviet Union, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, Yarovaya Law

Since Russia’s President Vladimir Putin signed into law what some commentators referred to as an “anti-missionary bill” in July last year, individuals and groups have been targeted because of their religious affiliation in both Russia and the annexed Crimea. After the annexation in March 2014, religious organisations in Crimea had . . . Read More

Nigerian woman wins UN award for work re-integrating Boko Haram victims

  July 26, 2017 Nigeria Chibok girls, EYN, Nigeria, Rebecca Dali

A Nigerian aid worker who works with victims of Boko Haram’s insurgency in the north-east has won the 2017 UN Sergio Vieira de Mello Award. Dr Rebecca Dali, Executive Director of the Centre for Caring, Empowerment, and Peace Initiatives (CCEPI), won it because her centre is “at its best” in . . . Read More

Family of Egyptian Copt held without charge accuse police of ‘torturing him to death’

  July 25, 2017 Egypt Copts, Egypt, Hosni Mubarak

The family of a Coptic Christian who died in police custody last week have called for legal action to be taken against the two arresting officers, who they accuse of torture and murder. Gamal Kamal Aweida, 41, died in a room at Manshiyat Naser police station, in central Cairo, on Wednesday . . . Read More

Turkey: Malatya murderers’ 39-year prison sentences upheld

  July 25, 2017 Turkey Gaziantep, Islamic extremism, Malatya, Turkey

Six months after five Turkish men were convicted of the grisly murders of three Christians in southeast Turkey ten years ago, an appeals court has upheld their three consecutive life sentences in prison. The regional Gaziantep 3rd Criminal Court of Appeals decision on 18 July confirmed the incarceration of Emre . . . Read More

Jailed Christian on hunger strike to protest against treatment of Iranian converts

  July 21, 2017 Iran Amin Afshar Naderi, Bahram Nasibov, Converts, Ebrahim Firouzi, Eldar Gurbanov, Exile, Hadi Asgari, Iran, Karaj, Kaviyan Fallah-Mohammadi, Mohammad Reza Omidi, Naser Navard Gol-Tapeh, Rasht, Saheb Fadaie, Tehran, Victor Bet-Tamraz, Yasser Mossayebzadeh, Youcef Nadarkhani, Yusif Farhadov

Another imprisoned Iranian Christian has begun a hunger strike to protest against the recent rash of sentences against Christians in Iran. Ebrahim Firouzi, 30, who has five years left of his own sentence for “acting against national security”, followed fellow convert to Christianity Amin Afshar-Naderi in writing a statement criticising . . . Read More