Christian persecution - Page 5

Police in Indonesia have arrested Ferdinand Hutahaean, a Christian politician, for allegedly offending Islam, International Christian Concern (ICC) reported this week.

ROME — The Indian government has restored the Missionaries of Charity to its list of associations approved for receiving foreign funding after suspending the order’s license on Christmas.

Pope Francis condemned religious persecution Tuesday, insisting on the universal human right to publicly profess one’s religious beliefs without interference.

Global Christian persecution spread still further during 2021, according to the Christian charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN).

The junta that took control of Myanmar last February has relentlessly targeted Christian clergy and places of worship. Radio Free Asia (RFA) on Monday quoted human rights activists who said it has arrested at least nine Christian leaders, subsequently killing five.

Unspecified “bandits” in Muslim-majority Zamfara state, Nigeria, attacked as many as 15 villages on Christmas Day, killing at least 7 and abducting dozens.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett issued Christmas greetings to Christians worldwide along with a message of brotherhood and unity.

A Christian persecution watchdog group released a major report this week chronicling a disturbing spike in anti-Christian hate crimes in Europe.

Presumed Islamic militants sent a letter this week to Nigerian Christian leaders threatening attacks unless all churches in Zamfara state are closed to worship, the Barnabas Fund reported.

U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) has blasted a decision by the U.S. State Department to remove Nigeria from its list of Countries of Particular Concern (CPC), calling the move “a retreat from the noble and necessary fight to protect victims of religious persecution.”

At least 50 Christian “house churches,” or private Christian worship services held inside a person’s home, were recently forced to halt operations in central India’s Madhya Pradesh state after a local district issued an order banning the gatherings, the Christian Post, an online newspaper, reported Monday.

A Nigerian Christian journalist has been imprisoned following his reporting of attacks on Christians in Nigeria’s Middle Belt and his criticism of the government’s response, the Barnabas Fund reported Monday.

More than 25 Catholic parishes and ministry centers in and around Denver have been vandalized, looted, targeted by arson or desecrated in the past 21 months, Denver Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila reported Thursday.

The anti-communist newspaper Epoch Times denounced this weekend the arrest of Luka Binniyat, a reporter for the publication based in Nigeria and focused on Christian persecution there at the hands of Fulani jihadists.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi invited Pope Francis to “visit India” during his hour-long meeting with the pontiff in the Vatican this weekend.

The South Korean government is encouraging Pyongyang to accept a proposal that Pope Francis visit North Korea, after the pope expressed his readiness to do so.

Pope Francis received Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Vatican on Saturday, the first encounter between the two leaders.

The U.S. Catholic bishops expressed their dismay over the 100th act of anti-Catholic vandalism since they began tracking the phenomenon last May.

A delegation of Indian Christian leaders met with federal ministers this week to request the repeal of “anti-conversion” laws, which they say unfairly target Christians for persecution.

Gunmen believed to be Muslim Fulani militants killed 12 people during a raid on Peigyim village in Nigeria’s Middle Belt, the Barnabas Fund reported Friday.

Indonesian security forces have neutralized the leader of a local affiliate of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) known for beheading and mutilating Christians, the Jakarta Globe reported Monday.

A group of Muslims armed with automatic weapons opened fire on the houses of Christian residents in Lahore, Pakistan, wounding six, the Barnabas Fund reported this week.

The Vatican has confirmed that Pope Francis will meet with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán next Sunday when visiting Budapest for the closing of the 52nd International Eucharistic Congress.

A mob of Hindu nationalists stormed a police station in India on Sunday, beating a pastor and two other Christians, in an assault captured on video that went viral on social media.

A Christian persecution watchdog group warned Tuesday that Afghanistan’s new Taliban government considers the country’s remaining Christians to be apostates, whose punishment is the death penalty.

Sam Brownback, former U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, said this week that the situation for Christians and other religious minorities in Afghanistan has become a matter of life and death.

Christians stranded in Afghanistan have been turning off their phones and fleeing to local hill country to avoid being tracked and hunted down by the Taliban, a human rights group reported this week.

The Barnabas Fund, which monitors Christian persecution around the world, warned Tuesday that Christians remaining in Afghanistan face “great danger” following the Taliban takeover.

The Christian aid organization Open Doors warned in a statement to Breitbart News on Monday that a Taliban-dominated Afghanistan may be the single worst violator of religious freedom in the world.

The CEO of Open Doors USA, a human rights organization that focuses on lending aid to persecuted Christians around the world, urged corporate sponsors of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics to reconsider their ties to the event.

The Taliban is killing people in Afghanistan they find with copies of the Bible on their mobile phones, a Christian non-profit announced on Tuesday.

ROME — Pope Francis has denounced a road ambush in South Sudan that took the lives of two Catholic nuns Sunday morning along with three other victims.

Christian political leaders in Syria told the Kurdish outlet Rudaw on Monday that the Christian population of that country had dropped from about ten percent of Syrians in 2011, the start of the Syrian Civil War, to three percent of the country in 2021.

A Christian street preacher who was vindicated after a judge cleared her of making abusive comments will sue London’s Metropolitan Police Service, which she said was “determined to prosecute me no matter what”.

Authorities of the Islamic nation of Algeria have closed down three Christian churches in what critics describe as “direct violations of the right to religious freedom,” Crux reported Tuesday.

At least 3,462 Christians were murdered by Islamists in Nigeria during the first 200 days of 2021, while some 3,000 Christians — many of them girls and young women — were kidnapped in the same period, Crux reported Thursday.