ISTANBUL, December 3 (Compass) -- Five weeks after Islamic extremists gunned down 15 Pakistani Christians in a Sunday morning worship service, church leaders across Pakistan admitted that their congregations remain "tense and fearful" as Christmas approaches.
...continue reading this storyNew legislation awaiting agreement by the Kazakhstan authorities looks set to undermine religious freedom.
The Keston Institute reports that if adopted, the law will require all missionaries to be registered and allow unregistered religious groups to be banned.
...continue reading this storyBANGALORE, India (Compass) -- The Indian government has launched its own "war on terrorism" against two fronts: terrorists and missionaries. The Hindu fundamentalist government is planning to introduce two bills that are being condemned as "draconian" by religious minorities in India.
...continue reading this storyA recent VOM report from Ghana tells of the needs faced by our Christian brothers and sisters who face persecution from animists and Muslims in the countryside. Recently VOM workers had to disguise themselves as they traveled into one region, as the local people view strangers with great suspicion. Believers there face being killed by their neighbours. They live in great poverty and have not nearly enough Bibles for the number of Christians. Bibles, Bible portions and Christian literature in the local language are smuggled into the area by Ghanaian believers at great risk. Recently 32 Christians were sent out of the region by pastoral leadership for fear that they might be killed because of their conversion to Christianity.
...continue reading this storyMembers of the Word of Life Pentecostal Church, human rights activists and some politicians have complained about the failure of the police or prosecutor's office to take any action so far in the wake of last month's attack on a Word of Life service in a cinema in the centre of the Georgian capital Tbilisi. The mob raid - the latest in a long series of attacks on minority religious communities dating back to 1999 - was led by Basil Mkalavishvili, a defrocked priest of the Orthodox Church who enjoys de facto immunity from prosecution for his violent raids. (see KNS 26 September 2001) "We have not arrested Mkalavishvili," the duty police officer at the Mtatsminda-Krtsanisi district police told Keston News Service on 11 January. "Why should we?" His boss, district police chief Togo Gogua, confirmed later in the day that his officers had not arrested anyone in the wake of the latest attack. "I'm not the procurator and I'm not the judge. An investigation is underway," Gogua declared. "They must be arrested," the church's pastor insisted to Keston. "It's not a question of religious freedom but of hooliganism. Such hooligan gangs should not be allowed to exist."
...continue reading this storyIndian Christian, Prabhu Isaac, is due to be deported from Jiddah tonight after spending more than six months in Saudi prisons in connection with his Christian faith.
...continue reading this storyLOS ANGELES, CA (ANS) -- Most Christians understand the threat posed by Islamic fundamentalism around the world, but few are aware of a virulent strain of Hindu radicalism targeting believers in India.
...continue reading this storyISTANBUL, November 27 (Compass) -- More than a dozen foreign Christians remain jailed in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah, where local authorities have for months ignored inquiries and notes of protest from consulates requesting diplomatic access to their imprisoned citizens.
...continue reading this storySouth China Church Pastor Gong Shengliang to be executed within days if his appeal is denied
The Voice of the Martyrs is making an urgent appeal to Christians around the world to pray for Pastor Gong Shengliang. Pastor Gong was reportedly sentenced to death last month after a court in Hubei Province declared him guilty of using an "evil cult" to "undermine the enforcement of the law" and of "complicity of rape."
...continue reading this storySoon after winning the right to host the 2008 Olympics, China is showing the world that being a non-registered Christian is a most dangerous sport.
...continue reading this story