Hindu militants in Orissa have announced that the man accused of masterminding the brutal killings last year of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons will be the chief minister candidate of their newly formed political party in the eastern state.
...continue reading this storyMore than a year after Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons, Timothy and Phillip, were brutally murdered in Orissa state, Christians in India continue to be harassed and persecuted. And according to church leaders, the Sangh Parivar (family of Hindu fundamentalist groups) sponsors much of it in Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat. These states have become the laboratory of "Hindutva" (cultural nationalism).
...continue reading this storyChristians in Laos continue to suffer persecution from a government crackdown on believers, and they cannot visit friends or travel freely because the secret police follow them every everywhere. Some have been forced to recant their faith.
...continue reading this storyTwo Chinese Protestant pastors accused of organizing an unauthorized Christian meeting are being held in labor camps near Beijing, a London-based religious rights group reported Thursday. Wang Li Gong, 34, and Yang Jing Fu, 36, are in two separate camps in Tianjing serving administrative sentences of one year, and one and one-half years, respectively, Christian Solidarity Worldwide said.
...continue reading this storyTurkmen police have expelled the last remaining Russian Baptist missionary in the country, the Keston News Service reported. Authorities ordered the deportation of Vitali Tereshin in March, but the missionary went into hiding to continue his work. He was located in April by Turkmenistan's political police, the National Security Committee (KNB).
...continue reading this storyReports from Laos say the number of Christians held by the government has dropped in recent months. Although the Lao Constitution provides for freedom of religion, the government continues to restrict the right to practice religion.
...continue reading this storyA Pentecostal church in the Kosovo capital was raided by self-proclaimed Islamic militants, according to the Keston News Service. Christians in the Muslim-majority province of Serbia say they have been the targets of attacks since Serbian troops withdrew last June.
...continue reading this storyTwo colleagues of prominent Chinese evangelist Li Dexian have been sentenced to 15 days in prison, an Australian-based monitoring group reported. Ah Yung and Ah Kong are among 13 Protestant house church members who have been arrested in the southern province of Guangdong since the weekend, according to the Sydney office of Voice of the Martyrs (VOM).
...continue reading this storyAn Australian Protestant missionary was kidnapped on Sunday by a gang of armed men on Colombia's north coast, according to news reports. Edward Walter Smith, 51, was abducted from a church in the village of Canito along with three local men. The three men were released unharmed later on Sunday.
...continue reading this storySix Christian missionaries participating in a gospel campaign called "Love Ahmedabad" were beaten so savagely in the state of Gujarat last week that one of the men may lose his arms and legs.
...continue reading this story