HO CHI MINH CITY (Compass) -- In April, 26 years after the communist takeover of Vietnam, authorities granted legal status to Protestants of the southern Evangelical Church of Vietnam (ECVN). Optimists felt this might signal a change in the oppressive religious policy that has long marked Vietnamese communism, especially with the rise of "moderate" Nong Duc Manh to general secretary of the Communist Party.
...continue reading this storySix members of a Baptist congregation in the town of Khazar (formerly Cheleken) were fined in mid-January for holding "illegal services", Keston News Service has learned. The instruction to fine them came from the political police, the KNB (former KGB), the six were told. The Turkmen authorities routinely fine members of unregistered religious congregations for holding religious meetings, even if such meetings take place in private homes.
...continue reading this storyKAMPALA, UGANDA (ANS) -- You can find them by following the sounds of the singing. The familiar tune of "What A Friend We Have In Jesus" carries over the crying of children, the honking of the horns, and the general confusion created by cramming 25,000 people into one run down slum.
...continue reading this storyISTANBUL, February 27 (Compass) -- Sudanese security police have mounted a widening manhunt to track down a local convert to Christianity who went into hiding in Khartoum three weeks ago to escape arrest and possible death.
...continue reading this storySTANBUL, October 8 (Compass) -- A Sudanese student who converted from Islam to Christianity was severely beaten and tortured by security police in Khartoum two weeks ago, apparently at his own family's instigation.
...continue reading this storyISTANBUL, February 7 (Compass) -- A Sudanese convert to Christianity was forced into hiding this week after severe beatings and torture by state security police, who for the second time refused to allow the former Muslim to leave Sudan through the Khartoum airport.
...continue reading this storyNASHVILLE, TN (ANS) -- The sheer volume of hard evidence presented at the press conference was staggering.
Names, addresses and photographs of 23,686 Chinese Christians recently arrested for their faith. Twenty thousand beaten. One hundred twenty-nine killed. More than 4,000 sentenced to labor and “re-education†camps. Homes and property confiscated or destroyed, leaving tens of thousands of children homeless orphans.
LOS ANGELES, January 3 (Compass) -- Saudi Arabian authorities transferred the last five of 14 foreign Christians from their Jeddah prison cell to a deportation center yesterday, according to nine other Christian prisoners already moved there on December 22 and 23.
...continue reading this storyJIDDAH, SAUDI ARABIA (ANS) -- A further six Christian men have been arrested in the coastal city of Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, as the crackdown on believers in the city escalates, according to Christian Solidarity Worldwide.
...continue reading this storyKABUL, AFGHANISTAN (ANS) -- Members of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have visited in Kabul eight Western and Sixteen Afghan aid workers, who face possible execution for allegedly spreading Christianity in war ravaged Afghanistan. The Sunday visit was the first contact the prisoners had with the outside world, since being detained three weeks ago under the Taliban regime's strict interpretation of Islamic law.
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