Morning Star News, 8 September 2022 (excerpts)

Muslim extremists killed 5 Christian workers by throwing them off a boat into Uganda’s Lake Kyoga.

The evangelists were traveling on a commercial transport boat with plans to plant a church in the Aduku area, a Christian survivor of the attack told Morning Star News.

The survivor, Amos Kyakulaga, who was acting as a guide, said the five evangelists began proclaiming Christ to a group of 10 Muslims in Islamic attire aboard the boat.

“On our way, Tonny Ankunda started preaching to the people on the boat, which resulted in a huge argument between Muslims and the missionaries concerning the Sonship of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

One of the Muslims, identified only as Bashir, threatened the Christians, saying, “If you continue insisting that Jesus is the Son of God, then Allah will kill all of you.”

Citing Scripture, the evangelists continued affirming the sonship of Christ and Bashir told them, “We are giving you one last minute to stop your blasphemy and to convert by confessing the shahada (Islamic creed), or else your lives are at risk.”

When the 5 evangelists refused to renounce Christ, the Muslims pushed them off the boat one by one, Kyakulaga said.  While the lake is only 4 to 5.7 meters deep, they were 200 meters from shore, and all five Christians drowned.

The 10 Muslims aboard were in agreement that the Christians should be killed.

The Muslims asked him if he was one of the missionaries, sparing him when he said he was not part of the church-planting team.

Release International, 11 August 2022 (excerpts)

A year after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, Christian TV companies report deeper religious persecution and restrictions in every area of life in Afghanistan.

One Christian viewer of SAT-7 said, ‘The security situation for someone like me who has accepted another faith is extremely concerning.  Pray for us.’

Another viewer said: ‘Fear and dread have taken all of Afghanistan, especially affecting religious and ethnic minorities. At checkpoints, mobile phones are checked.’

‘Christians live under daily threat and in danger,’ said Shoaib Ebadi, president of Square One World Media.

The latest report by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom stated: ‘Converts who already faced ostracization and the threat of honour killings by family and village members are now at heightened risk with the Taliban in power.’

Shoaib Ebadi added, ‘In the midst of darkness, Christian followers of Jesus are still trying to help the poor and be salt and light.’

‘They are questioning everything: their own faith, their past, their present, their future.  And all of them have mobile phones. Short videos about Jesus’ teaching and his life are being watched by hundreds and thousands.

Shoaib Ebadi believes the spread of the Christian faith in Afghanistan has overtaken even that of Iran, where it has been growing rapidly – despite or because of persecution. ‘The growth of the church in Afghanistan is ten times faster than in Iran,’ he claimed.

Church in Chains, 6 September 2022 (excerpts)

Islamic State terrorists shots dead two Copts, Hany Moussa Waheeb (40) and his father Salama Moussa Waheeb, in northwest Sinai on 30 August.

The shooting took place in a village where the two Christians had been working in fields on their family farm. They were seemingly shot at random – police discovered their bodies after family members lost contact with them.

Hany leaves behind a wife and two young daughters, while Salama was father to two sons and three daughters.

In mid-August, Islamic State militants reportedly entered the area and began fighting police and military there.

Christian Solidarity Worldwide reports that in recent weeks Islamic State has increased its operations in North Sinai and that many Islamic State operatives have moved into cities on the west side of the Suez Canal.

The army has been engaged in counter-insurgency operations against Islamist militias in Sinai since 2011, and the jihadists have killed scores of security force members and also many Christians.

In 2017, most of the Coptic residents of Al Arish, capital of North Sinai governorate, fled their homes following the killing of seven Copts by Islamic State militants.

Voice of the Martyrs, 25 August 2022 (excerpts)

During the last week of May 2022, Eritrean police arrested 17 Christians who had gathered for prayer.  A week later, authorities arrested 25 more believers, including eight children. All 42 Christians remain in detention.

Located on the Red Sea, Eritrea is governed by a totalitarian regime that seeks to control every aspect of life.  Some have compared Eritrea to the “hermit kingdom” of North Korea, as it is one of the most secretive and isolated countries in the world.  In 2002, the government outlawed every form of religion except Islam, Orthodox Christianity, Roman Catholicism and the Lutheran Church.

Years of communism, required military service and economic depression have caused many Eritreans, including evangelical believers, to flee the country.  Travel for Eritreans is restricted by their government.

Over the past year, the government has released some Christian prisoners while arresting several new groups.  

Despite these hardships, the underground church in Eritrea continues to grow due to the faithfulness of church leaders inside and outside the country.

Voice of the Martyrs, 25 August 2022 (excerpts)

In Chiapas, Mexico’s southernmost state, Christian families often lose their livelihood when those opposed to their faith confiscate their land and expel them from their village.  A ministry called Houses of Refuge provides one-room homes with a porch and outhouse for such families, and they may stay for up to a year as they try to relocate in an area where they can live free of persecution.

The families receive spiritual encouragement as well as hands-on training in cultivating coffee, raising livestock and farming corn and other crops to help them support themselves.  Some of the women receive training in how to start and operate a small convenience store. After sensing God’s call, Pablo, a resident at the Houses of Refuge, was commissioned to return to the area where he had previously lived to proclaim the gospel to his persecutors.

Specific areas within southern Mexico have a high concentration of indigenous minority groups.  These minority communities, which maintain a separate identity and language, are systematically oppressed by local authorities.  Christians among them are persecuted by Marxist and animist groups as well as village leaders. These communities are remotely located and difficult to reach.  Despite persecution, the number of Christians has continued to grow in these areas.

In difficult areas within southern Mexico, evangelical Christians make up about 3 percent of the population.

Church in Chains, 31 August 2022 (excerpts)

On Sunday 14 August, at least twenty Chengdu police officers raided a gathering of between fifty and sixty members of Early Rain Covenant Church (ERCC) at a tea house in Chengdu’s Wuhou district and arrested Christian writer and translator Xing Hongwei, also known as A Xin.

ERCC is one of the most prominent unregistered house churches in China and has been heavily persecuted since a crackdown in 2018 when police detained over 150 members and closed down the church premises.  Its pastor, former law professor Wang Yi, is serving a nine-year prison sentence.

Police announced that the church gathering at the tea house was illegal and locked the doors, refusing to let anyone leave until they registered their ID – a demand that was without legal basis.  Xing Hongwei resisted and the situation escalated into what China Aid described as “a physical altercation”.

A Christian named Li told Radio Free Asia, “Xing Hongwei was slapped by police.  Police then pressed Xing Hongwei onto the ground and forcibly took him away… Later, we learned that he was criminally detained on the charge of ‘assaulting a police officer’”.

On 26 August, Xing Hongwei was released on bail pending trial, following 12 days in criminal detention.  His wife and other members of Early Rain met him at the Police Station and had a celebratory dinner together after his release.

Church in Chains, 04 August 2022 (excerpts)

On 13 July, Jumla High Court sentenced Pastor Keshav Raj Acharya of Pokhara city’s Abundant Harvest Church to one year in prison and a fine for proselytising.

The pastor was first detained in March 2020, released on bail the following month, but re-arrested the same day and charged with “outraging religious feelings” and “attempting to convert” under Nepal’s anti-conversion laws.

He was bailed in May 2020 but arrested a third time and released on bail in June of that year.  In November 2021, he was found guilty of proselytising (the first person convicted for proselytising under the anti-conversion laws of August 2018) and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment and a fine.  He was imprisoned until bail was granted in December.

In June 2022, Pokhara District Court in Kaski dropped all charges against Pastor Keshav, meaning that the High Court’s decision last month to sentence him to one year in prison came as a shock to his family.  

Joseph Jansen of Voice for Justice, said: “It is illegal and unethical to compel someone to change their faith by threat or coercion; however, Pastor Keshav Acharya did not resort to coercion to convert anyone to Christianity.  He only exercised his right to freedom of religion and did not commit any offence.  It is regrettable that Nepal’s anti-conversion laws are so worded and enforced that they may be applied as anti-blasphemy measures.”

Pastor Keshav’s lawyer is applying for bail and is appealing the verdict at the Supreme Court, citing Nepal’s constitution and international law commitments.

Open Doors, 10 August 2022 (excerpts)

North Korea has long been recognised as one of the hardest places in the world to follow Jesus, where Christians face almost unimaginable suffering if their faith is discovered.  A new report confirms this.

An inquiry by The International Bar Association and The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea found that ‘crimes against humanity have been, and continue to be, committed on a massive scale’ in North Korea’s detention centres.  And Christians are particularly targeted, and exposed to torture, in North Korean prisons.’

Prisons in North Korea are an extension of a political structure that aims to eliminate any threat to the country’s leadership and state ideology.  Believing in a higher power than the Kim family is considered such a threat, so anyone who follows Jesus, or even owns a Bible, is vulnerable to indefinite imprisonment in appalling conditions.

“One detainee estimated that between 50-60% of their fellow detainees had attended some form of Christian service in China.”

Christians who have escaped to China, or became Christians after fleeing North Korea, may be targeted by secret police and returned to North Korean prisons.  Witnesses have reported that ‘identified Christians are interrogated for longer periods, usually under torture’.

“The State considers the spread of Christianity a particularly serious threat, ideologically challenging the official personality cult and providing a platform for social and political organisation outside the realm of the State,” a 2014 UN report on human rights in North Korea said.

Forum 18, 05 August 2022 (excerpts)

Without facilities at Gomel’s Living Faith Church, Pastor Dmitry Podlobko held river baptisms in late 2021 without state permission.  He was fined 2 days’ average wage and his Church warned.  So he held baptisms in July 2022 in his garden.  A court fined him 2 weeks’ average wage. Asked whether Podlobko would have been punished had he and his friends been swimming, Police Chief Vasili Kravtsov responded: “They weren’t swimming in the pool. This was a religious ritual.  They are completely different.”

Kravtsov insisted that he had violated the law. “Before conducting any religious rituals you need to ask permission from the local Executive Committee.”  Such permission is often refused for events the authorities do not like.

Living Faith Church says it cannot afford such high costs. So after being punished for holding baptisms in 2021 in a river, Pastor Podlobko decided to hold baptisms in 2022 on private property but was fined anyway.

If a religious community repeats a “violation” within a year, the regime’s senior religious affairs official can apply to court for the community to be stripped of its right to exist.  Many such decisions cannot be legally challenged.

On 1 August 2022, Minsk City Executive Committee officially warned New Life Church that it had broken the law by holding Sunday services in the church car park on 26 June and 24 July without official permission.

Morning Star News, 25 July 2022 (excerpts)

Severe persecution of Hmong Christians is underway in the central Vietnam province of Nghe An where officials, vying with each other to create “Christian-free zones”, operate “with no conscience or humanity”. 

Authorities pressure animist relatives to drive Christians from their homes.  In the worst cases, villagers are pressured into seizing all the Christians’ property and driving them out of their community.  Officials say these outrages are purely family matters. 

Most Christians steadfastly refuse to give up their new-found faith, which they testify has freed them from the demonic oppression of their ancestral religion. 

Church leaders’ attempts to visit the persecuted have been blocked, and they have received no response from any government agency.

Such suffering, quietly going on for years, has hit mainly members of the not-yet-legally recognized Vietnam Good News Mission Church and the officially recognized Evangelical Church of Vietnam-North.

 Nghe An Province is the birthplace of Ho Chi Minh and thus proudly considered the cradle of the communist revolution.  Officials compete for the honour of calling their jurisdiction “a Christian-free zone.”

The refusal of any Vietnamese authority to intervene is inexcusable and argues for embarrassing exposure and international accountability.