Barnabas Fund, 13 November 2018

Thai authorities have divided Vietnamese Christian refugee families, holding adults in a detention centre and children elsewhere.

Thai authorities refuse to recognise as refugees Christian Montagnards from Vietnam who have fled to Thailand to escape persecution.

Most of the Montagnard Christians detained have obtained recognised refugee status from the UNHCR, but Thai authorities have a track record of ignoring refugees’ status and instead detaining or deporting them.

Their greatest concern is what might happen if they are deported to Vietnam, some believing they will be jailed and tortured. Human Rights Watch has officially stated “persecution is driving Christians from Montagnard ethnic minorities to seek asylum in neighbouring Thailand”.

World Watch Monitor, November 19, 2018

Young Ethiopian Christians are bribed with jobs and education prospects if they convert to Islam, according to the UK-based charity Aid to the Church in Need.

Unemployment is very high rate in Ethiopia, so such offers attract young people.

In one diocese, Muslims own the marble and gold mines and only give jobs to Muslims.

With money from Saudi Arabia, new mosques are being built in areas where permission to build new churches is difficult to obtain.

There are fears that Ethiopia – with a tradition of Muslims and Christians living together peacefully – is heading in the direction of Egypt and other countries that have seen an increase in the influence of foreign Islamic hard-liners.

Church in Nepal Forced to Shut Down

Morning Star News, November 16, 2018

High-caste Hindus have harassed a church in Nepal, forcing it to shut down last week.

For two months Brahmins, the highest Hindu caste, had disrupted worship of the church each week and Church members had resorted to meeting in homes, but the Brahmins issued threats to anyone meeting anywhere.

Church attendance dwindled from 30 to 15-18 people before disbanding last weekend due to fear.

Initially the Brahmins objected to guitar and drums in the church service, and then to the Lord’s Supper once a month.

Where there had previously been no opposition, extremist Hindu groups from India have influenced Nepal’s Hindus.

Morning Star News, October 31, 2018

Radical Muslims in eastern Uganda on Thursday (Oct. 25) threatened to strangle a 12-year-old Christian boy to death unless he converted to Islam.  Emmanuel Nyaiti was on his way to his grandmother’s house when four area extremists ambushed him after 9 p.m. and took him to a cassava plantation.  The boy was able to identify one attacker as Ali Lukuman and another as Abdul.

“Ali Lukuman tried to persuade me to become a Muslim, which I refused.  They continued threatening me that they will kill me if I will not convert to Islam.”

Lukuman had previously sent Emmanuel’s father, Yokosofat, threatening messages.  “If you want to stay with us in our village, then you have to become a Muslim, but if not then you have to leave.”

The police say they are investigating while the assailants have yet to be found.

The assault was the latest of many in eastern Uganda that Morning Star News has documented in the past six years.  Uganda’s constitution and other laws provide for religious freedom, including the right to propagate one’s faith and convert from one faith to another.  Muslims make up no more than 12 percent of Uganda’s population.

Morning Star News, November 2, 2018

 Three acts of aggression against Christians in Assam state, India in one month have raised concerns among Christian leaders.

 In Bongaigaon District, a radical Hindu mob on Oct. 2 assaulted three Christians in Dhaligaon village.  The hard-line Hindus refused to yield to orders to stop attacking Mahindra Brahma and his family, who became Christians 10 years ago.  Three guests had visited Brahma’s house that evening. After dinner, the extremists stopped their car and assaulted them with iron rods and stones.

 In Majuli District, a mob led by a Hindu priest attacked a church property on Oct. 15 and attempted to demolish the building.  Local villagers stopped them. Pastor Dutta, a convert from Hinduism, had built the bamboo structure for his 30-member congregation with his own hands.  “Once the villagers become Christians, they stop giving their offering to the temples, and this is making the Hindu priests angry.”

 In Sonitpur District, unidentified people desecrated a statue near a Catholic cathedral on Sept. 29.  “These people must have come prepared, because they used weapons to break the statue,” the principal of Emanuel Christian School told Morning Star News.