Christian persecution - Page 14

Some members of the persecuted Early Rain Covenant Church in China were reportedly able to worship publicly for the first time on Sunday in democratically ruled Taiwan after communist authorities shut down their congregation in China as part of Beijing’s widespread crackdown on ethnoreligious minorities across the Asian country.

Human traffickers from Pakistan and China are forcibly prostituting hundreds of predominantly Christian new wives sold to Chinese men by impoverished relatives under pretenses that they will live out better lives in China, Voice of America (VOA) reported over the weekend.

Today, 16-year-old Leah Sharibu, a Christian girl from the town of Dapchi, Nigeria, remains in the monstrous hands of the Islamic terror group Boko Haram – which keeps Leah in its barbaric captivity because she refuses to deny Jesus Christ and convert to Islam.

June 2019 is an “especially menacing time” for Christians both on the domestic and international fronts, writes Christian persecution expert John L. Allen in a report Sunday.

A mob of Muslim activists sacked and set fire to a Christian church in Niger this weekend to protest the arrest of an influential imam.

UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has written some 40 letters to persecuted Christians to assure them of the support of the British government, the religious freedom watchdog group Open Doors revealed last week.

The United States Bishops are calling for prayer and action “in support of religious liberty at home and abroad” during Religious Freedom Week, which will run from June 22 to June 29.

A Cuban Evangelical pastor sentenced to two years in prison for homeschooling his children says his family has endured “psychological pressure and a war on behalf of authorities” for refusing to allow the Castro regime to indoctrinate his children into communist ideology.

Authorities continued imposing curfews Wednesday night in Sri Lanka after a wave of largely Sinhalese Buddhist led vandalism on Muslim businesses and mosques prompted a nationwide law enforcement effort to protect the nation’s Muslim minority.

Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako has accused powerful political parties in Iraq of “stealing” parliamentary seats that had been reserved for Christians, as an example of ongoing Christian persecution in the country.

Jihadists bombed the Syria Christian village of Al-Sekelbiya (Suqaylabiyah) Sunday, killing at least four children during a catechism lesson along with their teacher and leaving another six children injured, according to local media.

Communist party officials have notified a diocese in China’s southeastern Jiangxi province that they will soon demolish the underground church of the Annunciation because of the failure of its pastor to join the state-controlled Catholic Patriotic Association.

OUAGADOUGOU, BURKINA FASO (AFP) – Gunmen killed a priest and five church-goers during mass on Sunday in an attack on a Catholic church in Dablo, northern Burkina Faso, security sources and local official said.

Tolkien’s most famous works are primarily driven by his faith and for Disney to pretend otherwise, to completely ignore his religious upbringing as though it was not formative, is a deliberate act of deception.

Sri Lankan immigration authorities revealed this week that nearly 50 foreigners without valid visas are among the hundreds deported by the South Asian island nation in the wake of the Islamic State (ISIS)-linked attack that primarily attacked Christians on Easter Sunday.

An anti-Christian organization filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the Department of Veterans Affairs over a Bible displayed as part of a POW/MIA memorial, calling the Bible’s presence an “outrage.”

In September 2018, the Vatican signed a secret deal with the Chinese Communist government.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) demanded on Monday that the State Department keep North Korea on its list of countries that suppress freedom of religion.

A Nigerian archbishop has decried the slaughter of Christians in his country and the media silence surrounding it, declaring that “Christians are being killed like chickens.”

The Catholic Church in Sri Lanka has called on the government to ramp up security measures against Islamic extremists “as if on war footing” following the jihadist Easter massacre.

The number of Christians in the birthplace of their faith, the greater Middle East, continues to plummet months after the Islamic State, which waged a genocidal campaign against Christians, lost its “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria, Breitbart News learned from various experts, including an archbishop.

Sri Lanka’s highest-ranking Catholic leader condemned the Easter jihadist attacks as “an insult to humanity” at a private Mass attended by the nation’s president and prime minister Sunday.

Armenian-Americans waving flags and chanting, “Turkey supports ISIS,” marked the anniversary of the Ottoman Empire’s genocide of some 1.5 million Armenians outside the Turkish embassy in Washington, DC, on Wednesday.

The author of a major study on worldwide Christian persecution said that the tragedy of the recent slaughter of Christians in Sri Lanka is how unsurprising it is.

Sri Lanka’s Christians began mass burials this week for the victims of jihadist suicide bombings on Sunday as the government announced a spike in the death toll from 290 to 359.

Sri Lanka’s President Maithripala Sirisena announced Tuesday he would fire the heads of all security, police, and defense agencies in the country following the devastating jihadist attack on Easter Sunday that has now killed 359 people, mostly Christians.

The Cuban communist regime sentenced Evangelical Pastor Ramón Rigal to two years in prison – and his wife Ayda Expósito to a year and half – on Monday for homeschooling their children, less than a week after their arrest for promoting the practice.

The Coptic Archbishop of London has called for acknowledgment that “anti-Christianism” is as real a phenomenon as anti-Semitism and Islamophobia following the horrific Easter massacre of Sri Lankan Christians.

Sri Lanka may be considering joining a growing number of governments in banning the burqa, an Islamic head covering that leaves no part of a woman’s body visible, local media reported Tuesday in the aftermath of the series of suspected jihadist bombings targeting Christians on Easter Sunday.

Police have confirmed that a fire in the French church of Notre-Dame de Grâce on Easter Sunday appears to have been intentionally set, making it the latest in a string of desecrations of Christian churches in the country.

The Knights of Columbus have pledged $100,000 in assistance to the victims of Sunday’s jihadist suicide bombings of Sri Lankan Christian churches and luxury hotels.

Christian mother of five Asia Bibi, who spent nearly a decade on death row in Pakistan for blasphemy before authorities cleared her of any wrongdoing back in October 2018, will remain at an undisclosed government location this Easter.

WASHINGTON, DC — U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo repudiated the crackdown on religious freedom in China at the hands of communist leader Xi Jinping in remarks Tuesday and Wednesday, stressing that the persecution of Muslims and Christians in the Asian country has reached “historic proportions.”

Officials of China’s ruling communist government have refused to recognize underground Catholic Bishop Guo Xijin unless he enrolls in the country’s parallel, state-run church.

Persecuted Christian woman Asia Bibi remains trapped in Pakistan as the British government continues talks with the country’s government in an attempt to secure her release.

Callista Gingrich, the U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See, said this week that China lies about its persecution of people of faith and must be called out for its human rights violations.