Tag: Pentecostals

Eritrean evangelical Christians freed on bail due to COVID-19

September 10, 2020 Eritrea Churches, Human rights, Pentecostals, Religious freedom, UN

If they're not Lutheran, evangelical women in Eritrea have to pray together in secret. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)

The Eritrean government has released on bail more than 20 prisoners who’d been in detention for years because of their faith, the BBC reports. It says sources have said that the prisoners are from Christian evangelical and Pentecostal denominations, some held in a prison outside the capital Asmara. In 2002 . . . Read More

Tajik pastor freed after 3 years in prison for ‘singing extremist songs in church’

December 18, 2019 Tajikistan extremism, Khujand, Pentecostals, Protestants, security police, Tajikistan

Tajikistan_Bakhrom Kholmatov with family after release from prison 18.12.19

A Protestant pastor sentenced to three years in prison for “singing extremist songs in church and so inciting religious hatred” has been freed three months early (he was due to be freed in March 2020). Bakhrom Kholmatov, 42, was sentenced in July 2017 and has served his term in a . . . Read More

Indian Christian forum demands withdrawal of ‘bogus’ charges of forced conversions

November 13, 2018 India BJP, Chhattisgarh, Hindu nationalism, India, Karnataka, Narendra Modi, Pentecostals, Punjab, Religious freedom, Uttar Pradesh

The Christian Forum of Chhattisgarh state in India called on its political parties to commit to ensuring freedom of religion, as elections for the state’s legislative house took place yesterday (12 November), Catholic news agency UCAN reported. Meanwhile, several attacks on Christians were reported in the first week of this . . . Read More

Modi speaks out against ‘menace’ of mob attacks for first time

August 15, 2018 India Anti-conversion law, Bajrang Dal, Bihar, BJP, Dalits, Ghar Wapsi, India, Madhya Pradesh, Minorities, Narendra Modi, Pentecostals, RSS, Vishva Hindu Parishad

Attacks on Christians in India by Hindu extremists are on the increase and often their church buildings are destroyed as well, like this one in central India.

India’s prime minister Narendra Modi has for the first time condemned violence against minorities, saying that everyone has a duty to fight the “menace” of mob lynchings. But his critics say that, after four years in power at the head of a Hindu nationalist government, the comments have come too . . . Read More

Raids on ‘illegal’ worship meetings in rebel-held Ukraine

August 9, 2018 Ukraine Baptists, Churches, Crimea, Kiev, Luhansk, Orthodox, Pentecostals, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin

In the battle for Luhansk between Ukrainian forces and rebels in 2014, churches like this one in Pervomaisk, some 50 km west of Luhansk, were also attacked. (Photo: JOHN MACDOUGALL/AFP/Getty Images)

A Pentecostal church in the rebel-held Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine was raided by armed men on 6 August, the latest in a series of raids on religious communities, reports Oslo-based news service Forum 18. The raid took place during a worship meeting at the Grace Church of God Pentecostal . . . Read More

‘Total impunity’ in India, as Muslims and Christians ‘bear brunt of ruling ideology’

July 13, 2018 India Anti-conversion law, Hindu Munnani, Hindu nationalism, Hindu Yuva Vahini, India, Jharkhand, Minorities, Pentecostals, Rape, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh

Frequent reports of violent attacks against India’s religious minorities show the “total impunity” enjoyed by their Hindu nationalist attackers, says one civil rights activist. In one recent attack, a pastor, his wife and their congregation were attacked at their ‘house church’ in India’s southern Tamil Nadu state on Sunday (8 . . . Read More

Kazakhstan: 69 punished for practising faith in first half of 2018

July 5, 2018 Kazakhstan Baptists, Human rights, Jehovah's Witnesses, Kazakhstan, Kostanay, Missionaries, Pentecostals, Religion Law, Religious freedom, Sunni

Courts in Kazakhstan prosecuted at least 69 individuals, religious communities or organisations for religious activities in the first half of this year, according to Oslo-based news service Forum 18. Punishments included fines of up to four months’ average salary (US$1,400) and three-month bans on activities such as distributing religious literature or . . . Read More

Foreign Christian students targeted by Russia’s security services

July 3, 2018 Russia Missionaries, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Pentecostals, Proselytism, Protestants, Religion Law, Russia, Yarovaya Law

Foreign students of Pentecostal churches in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod region have become a particular target for the authorities under the so-called “anti-missionary” law introduced two years ago, Forum 18 reports. The vague definition of “missionary activity” in the law, officially titled the Yarovaya Law after one of its authors, has meant that law . . . 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

Eritrea: Rights groups call for renewal of UN Special Rapporteur’s mandate

May 25, 2018 Eritrea East Africa, Eritrea, Human rights, Pentecostals, Refugees, Religious freedom

A boy in Nguenyyiel refugee camp in Gambela region of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in June. (Photo: Getty Images)

Rights groups have called for the mandate of the UN Human Rights Special Rapporteur for Eritrea to be renewed in June. The human rights situation in the East African country has been monitored by the UN Human Rights Council since 2012, when it appointed Ms Sheila B. Keetharuth as the . . . Read More

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