(excerpts)

Iranian-Armenian pastor – 10 years’ imprisonment

Barnabas Fund – 10 May 2022

An Iranian-Armenian pastor has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for running a “house church” in Tehran.  Anooshavan Avedian was also sentenced to 10 years of “deprivation of social rights” – restrictions on his employment, for example – on his release from prison.

Two church members, Abbas Soori and Maryam Mohammadi, both converts from Islam, were also sentenced to 10 years’ deprivation of rights and a 2-year ban on travelling abroad or joining any social group, 2-year exile from Tehran province, and fined £1,400.

Anooshavan was convicted of, “establishing and leading an illegal group aimed to disrupt the security of the country through educational and propaganda activities contrary to and disturbing to the holy religion of Islam”.

The three were arrested after a raid on the house church in August 2020, held in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison, and subjected to solitary confinement and interrogation.

Other church members were forced to sign documents promising not to attend further house church meetings or make contact with any other Christians.

Farsi-speaking Christians are converts from Islam – that is, apostates – and punishable according to Islamic law.

(excerpts)

Afghan Christians at risk of death for apostasy

Barnabas Fund, 26 April 2022

The annual report of the US Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has argued that Christians in Afghanistan are still at risk.

Since the August 2021 US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban takeover, the threat to Christians – all considered apostates from Islam – has increased.

USCIRF has recommended that the US Government designate Afghanistan a “Country of Particular Concern” saying “Christian converts are among those who practice their faith in hiding due to fear of reprisal and threats from the Taliban and separately from the Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISIS-K).”

Taliban have gone door-to-door searching for Christians.

“One leader of a house church network received a threatening letter in August from Taliban militants.”

Taliban rule also places believers at greater risk of violence and death at the hands of their neighbours, including even friends and family.

Since mid-2021 the Taliban have said that Christians must leave, re-convert to Islam, or face death.

Western governments have also largely failed in assisting Christians who have fled for their lives from Afghanistan and need safe places to re-settle.

Algerian church forced to close

Barnabas Fund, 19 April 2022 (excerpts)

A church in the port city of Béjaïa, Algeria, has been closed with immediate effect.

The provincial governor issued an administrative closure order on 21 March, communicated to the Aouchiche church leaders on 6 April, to stop worship meetings.

The church has more than 300 members and belongs to the officially recognised group of Protestant churches in Algeria.

Aouchiche is the seventeenth such church to be closed by the authorities since November 2017.

A 2006 ordinance stipulates that permission must be obtained before a building is used for non-Muslim worship. 

Several churches have been closed under this ordinance in recent years.  The licensing commission established at the time has yet to grant a single licence.

On 2 February, the governor of Tizi Ouzou province filed a case against the pastor of the church in Ait Atteli with the aim of closing the church.

No date for a court hearing has been scheduled yet.

Pray for Algerian church leaders to persevere in the face of increasing threats to churches.  Ask that the campaign of church closures will cease, for those churches closed to be re-opened, and that Christians are able to live in peace and freedom.

(excerpts)

50 Nigerians killed and 100 abducted in Kaduna

Barnabas Fund, 29 March 2022

At least 50 people were killed and more than 100 abducted, including a church minister, when nine villages in northern Kaduna State, Nigeria were attacked late on 24 March and into the early hours of 25 March.

A church and homes were razed, around 30 vehicles set on fire and cattle stolen during the assaults on the 9 communities.

Former Kaduna State Governor, Ahmed Makarfi, said the violence was especially distressing as it came soon after more than 30 Christians were killed on Sunday 20 March in attacks on 4 villages in southern Kaduna State by suspected Fulani militants.

Makarfi, a Muslim, said both atrocities were a “stark reminder of the perilous times we seem to be in”.

“They are as abhorrent as they are condemnable,” he added.  “No group or individual should be allowed the latitude to reduce human life to this or any other level of insignificance.”

He urged government and security agencies to come up with a new strategy to end the violence.  “It is my earnest prayer that we don’t witness this again in the state,” added Makarfi.

Believers in authority in Christian-minority lands  (excerpts)

Barnabas Fund, 15 March 2022

On 4 March Priya Rajan, a 28-year-old Christian woman, was sworn in as the mayor of Chennai (Madras), India’s fourth largest city and the state capital of Tamil Nadu.

This is Mayor Rajan’s first official post, and she demonstrates a genuine desire to help and serve the people of her community.

Similarly, last month saw the appointment of a Christian, Boulos Fahmy Eskandar, as the head of Egypt’s highest court. 

Remember in prayer Mayor Rajan and other believers called to positions of authority in Christian-minority contexts.

In January 2021 another Christian, Listyo Sigit Prabowo, was appointed as National Police Chief of Indonesia.

It is to the credit of India – and to any country where Christians are a minority – when Christians are able to seek and to hold high office.

We are called to pray for “all those in authority” (1 Timothy 2:2), but we must particularly remember our brothers and sisters called to such positions in Christian-minority contexts.

We can pray that the Lord will grant them wisdom, keep them safe, and make them witnesses of Him as they serve their nations and their communities.

Christians driven from their home in Laos

(excerpts)

Barnabas Fund, 25 February 2022

Villagers drove a Christian family of twelve from their home in southern Laos in anger at the family’s practice of a “foreign” religion.

On 9 February the family home in Savannakhet province, was burned down in the attack.  Tensions were already apparent after the family’s father died on 4 December 2021. Villagers physically prevented the family from using the village cemetery for the burial.

The family had also been evicted from the village in 2017. “They don’t want us here. They say they don’t like the religion of a foreign country.”

An official for the district gave assurances that a police investigation into the incidents was underway but suggested that their “initial information is that this is a personal conflict, not a religious one”.

Other Christians pointed out that the village chief had participated in the attack at the funeral and lamented the lack of response from local authorities.

“The police always side with village authorities and other villagers too, so we have nowhere else to turn for help.”

Christians have been the victims of similar attacks in rural areas of Laos, a communist state with a predominantly Buddhist population. 

The country’s Law on the Evangelical Church, approved and signed into law in December 2019, gives Lao Christians the right to conduct services and preach throughout the country and maintain contacts with believers outside Laos.

Egypt upholds religious freedom for Christians

Barnabas Fund, 11 February 2022

(excerpts)

The improved situation of Christians in Muslim-majority Egypt is an encouragement to Christians across the world.

That improvement was underlined with the appointment of a Christian, Judge Boulos Fahmy Eskandar, as President of the country’s Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC). No Christian has ever before been appointed to this position.

The SCC has truly significant powers, with the authority to judge whether or not Egypt’s laws and regulations are constitutional.

The appointment demonstrates the commitment of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to treating Christians as equal citizens.

President al-Sisi has already taken a courageous stand for religious freedom, for example in repealing Ottoman-era restrictions on the building of churches.

His government has worked steadily to legalise churches – 2,162 out of 3,730 applications from churches for licences have been approved – while congregations are allowed to worship in unlicensed church buildings pending completion of the licensing process.

The appointment of Judge Boulos is unusual in an Islamic context, where it is not expected that Christians or other non-Muslims will rise to positions of power and authority.

Yet in Egypt there is enthusiasm for the appointment.  Moushira Khattab, a Muslim and leader of Egypt’s National Council for Human Rights, described it as “historic” and “a giant move” for equal rights.

Indian government must protect minorities more

Barnabas Fund, 25 January 2022

A Christian Indian politician has called on the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to do more to protect Christians and other religious minorities from extremist groups.

Margaret Alva, formerly a member of the Indian Parliament and successively Governor of Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Goa, complained that religious minorities were at risk of becoming “second-class citizens”.  

Margaret Alva says atrocities against India’s minorities are mounting 

Ms Alva also argued that the silence of Prime Minister Modi was taken as “tacit approval and encouragement” by extremist elements within Indian society.

The Indian constitution, she added, which guarantees freedom of religion, must be upheld.

Ms Alva’s intervention comes amidst against churches and Christian communities across India.

(excerpts)

Pakistani sentenced to death for “blasphemy”

Zafar Bhatti, a Pakistani Christian who was convicted of “blasphemy” in May 2017, was sentenced to death by Rawalpindi District Court on 3 January.

Bhatti, who has been fighting to clear his name since his arrest in 2012, appeared in court as part of an ongoing appeal against the life sentence he received when first convicted for allegedly sending texts insulting Muhammad on a phone that was not registered in his name.

The court, however, upheld the 2017 conviction, and further ruled that the proper sentence for “blasphemy” against Muhammad, the Islamic prophet, was death rather than life imprisonment.

The ruling is based on a 1991 constitutional court decision that the death penalty is the only appropriate punishment for “blasphemy” against Muhammad.

Laws outlawing insulting religion have existed in the region since 1860, were incorporated into Pakistan’s Penal Code in 1947 and were strengthened under the military government (1978-88, stating that any person who “defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet” is to be “punished with death or imprisonment for life”.

This, however, was followed by the 1991 court ruling that the only suitable punishment for “blasphemy” against Muhammad was death, a more lenient sentence of life imprisonment being “repugnant to the injunctions of Islam”. 

Higher courts are, nevertheless, reluctant to uphold a death sentence, and no executions have ever been carried out.

Russian armed officers disrupt conference (excerpts)

Barnabas Fund, 14 December 2021

Several dozen officers from the Centre for Combating Extremism disrupted a Christian conference near Moscow, on 2 December, wearing bulletproof vests, armed with machine guns and confining attendees in the conference building for around ten hours.

Before being released the majority of attendees were charged with an “administrative offence” – thus violating “the rules and norms” of the Russian Federation – because the Christian ministry that had organised the event had been declared an “undesirable” foreign organisation.

Having entered the building, security officers aimed their guns at the attendees – including women and children – forcing them to lie face down on the floor.  Some pastors in attendance were kicked as they lay on the floor, despite offering no resistance, and some sustained injuries.

Anybody who asked the reason for the intrusion was met with the answer “shut up” or “shut your mouth”.

“We, as citizens of Russia, are interested in the legality of our actions. We pray for and bless Russia – we want to serve for the good of our country. But such actions of ‘law enforcement officers’ armed to the teeth undermine the credibility of the authorities in the most monstrous way.

“After all, now, judging by everything that happened, armed people will be able to break into any Christian congregation under the guise of it being an ‘undesirable organisation’ and mock believers, including women and children.”