Tag: Churches

Boko Haram sets churches on fire in latest attack on Cameroon’s Far North

January 29, 2018 Cameroon Boko Haram, Cameroon, Chad, Churches, Far North, IDPs, Mayo-Tsanaga, Muhammadu Buhari, Niger, Nigeria, UN

Residents of Roum village in the Far North region of Cameroon woke up to two churches and many houses ablaze on the night of 15 January. The fire was claimed by Boko Haram militants, who had stormed the village late at night. Four people were killed. Apart from the Union . . . Read More

Bolivian Christians can still evangelise … for now

January 26, 2018 Bolivia Bolivia, Churches, Constitution, Evo Morales, Latin America, Religious freedom

Bolivia's president repealed a controversial new penal code in which evangelism alongside terrorism would be a crime. (Photo: Flickr / CC / Szymon Kochański)

After much criticism, Bolivian president Evo Morales announced earlier this week that his government would repeal a new law that seemed set to make evangelism a crime. The new penal code, adopted by Bolivia’s parliament in December, placed the “recruitment of persons for their participation in religious organisations or cults” . . . Read More

Indonesia sees reduction in religious freedom violations

January 24, 2018 Indonesia Ahok, Churches, Indonesia, Indonesian Ulema Council, Islamic Defenders Front, Jakarta, Java, Pentecostals, Religious freedom

In 2010, Bogor’s GKI Yasmin church was sealed and padlocked by order of the mayor and city government. They still hold Sunday services outside the church, and stage monthly services outside Indonesia’s Presidential Palace.. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)

Indonesia saw fewer violations of religious freedom in 2017 than the year before, a national human rights group said this week, although it said it remained concerned about “the politicisation of religious and social differences”. In its ‘2017 Report on Religious Freedom and Religious Minorities in Indonesia’, the Setara Institute . . . Read More

China: 6 Christians jailed as pressure on churches increases

January 23, 2018 China China, Churches, Communism, Guizhou, Huoshi Church, Religious freedom, Shanxi, Su Tianfu, Xi Jinping, Xinjiang, Yang Hua, Yunnan

Group of Christians praying together in Beijing. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)

A Chinese court in the southwestern province of Yunnan sent six Protestant Christians to prison last week for their membership of an “evil cult”. The verdict comes as part of a provincial crackdown on cults, as the ruling Communist Party continues its national campaign to restrict unregistered churches before new religious . . . Read More

Pence’s plans to help Middle East Christians overshadowed by political storm

January 19, 2018 Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Al-Azhar, Arabs, Benjamin Netanyahu, Bethlehem, Churches, Copts, Donald Trump, Egypt, Israel, Jerusalem, Jews, Jordan, King Abdullah II, Middle East, Mike Pence, Palestinian Territories, USA, West Bank

US Vice President Mike Pence’s postponed trip to the Middle East goes ahead this weekend amid myriad tensions and a fast-shifting diplomatic landscape. Pence’s trip is a shortened version of the one planned for last month, which was abruptly cancelled when protests erupted at President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem . . . Read More

Egypt church celebrates long-awaited official opening

January 15, 2018 Egypt Churches, Copts, Egypt, Islamic extremism, Islamic State, Minya, Pope Tawadros II

Members of the Holy Virgin and Mar Girgis church staged a sit-in to protest the closure of their church in October. (Photo: Watani)

A Coptic church in Minya, Upper Egypt, was officially allowed to open last week for the first time since it was built in 2015, and three months after clashes with local Muslims had forced it to close indefinitely. The Holy Virgin and Mar Girgis church in the village of Sheikh . . . Read More

Prominent China church demolished – second in month

January 12, 2018 China China, Churches, Communism, House churches, Protestants, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Three-Self Patriotic Movement, Xinjiang

Explosives are set off in the Golden Lampstand Church in Linfen, Shanxi province, in a still taken from a video.

Chinese authorities demolished a church in northern China this week, the second in less than a month, ahead of new regulations on religion due to come into force on 1 February. Explosives were set off inside the Golden Lampstand Church in Linfen, Shanxi province on Tuesday (9 January). According to . . . Read More

Syria: Damascus churches damaged as Christian neighbourhoods hit

January 11, 2018 Syria Churches, Damascus, Syria, UN

Church in the old city of Damascus, an area that is currently under attack from rebel held positions on outskirts of the city. (Photo: World Watch Monitor, 2008)

Two churches have been damaged in a fresh escalation of fighting in the Syrian capital, Damascus. Dozens of shells were fired from the rebel-held enclave of Goutha East on Tuesday (9 January), in the space of just a few hours, “at random” and without a specific goal, witnesses told AsiaNews. . . . Read More

‘Unprecedented’ persecution of Egypt’s Christians heads 2018 World Watch List

January 10, 2018 Global News -- No Particular Country Africa, Anti-conversion law, Boko Haram, Cairo, Central Asia, Churches, Converts, Copts, Egypt, Eritrea, Fulani herdsmen, Hindu nationalism, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Islamic extremism, Islamic State, Jharkhand, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Maldives, Marawi, Middle Belt, Middle East, Mindanao, Minorities, Nepal, Nigeria, North Korea, Philippines, Somalia, Southeast Asia, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkey, Upper Egypt

More Christians abused in India than in all other countries combined; Nepal enters list Islamic extremists driven out of Iraq and Syria are behind a new intensity of Christian persecution in surrounding countries, says global charity Open Doors in its latest annual survey of countries where it is most difficult . . . Read More

Ethiopian Christians arrested for ‘praying against government’

January 10, 2018 Ethiopia Addis Ababa, Chagni, Churches, Ethiopia, Ethiopian Orthodox Church, House churches, Pentecostals, Tigray

Christians worship during a church service in a town in central Ethiopia. (Photo: World Watch Monitor, 2016)

Seven Ethiopian Christians have been arrested and detained in the north-western town of Chagni on suspicion of praying against the government. A local source told World Watch Monitor the seven men, members of the Meserete Kiristos church, were followed and overheard by a local militia group when they went up a . . . Read More

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