Religious freedom - Page 18

Persecution in Turkey has forced many of the 45,000 Christians, who fled the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) in Iraq and Syria, to hide their true identities and pretend to be Muslim.

A new poll out this week shows former Ohio Gov. John Kasich surging to second place in New Hampshire with 20 percent support among GOP voters, only 7 percent behind Donald Trump.

Indian authorities in Madhya Pradesh state have arrested and jailed 12 individuals, charging them with having converted to Christianity in violation of laws forbidding religious conversions. The 12, who included a blind couple—Balu Saste and his wife Bhuri—with their 3-year-old child,

In a powerful social media post in favor of God and tradition, celebrated evangelist Franklin Graham has blasted the campaign of “41 atheists” to have America’s motto, “In God We Trust,” expurgated from U.S. bills and coins, appealing to American history and the faith of the nation’s heroes.

The plaintiff in the court case that led to the Supreme Court’s decision to legalize same-sex marriage and the Kentucky county clerk who refused to sign same-sex marriage licenses will be guests at President Barack Obama’s final State of the Union address Tuesday.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia told an audience Saturday that while the United States was intentionally founded without an established church, it was never intended to be “neutral” toward religion itself.

Nearly 150 Iraqi Christian refugees, including 62 children, are no longer facing devastating persecution in their homeland at the hands of the murderous Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL), thanks to an American husband and wife who helped them flee to Europe, ABC News reports.

A Muslim family in Pakistan beat an eight-year-old Christian girl and left her naked on the street in order to punish her uncle for courting a Muslim girl, according to reports. The Muslim family allegedly abducted the Christian girl, named

The Cuban government has issued a demolition order for every church in the Abel Santamaria district in the southern city of Santiago de Cuba, according to reports from Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW). The five churches in the neighborhood are slated

A 12-year-old seventh grade student in Katy, Texas who reported in October that her teacher instructed her class that God is a myth challenged her school board again by demanding an apology and referring to its members as “liars.” Jordan

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled against a Muslim woman who claimed that workplace rules forcing her to remove her headscarf amounted to discrimination. The ruling upholds France’s ban on religious symbols in the workplace, which judges said

As Vietnam prepares to enact new legislation that will seriously curb religious freedom, police have begun cracking down on Christians, especially those most vocal about their faith. In a period of just ten days, police twice assaulted Christian student activist Chu Manh Son and Catholic journalist Tran Minh Nhat, each of whom had previously served prison terms for denouncing Vietnam’s human rights violations.

Pope Francis continued his meditations on the end of the world, preaching Tuesday morning on “how to behave in the face of persecution” and urging his hearers to defend their Christian identity at all costs.

Pakistani school officials in Faisalabad are coming under fire for prohibiting Christian pupils from using lavatories reserved for Muslim students and specifically for a severe punishment administered to a young girl for using a Muslim lavatory. In recent days, a Christian

The pro-life and pro-family base of the Republican Party is celebrating following both gubernatorial elections Tuesday and the defeat of Proposition 1 – the “gender identity” bathroom bill – in Houston.

The football coach of Bremerton High School in Washington State, Joe Kennedy, who was recently suspended for leading prayers after games and, despite being asked to stop, continued to lead them, spoke out on Saturday’s “America’s News HQ” on Fox News Channel. Kennedy,

Joe Kennedy, who coaches football at Bremerton High School in Washington State, has been suspended for offering a personal prayer after a Friday night football game.

A seventh grade student in Katy, Texas says that her reading teacher instructed her class that God is a “myth” and that any student who says God is a “fact” or an “opinion” is wrong.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee is investigating what it calls a “global crisis” of religious freedom, and the resulting challenge to U.S. Foreign Policy.

According to Archons National Commander Dr. Anthony Limberakis, who presented the award to Biden, “The core of the spiritual mission of the Ecumenical Patriarchate is freedom, freedom in Christ to live at the utmost of our human potential.”

The woman reportedly screamed for mercy while being raped, but no one came to her assistance. Relatives of the woman have retained the services of Christian lawyer Sardar Mushtaq Gill, who runs an advocacy group offering free legal assistance to Pakistani Christians and other minorities who are victims of abuse and religious persecution.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) is answering the recently released State Department report on the status of religious liberty worldwide.

The Islamic authorities of Singkil in the Aceh province of Indonesia began the demolition of ten Christian churches deemed illegal under Sharia law because of a lack of the proper “building permits.”

In its newly released International Religious Freedom Report for 2014, the U.S. State Department has once again failed to place Pakistan on the list of Countries of Particular Concern (CPC), despite its status as one of the worst violators of religious freedom in the world.

China once again has its hackles up over a U.S. report criticizing the country’s violations of religious freedom, and is insisting that America stop interfering in China’s internal affairs under the pretext of defending religious liberty.

In introducing the 2014 Report on International Religious Freedom, Secretary of State John Kerry said his department was fighting “to protect people’s right to exercise religious freedom.”

More than 1,400 cases of blasphemy were registered in Pakistan in 2014, marking a new record for the prosecution of religious crimes in the country amidst growing protests of abuse and arbitrary arrests of Christians and other religious minorities.

The Archbishop of Aleppo has called on the West to act to save Syria from the “fundamentalist, jihadist mercenaries” who threaten his country, “killing anyone who would speak of freedom, citizenship, religious freedom and democracy.”

The group of religious sisters founded by Mother Teresa of Calcutta is shutting down its thirty orphanages in India as a protest, rather than comply with new state regulations requiring that they place children with single parents. It’s a religious liberty case eerily familiar to Americans.

In the lead-up to a major summit on religion, the Chinese Communist party is preparing intensified restrictions on Christian churches, according to the Party’s official newspaper on religious issues, Zhongguo Mingzu Bao.

In the coming days, construction will commence on a new church in Egypt dedicated to the martyred Coptic Christians beheaded by the Islamic State in Libya in February.

A monument of the Ten Commandments was removed by workers this week from the grounds of the Oklahoma State Capitol per the order of the state Supreme Court.

A school district is drawing controversy for a flyer announcing a nationwide one-day event that invites students to bring their Bibles to school.

The ACLU and the Freedom from Religion Foundation has filed a federal lawsuit against the Concord Community Schools for using a live Nativity scene in their annual Christmas concert.

Saddique Azam, a Catholic teacher who was recently appointed principal of a primary school in a small village of Pakistan, was severely beaten and tortured by three Islamist extremist teachers who said they refused to work under a Christian.

A Christian NHS employee who was suspended after praying for a Muslim colleague has been granted permission to appeal against the decision of the tribunal which ruled against her. The judge acknowledged the importance of the case and said her “human right” to freedom of