Christian persecution - Page 18

Chinese President Xi Jinping harbors a “particular animosity” toward Christians and sees underground churches as a “severe national security threat,” according to the founder of China Aid, a U.S.-based watchdog group.

Andrew Brunson, a Protestant pastor who has led a mission and church in western Turkey for more than two decades, appeared in Turkish court on Monday facing terror-related charges.

WASHINGTON, DC — Persecution against Christians, Muslims, and other religious groups in communist China has escalated as Communist Party leader Xi Jinping’s atheist regime attempts to crack down on religion in the country, a top official from a U.S. religious freedom panel and a human rights lawyer told Breitbart News.

The government of Rwanda has closed thousands of churches and dozens of mosques in a bid to establish tighter state control over religion, following President Paul Kagame’s remarks that his country has too many places of worship.

The government of the largest city in Pakistan failed to disburse the monthly salaries of more than 7,000 predominantly low-wage Christian employees in time for the Easter Sunday celebration on April 1.

As Christians around the world prepare to observe the holy weekend of Easter, many will be asked at their services to pray for the persecuted around the world.

LONDON (AP) — Prince Charles released a videotaped Easter message early Friday offering support for persecuted Christians around the world.

Long-time Fox News contributor Father Jonathan Morris said that Christian persecution is not only holding strong but is “growing throughout the world” in a Good Friday conversation with Alex Marlow on Breitbart Radio.

St Mary’s Catholic Church in Great Yarmouth was “desecrated” in a satanist attack for the second time in four months.

Doctors and security personnel at a hospital in Pakistan reportedly killed and tortured a Christian man with medical scissors and scalpels and seriously injured two other Christians who survived the ordeal, triggered when they demanded care for their pregnant family member.

The Cuban dissident group Ladies in White reports that at least 36 of their members were arrested violently this weekend while participating in pro-democracy protests and attempting to attend Catholic Mass on Palm Sunday.

A spokesman for the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem has denounced the “genocide” facing Christians in the Holy Land, declaring: “Every five minutes, a Christian dies in the Middle East, and Muslim leaders know it.”

In the 37th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva this week, participants were regaled with stories of egregious human rights abuses in Pakistan including systematic persecution of Christians by the Islamic majority.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s authoritarian government has deemed members of religious minorities, such as Christians and Jews, “enemies of the state,” an analyst tells Breitbart News, echoing the U.S. State Department.

Some young members of Pakistan’s Christian minority have suffered “torture and sexual abuse” at the hands of law enforcement officials looking into blasphemy claims against the victims, reportedly allege human rights groups.

In a bizarre disconnect, 40 percent of U.S. Catholics believe that Christian persecution around the world is “severe,” and yet they are more concerned about climate change and the global refugee crisis than the sufferings of their co-religionists.

In a sharply worded statement Monday, Cardinal Edwin O’Brien announced the closing of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem to protest what he called Jerusalem’s “systematic campaign against the churches and the Christian community in the Holy Land.”

From the moment Metro City Church announced a workshop for teenage girls struggling from peer pressure and questions about sexual identity, Jeremy Schossau, the lead pastor for the church with campuses in Riverview and Taylor, Michigan, said he and the congregation had faced “unbridled” hate and vitriol.

A mob of an estimated 3,000 Islamic extremists in Pakistan reportedly called for the beheading of a 17-year-old Christian whose phone, after reappearing days after he lost it, contained blasphemous content that authorities could use to sentence him to life in prison or death.

The violent Muslim persecution of Christians in the Middle East did not begin with the Islamic State’s rise to power in 2014, said Iraqi Archishop Bashar Warda, but rather many centuries ago. “Having faced for 1,400 years the slow-motion genocide

The Indian conference of Catholic bishops has issued a strongly worded statement condemning a “dangerous” new nationalism based on religious uniformity and appealing for greater respect for the country’s religious diversity.

A Hong Kong-based group of prominent lay Catholics said that a cyberattack originating from China has targeted their website opposing a forthcoming deal between the Vatican and the Chinese government.

A group of Catholics in Hong Kong has expressed “shock” and “disappointment” over the Vatican’s reported plans to enter into an agreement with the Chinese government over the appointment of bishops and the status of the state-approved Catholic Patriotic Association.

Members of the left-wing media have fawned over Kim Jong-un’s sister Kim Yo-jong and North Korea’s Winter Olympics delegation this weekend, apparently forgetting the country’s egregious human rights record.

The Roman Colosseum along with two churches in Mosul and Aleppo will be lit up by red lights later this month to draw attention to the global persecution of Christians.

As part of its most recent clampdown on Christian churches, Chinese authorities have instructed priests and pastors to post signs on churches barring entry to minors.

The chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences has heaped high and unexpected praise on China, insisting that the atheistic communist regime has created the best model for living out Catholic social teaching today.

Churchgoers in Tamil Nadu, India, are protesting local officials after police ruled the death of Pastor Gideon Periyaswamy – found hanging in the church with visible signs of beatings – a “suicide.”

Christians and other minorities in Pakistan are bolting away from the predominantly Muslim nation by the “thousands” as Islamabad ignores harassment at the hands of Islamic extremists, reports Asia Times.

Fulfilling yet another campaign promise, President Trump declared January 16, 2018, as “Religious Freedom Day,” pledging his ongoing defense of religious liberty. “No American — whether a nun, nurse, baker, or business owner — should be forced to choose between the

North Korea stands at the top of a list of 50 countries where at least 215 million Christians faced the most severe persecution in 2017, resulting in 3,066 deaths and 1,020 rapes mainly targeting women, revealed Open Doors, an organization that monitors ill-treated Christians worldwide.

An Iraqi Catholic archbishop says that Christians in Iraq “are afraid of another wave of persecution that will be the end of Christians,” despite news of the “defeat” of the Islamic State.

Pope Francis underscored the countercultural message of Christianity on Tuesday, a message which often leads to persecution and even martyrdom, as it did in the case of the first Christian martyr, Saint Stephen.

A group of secularists who regularly dispute public displays of religion during the Christmas season sent a letter to a Republican Connecticut senator condemning his volunteer efforts as a bell-ringer for the Salvation Army. They claim he is promoting an “overtly Christian mission.”

Leaders of the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) met with Pope Francis in the Vatican on Thursday to discuss closer cooperation with the Catholic Church, particularly regarding issues of religious freedom and Christian persecution around the world.

A Christian teacher is suing his secondary school after being suspended for referring to a biologically female student as a “girl” despite them “identifying” as a boy.