News

Sudanese Christian leader fatally stabbed at protest over seizure of church school

  April 7, 2017 Sudan Bahri, Pentecostals, Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church, Younan Abdulla

  A Sudanese Christian was killed earlier this week while participating in a peaceful protest against the government’s attempted appropriation of a Christian school. Younan Abdulla, part of the Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church (SPEC), was participating in the three-day protest, after the government-linked committee in 2016 authorised the sale of the land . . . Read More

Why were Pakistani politicians considering giving higher marks to veiled female students?

  April 7, 2017 Pakistan Hijab, Imran Khan, Islamic extremism, PTI

The role of Islam in Pakistani public life is fiercely fought over, especially in areas that are home to non-Muslim communities. One example is Punjab province, where most Pakistani Christians, as well as much of Pakistan’s Hindu minority, live. Punjab Higher Education Minister Syed Raza Ali Gilani was last month . . . Read More

Majority-Christian Mexico still struggling to ensure religious freedom for rural converts

  April 6, 2017 Mexico Catholics, Converts, Jalisco, Latin America, Oaxaca, Tuxpan de Bolaños

As many as 90% of Mexico’s population would identify as Christian, yet not all of them are free to practise their faith. Some come under pressure from drug cartels, either by being members of churches who meet regularly and carry money for giving offerings there and are therefore seen as . . . Read More

In choosing Christianity, Mexican tribals risk alienation, eviction from their communities

  April 6, 2017 Mexico Converts, Guadalajara, Jalisco, Trauma, Tuxpan de Bolaños, Wixárikas

A giant statue of a deer stands high above the Mexican town of Bolaños, a symbol of its significance for the locals, who believe a deer-god protects them. The belief dates back to when the Wixárika tribe first arrived in the area, in the western state of Jalisco, and encountered . . . Read More

Christians easy targets in Mexico’s lawless borderlands

  April 6, 2017 Mexico Chihuahua, Juarez, Latin America, Organised crime

The Governor of Mexico’s northern state of Chihuahua, Javier Corral, admitted last week that his government does not have the means to tackle organised crime, and that he’s asked for federal resources to fight the drug cartels. This came four days after the murder of a local journalist, who’d reported . . . Read More

Jakarta’s Christian governor reveals repeated sectarian attacks at trial testing Indonesia’s pluralism

  April 5, 2017 Indonesia Ahok, Blasphemy, Indonesia, Jakarta, Nahdlatul Ulama, Southeast Asia

The Indonesian Christian governor on trial for blasphemy said yesterday (4 April) that he has been the target of racist and religious attacks since he was elected to public office in 2005. Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (better known as “Ahok”), the governor of Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta, also reiterated to the court . . . Read More

Pakistani prosecutor to Christians: ‘I’ll acquit you if you convert to Islam’

  April 4, 2017 Pakistan Converts, Lahore, Youhanabad

The father of one of 42 Pakistanis – who are on trial for lynching two men they suspected of the double bombing of neighbouring churches in March 2015 – has confirmed that the public prosecutor offered to acquit all the suspects if they were to convert to Islam. Two churches . . . Read More

Escaped North Korean risks her life to visit Christian family she left behind

  April 3, 2017 North Korea China, South Korea

It was a shock to Myoung-Hee* when she discovered that most of her family were Christians. Although it was four decades ago, she remembers it well. One night her father stumbled into the house, pale and weak, and she wondered if he was ill. Before he spoke, Myoung-Hee’s mother sent . . . Read More

Secretary of State Tillerson meets wife of US pastor jailed in Turkey

  March 31, 2017 Turkey Andrew Brunson, Ankara, Binali Yildirim, Coup, Fethullah Gülen, Izmir, PKK, Suruç

America’s top diplomat met for 20 minutes yesterday with the wife of US pastor Andrew Brunson, jailed in Turkey for nearly six months on undisclosed charges of involvement in a terrorist organization. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was on a one-day stopover (March 30) in the Turkish capital Ankara, . . . Read More

‘I wish I could forget’: student survivors of Kenya university attack, 2 years on

  March 31, 2017 Al-Shabaab, Garissa, Kenya

Two years ago, on the eve of Good Friday, 2015, Al Shabaab militants besieged Garissa University campus in Kenya’s volatile northeast. 147 students died that day. Muslims were spared, but Christians targetted: the attackers killed all students present at an early morning Christian prayer meeting, and hunted down several more hiding in rooms. Survivors . . . Read More