News

Christians are fleeing northern Nigeria where bomb blasts rocked the Bauchi and Kano states over the weekend, killing at least 185 people, including Christians, said rights activists and church officials.

Last week, sources told Compass News that Sudanese Police beat and arrested a church leader in Khartoum.

Chanting "Allahu Akbar" a Muslim mob attacked the Coptic community of Kebly-Rahmaniya last week, burning down Christian houses, shops and businesses.

Christians in Sudan and newly created South Sudan face possible detention, beatings and even death amid a "deteriorating humanitarian situation" with thousands of people being killed this year alone, aid workers and Christians said in statements obtained by Worthy News Sunday, January 22.

A Somali woman, who converted from Islam to Christianity, was nursing her injuries Wednesday, January 11, after she was reportedly paraded before a cheering crowd and publicly flogged as a punishment for embracing a "foreign religion."

Suspected Islamic militants attacked an evangelical church in northeast Nigeria during a worship service late Thursday, January 5, killing at least six people and injuring 10 others, Worthy News learned.

With a deadline looming to leave their homes or be killed, Christians in northern Nigeria were urged Tuesday, January 3, not to retaliate against Islamic violence.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has declared a state of emergency as northern parts of Africa's most populous nation amid mounting concerns about attacks by Islamist militant group, Boko Haram, against especially the Christian population.

More than 500 Muslim students assisted by Muslim police burned down a church in the village of Qoto Baloso, Ethiopia, on Nov. 29.

Fulani Muslim herdsmen and soldiers killed at least 45 ethnic Berom Christians in Plateau state last week.

Christian missionaries in Mexico, including foreigners, face more security challenges after a married couple who had served for nearly three decades as Baptist church missionaries were killed, Worthy News learned.

Christians in Guatemala were mourning Monday, January 30, a pastor who was shot and killed by suspected drug traffickers on his way to a regional meeting of church leaders in a violent border area near Mexico.

At least 70 evangelical Christians in Mexico's east-central region were homeless Saturday, September 17, after being expelled by local authorities from their village where traditional Catholics reportedly threatened to "crucify or lynch" them.

A Cuban pastor who was imprisoned and then granted asylum by the United States was denied permission to leave Cuba.

Baptist Pastor Mario Felix Lleonart Barroso and his wife, Yoaxis, were part of the 23 Christians detained by Cuban police in Santa Clara, said Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), a major religious rights group.

Cuba has released an evangelical pastor from a six-and-a-half year prison sentence under condition that he does not preach and remains confined to his home city of Camaguey, representatives said Monday, March 28.

Christian leaders have urged Honduras' government to improve protection of Christian workers after Carlos Roberto Marroqu�n became the second prominent pastor to be murdered this year in the Central American nation.

A leaked video appears to show a Cuban Communist Party official openly confirming a government strategy to target churches affiliated with the fast growing Apostolic Movement, a protestant network.

Christian rights activists asked Vietnam Monday, November 29, to release pastors who received long prison terms on charges of �undermining national unity."

A jury acquitted four Christian missionaries accused of inciting a crowd while videotaping themselves proselytizing Muslims at the Dearborn Arab International Festival in June.

Evangelical Christians in southeastern India were due to worship Sunday, January 29, amid heightened tensions after Hindu hardliners attacked a pastor and church members, representatives said.

A mob of Muslims disrupted the worship services of about 100 members of a GKI Yasmin congregation that were being held at a member's home in Bogor, West Java on Sunday.

Churches and Buddhist monasteries in a mining area of Burma's northern Kachin state have taken in nearly 1,000 refugees, many of them Christians, since New Year's Day, after the Burmese military reportedly attacked a church and killed several people, Worthy News established Tuesday, January 10.

Hindu militants twice attacked evangelical Christians in India's southern state of Karnataka, injuring several believers, including women and children, Christians told Worthy News.

A New Jersey community of 72 Indonesians who years ago were spared deportation after a pastor brokered an agreement with immigration authorities allowing them them to stay in the country temporarily may soon be deported thanks to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Nepal Police deactivated a bomb discovered near the entrance of the Navajiwan Church in Kathmandu last month.

More than 30,000 Christians recently took part in a prayer meeting in Hubli, Karnataka despite efforts by pro-Hindu groups to disrupt them.

A mob of men attacked leaders of a Baptist house church near Hanoi Sunday, seriously injuring a pastor and several others, including women and teenage children.

The leader of a hardline Hindu group wants India's constitution to legalize the killing of Christian evangelists and, for instance, promoters of other non-Hindu religions.

A government military unit assigned to clear a road assaulted and then arrested five men including a pastor of the Catholic Association.

Chinese authorities have stepped up their "longstanding opposition to Christianity" in China last year, an influential human rights group said in comments monitored by Worthy News.

One of China's largest house congregations planned to hold its last outdoor worship service on Christmas Day in the capital Beijing after months of detentions, while elsewhere several congregations were raided by Chinese security forces as part of a Christmas season crackdown, local Christians and activists said.

China has unexpectedly released a prominent house church leader from prison amid international concerns about his health, his family and rights activists confirmed Monday, September 19.

Last Sunday five members of a house church in Fangshan tried to worship with members of the embattled Beijing Shouwang house church in a public square in Beijing.

Fifteen house church leaders from remote regions of China are being detained while local police attempt to extort money from their families for their release.

Pastor Shi Enhao, deputy chairman of the Chinese House Church Alliance, has been sentenced to two years of "re-education through labor," an extra-judicial punishment handed out by police that requires no trial or conviction of a crime, Worthy News has learned.

A leader in China's growing underground church movement who disappeared last month was actually in police custody. Held on "suspicion of using superstition to undermine national law enforcement," Shi Enhaoi is one of 150 million Chinese Christians who refuse to join the Communist Party's Three-Self Patriotic Movement: the only officially sanctioned Protestant church on the mainland.

Chinese authorities recently expelled yet another member of Beijing's largest unregistered house churches. Chuan Liang was the second member of the Shouwang "keeping watch" Church to be expelled from the city since authorities compelled the congregation to meet outdoors; the first expulsion came after Shouwang Church held its fifth consecutive outdoor Sunday worship service when 15 members were taken to 10 police stations across Beijing, but most were released within 24 hours.

Police detained 16 more members of Beijing's Shouwang House Church and placed others under house arrest: two were held in protective custody while the rest were sent to 10 different police stations; most were released by Sunday morning.

Chinese authorities have detained a key official of an influential umbrella group of house churches in China as part of a wider crackdown on unauthorized worship in the country, rights activists and Chinese Christians said Thursday, June 2.

Protestants in the eastern Turkish province of Van have finally succeeded in opening a house church after seven years of struggling with local bureaucracies, yet they are still concerned by the hostile rhetoric coming from their local officials.

A British family doctor defended suggesting faith in Jesus Christ to a patient last year despite facing disciplinary action and concerns he could lose his job.

Kazakh Christians gathering without government approval were expected to face more punishments after officials said Kazakhstan's long-time President Nursultan Nazarbayev won Sunday's presidential poll.

A Christian father spent another day in a German prison Saturday, March 26, after refusing to pay a fine for not allowing his children to attend government-run "sexual education" classes, his lawyers said.

A Turkish court on Monday, March 21, ordered five military officers and two civilians jailed as part of an investigation into the 2007 killings of three Christians at a Bible-publishing house.

After a lengthy legal battle, a Turkish judge acquitted two Christians of insulting Turkey and its people by spreading Christianity, but not without imposing a heavy fine for another unrelated charge.

Forensic analysts have exhumed what are believed to be the bodies of late Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, who were executed in 1989. It comes after relatives raised doubts that the couple was really buried in Romania's capital Bucharest.

The pastor of the largest Pentecostal church in Russia's violent, mainly Muslim republic of Dagestan, has died after being shot in the head, in an apparent bid to intimidate converts from Islam, Christian rights activists and police said Friday, July 16.

Thousands of Christians worldwide will unite in prayer for Burma next week as part of global day of prayer for the nation, organizers said.

Ukrainian election officials say they will not consider Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's complaints of presidential election fraud. Results show opposition leader Victor Yanukovich defeated Tymoshenko by 3.5 percentage points in the February 7 runoff election.

Approximately 35 Christians in Saudi Arabia face deportation on the charge of "illicit mingling," according to a report by the global rights body Human Rights Watch (HRW).

Syrian and Iranian Christians are being targeted for further persecution, according to Christian news reports.

A leader of Israel's Christian minority has been stabbed to death by a man dressed as Santa Claus, prompting the arrest of six locals in connection with the murder, church and police officials said Saturday, January 7.

A Christian woman who was detained as part of Iran's crackdown on devoted Christian converts has been released after more than nine months imprisonment, but concerns remain over other jailed believers, Worthy News learned January 1.

A senior evangelical pastor and his wife are spending Christmas behind bars in southern Iran after security forces raided their Assemblies of God-affiliated church, detaining everyone in the building, including children attending Sunday School, a friend of the couple told Worthy News.

Iranian pastor Youcef Nadarkhani has to serve at least one more year in prison before he may be executed for refusing to abandon his faith in Christ and return to Islam, an official assisting him told Worthy News Thursday, December 14.

The "Jewish terrorist" who tried to murder members of an Israeli Messianic family on account of their faith has been declared fit to stand trial.

Iran has ordered three evangelical house church pastors to report to prison within a month�and serve lengthy jail terms on charges linked to their Christian activities, a well-informed source told Worthy News late�Tuesday, November 29.

As protesters demanding more freedom and fair elections prepared to demonstrate in freezing temperatures in Moscow Saturday, February 4, a major Russian mission group warned of more difficulties for evangelical Christians and other, religious, minorities in Russia and other former Soviet Union nations.

Authorities in eastern Uzbekistan have warned local churches not to allow youngsters and children to attend their worship services and not to carry out missionary activities or "proselytism", the word for evangelism, local Christians and activists said.

Evangelical Christians in Belarus and Kazakhstan faced increased pressure Friday, October 21, to halt unauthorized worship services after pastors were fined and churches raided in the former Soviet republics.

Lawmakers in Kazakhstan have voted for controversial legislation that Christians and rights activists say will further limit religious freedom in the mainly Muslim Central Asian state.

Police who raided a Protestant family's home in Fergana also assaulted the husband as they confiscated a Bible, an Uzbek New Testament, the Proverbs of Solomon and a Koran.

Although the Law on Parental Responsibility for the Education and Upbringing of Children has recently been enacted, Religious Affairs officials haven't explained how the ban on children's participation in worship will be enforced.

The Tajikistan Parliament recently adopted two new laws that could ban children from participating in religious activities.

Rights activists and religious groups in Armenia say new legislation will increase intolerance towards the country's evangelical Christians and other minorities, some of whom already face prosecution for their church activities.

Pastor Yerzhan Ushanov of New Life Protestant Church in Taraz is looking at two years' imprisonment if criminal charges for injuring an individual's health ever come to court, Christian rights investigators said.

At least four incidents of Christian persecution were reported from the former Soviet country of Uzbekistan this week. According to an analysis and report researched and written by Fernando Perez for the World Evangelical Alliance � Religious Liberty Commission, a Christian woman was beaten into concussion, another woman was fined $1,465 by a court for giving the New Testament to a child, a Christian man was threatened with axe attack by a police official and another man was assaulted by police.