News

Four Chibok girls to start university in US in August

  July 21, 2017 Nigeria Boko Haram, Chibok girls, Education, Nigeria

It’s many thousands of miles from the Government Secondary School in Chibok, Borno, Nigeria, to university in the United States. But, following their kidnapping on 14 April 2014, it’s a journey that a handful of young girls from remote, rural north-eastern Nigeria have now made. (Their fellow escapees remain in Nigeria, . . . Read More

Eritrean Patriarch’s first appearance in decade dismissed as ‘fig leaf’

  July 21, 2017 Eritrea Abune Antonios, Asmara, Eritrea, Eritrean Orthodox Church

A brief public appearance from the Eritrean Orthodox Patriarch after ten years under house arrest has been dismissed as a “fig leaf” to cover over the regime’s “appalling human rights record”. Patriarch Abune Antonios participated in a Mass at St Mary’s Cathedral in the capital, Asmara, on Sunday (16 July), . . . Read More

Murdered pastor was told: stop preaching or we’ll kill you

  July 21, 2017 India India, Ludhiana, Punjab

The son of a church leader shot dead in north-western India on Saturday (15 July) has revealed that his father had received threats that if he continued to preach, he would be killed. Alisha Masih, 22, who is also training to be a pastor, said his father, Sultan, who was . . . Read More

Philippines reconsiders bill for autonomous Bangsamoro

  July 20, 2017 Philippines Abu Sayyaf, Bangsamoro, Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, Cotabato, Islamic State, Moro Islamic Liberation Front, Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, Zamboanga

A new law that will govern the creation of a new autonomous Muslim region in the southern Philippines was submitted as a bill to the government on Monday (July 17) for approval by Congress. President Rodrigo Duterte received the draft “Bangsamoro Basic Law” (BBL), crafted by a 21-member commission that . . . Read More

Pakistani Christian boy, 16, charged with blasphemy for discussing his faith

  July 19, 2017 Pakistan Asia Bibi, Barelvi, Blasphemy, Gujrat, Lahore, Mardan, Pakistan, Punjab

A 16-year-old Pakistani Christian boy has been charged with blasphemy for talking with a colleague about his belief in Jesus, the second such incident in a month. Shahzad Masih, 16, a cleaner at a hospital in the city of Dinga (near the religiously conservative city of Gujrat), was arrested on . . . Read More

Legal limbo of Turkey’s Syriac Christian properties still unresolved

  July 18, 2017 Turkey Mardin, Mor Gabriel Monastery, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Syria, Syriacs, Turkey

Over the past five years, legal ownership of at least 100 ancient Syriac Christian properties in Turkey’s southeast has been seized and transferred to the Turkish state treasury, where the title deeds still remain. The government-confiscated properties include two functioning monasteries, including adjacent lands to the 4th century Mor Gabriel . . . Read More

New Anglican bishop tells of Iranian persecution and exile

  July 18, 2017 Iran Iran

Firsthand experience of persecution has returned to the top levels of the Church of England with the appointment of a bishop whose brother was murdered and whose parents were attacked in their bed during the Iranian Revolution. Guli Francis-Dehqani was last week (11 July) named the Bishop of Loughborough with a . . . Read More

India: Christians in shock after pastor shot dead in ‘safe’ Punjab

  July 17, 2017 India India, Ludhiana, Pentecostals, Punjab

The Christian community in Ludhiana, the largest city in India’s north-western state of Punjab, is in shock after a pastor was shot dead outside his Pentecostal church on Saturday evening (15 July). Sultan Masih, 47, who also ran a school for the poor, was gunned down by two people on . . . Read More

BJP candidate favourite to win India’s presidential election

  July 17, 2017 India Beef, BJP, Dalits, India, Ram Nath Kovind, RSS

Today (17 July) Indian lawmakers are expected to elect Bihar Governor Ram Nath Kovind as the nation’s next president in a move that will strengthen the position of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist party. According to Reuters the victory of the candidate put forward by Modi’s ruling . . . Read More

Nepal: Christian worker shot at Easter says he’s still fearful

  July 14, 2017 Nepal Catholics, Hindu Morcha Nepal, Hindu nationalism, Kathmandu, Nepal

Three months ago, on 16 April, Christian worker Santosh Khadka was shot in Kathmandu while he was returning home from an Easter service. Police have not been able to identify the attackers, but local Christians say Khadka was targeted because of his religious-freedom work, as some groups in this young democracy . . . Read More