Christian Solidarity Worldwide, 7 May 2020

For the past 17 years CSW, along with other NGOs, have organised a protest vigil outside the Eritrean Embassy in London in May to mark the anniversary of the Eritrean government’s outlawing of religious practices not affiliated with the Catholic, Evangelical Lutheran and Orthodox Christian denominations or Sunni Islam in May 2002, and the  campaign of arrests, which at its peak saw at least 3000 Christians of all denominations detained arbitrarily.

CSW has now joined 23 other NGOs in signing an open letter to member and observer states of the United Nations Human Right Council, calling for the renewal of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Eritrea.

The Special Rapporteur’s reports are a key means of monitoring the human rights situation in Eritrea, where officials are deemed to have committed violations amounting to crimes against humanity since 1991.  However, the Eritrean government has refused to cooperate with successive mandate holders, and the country’s human rights situation continues to deteriorate. The current mandate is due to expire at the 44th session of the HRC, which is currently scheduled to begin in June 2020.

Open Doors, 11 May 2020

“Do you want your family, or do you want your new faith?”  10 years ago, Kabil knew he had to choose Jesus. Nothing can equal the life that Jesus gave to me.”

When Kabil first became a Christian, his family were not particularly hostile. A few years later, however, things got worse. Kabil has not seen his mother since then and is only rarely in contact with his brothers and sisters.

Shortly after he decided to follow Christ, Kabil was give the role of Bible teacher in his church – and noticed that what they were lacking was discipleship training.

“After we started offering the Open Doors Discipleship course, we noticed changes among our brothers. We saw that they were staying in the church.”

The course has been transformative in Kabil’s church.  “I think that if this training did not exist, the church would not last over time.”

Currently, there are about 350 attendants in different churches, including many whose faith has to be kept secret from their families.

Kabil sees blessing in the midst of persecution. “I would say that persecution is never fatal to the church; actually, it is a blessing.”

Christian Solidarity Worldwide, 20^th April 2020

A religious leader and his colleague are kidnapped from a migrant shelter and not seen or heard from since. Another is assaulted, extorted and threatened at gunpoint. Both provided protection to migrants and asylum seekers trapped on the border. Religious leaders warn that threats and attacks against them are one of the most serious problems facing churches today in ironically one of the world’s most religious countries, Mexico.

The worsening situation for migrants and asylum seekers passing through Mexico has been exacerbated by the US Migrant Protection Program which has made it increasingly difficult for migrants to win asylum cases in the US, and many have sought refuge in church-run migrant shelters across Mexico while they wait.

While many Protestant and Catholic leaders have responded to the rising levels of need in an outworking of their faith by following commands to help the poor, their work increasingly exposes them to organised criminal groups who prey on the vulnerable migrant population.

High levels of fear engendered by the brutal and very public tactics of illegal groups targeting migrants and intimidating the population mean that church leaders and other victims are usually extremely reluctant to speak out. Members of criminal groups very rarely have to face any kind of justice and the consequences of speaking out against them are potentially too horrific to consider.

World Watch Monitor,  January 15, 2020

A case can be made that today there are more Christians in China than members of the Communist Party.  Christians appear to threaten President Xi Jinping’s government as they worship a higher power than him and the Party.  But it would be impossible to imprison at least 90 million Christians as they have done to a million Uighur Muslims.

So China and other authoritarian states, which already heavily restrict ‘religious freedom’, are stepping up their use of biometric technology and artificial intelligence.

Children under 18 are now strictly forbidden to attend churches, especially in Henan where the percentage of Christians is among the highest.  In Xinjiang, one officially-sanctioned church requires congregants to queue for facial-recognition checks.

A Social Credit System (SCS), rating everyone to reward good citizenship and punish bad, is reportedly adding  penalties for those who “illegally spread Christianity”.

Online resources are a major source of encouragement for Christians. Online sharing will now be allowed only when the religious affairs department has issued a license for it.

In addition, the mass media continue to mischaracterize Christians as ‘agents of the West’.

Morning Star News, April 27, 2020

Presbyterian assistant pastor Sarfaraz Raja was preparing to deliver a Good Friday sermon in Pakistan on April 10 when he heard that police had intruded into his house and were harassing his mother and other family members.

“I excused myself from the sermon and immediately rushed to my home with the village headman, Chaudhry Ranjeet Lal, and some other people,” said Pastor Raja.

They found Sub-Inspector Shahbaz Ahmed and five other policemen threatening his mother and family members.

“Instead of explaining the purpose of his raid, SI Shahbaz grabbed my collar and bundled me into their vehicle.”  Police also arrested his uncle, Manzoor Raja, who lives with the family.

Upon reaching the police station, officers took liquor manufacturing equipment from a room and forcibly took the two men’s photographs with it. They then accused them of illegally manufacturing and selling liquor.

He was released on bail the next day. Police falsely arrested him because he has complained about them protecting area criminals, the pastor said.  “Almost all crimes in our villages are backed by the local police,” he said.

He said his involvement and prior complaints of criminal activities had drawn the ire of Shahbaz.

Villagers are standing by ready to vouch for him, and the village headman, Lal, said he supported Pastor Raja.

Barnabas Fund, 7 April 2020

A local pastor called for prayer as he reported the arrival of a vast swarm of young desert locusts in north-eastern Uganda.

The immature locusts migrated in a dense swarm from Kenya, at the “worst possible time”, when farmers are planting new crops for a much needed harvest in a few months’ time.  Severe food shortages are anticipated.

“Because these locusts are still young, they are much more dangerous than the previous ones. Their lifespan is still long and they have the capacity to eat and destroy anything that they come across,” the pastor warned.

With the country now battling to contain the coronavirus pandemic, it has been difficult for regional authorities to effectively track the movement of the locusts.

New swarms are now forming and representing an “unprecedented threat to food security and livelihoods”, according to The Food Security Cluster (FSC).

Morning Star News, April 13, 2020

When a convert from Islam in Iran was sentenced to two years in exile in Sarbaz last year, the judge warned him that religious extremists in the remote desert town would treat him harshly.

When Ebrahim Firoozi arrived near the border with Pakistan in November, though, he found that the fear the judge tried to instil in him was unfounded – local Muslims were helpful, open and hospitable.

Upon his arrival in Sarbaz, one person invited him to stay at his home the first night; others quickly found him a place to live.  Local people’s kindness only increased when they learned he was exiled for his Christian faith rather than for a crime.

“I found these people to be very noble,” Firoozi, 34, said in an interview posted on YouTube in which he opened up about his conversion and his years in prison before exile.

He believes this kindness was an answer to the prayers of worried friends, family and others.  “The reason people were nice to me wasn’t because of my own character or my goodness.  It was all because of God.”

Morning Star News, April 10, 2020

Intelligence officials in Cuba have increased harassment of an independent journalist, summoning the Christian and his mother twice in the past two weeks for reporting on human rights issues.

Yoe Suárez has reported in Cuba since 2014 about human rights and freedom of religion issues, including the husband-and-wife team Ramón Rigal and Adya Expósito, imprisoned in 2019 for home-schooling their children.

An intelligence official identifying himself as “Captain Jorge,” summoned Suárez and his mother on April 3 to the Siboney Police Station in Havana and issued a series of implied threats to Suárez’s mother about consequences her 29-year-old son would suffer if he continued working as a reporter outside of Cuban intelligence controls.

“This time they were much less kind than the last,” Suárez said. “He mentioned that I qualified for the crime of mercenarism.”  This crime calls for prison of 10 to 20 years, or death, for a Cuban citizen found guilty of it.

Suárez said the official told him he does not care if a journalist works for a non-state media outlet “as long as he does so under the control of the State Intelligence.’”

Suárez, a member of the Cuban Evangelical League, said authorities are targeting him not for anything specific but due to “a cluster of anger about my work.”

Barnabas Fund, 26 March 2020

A Vietnamese Christian, imprisoned for advocating religious freedom for his Christian Montagnard community, was released in late February, in poor health, after 16 years in prison.

Y Ngun Khul endured beatings from prison guards, leaving him physically scarred, and was repeatedly kicked in the stomach. “Now I can eat only a bowl of rice per day because I have stomach problems that make it hard for me to breathe.” he explained.

During his absence, Y Ngun’s family lost their home and land. They were able to visit him only four times in 16 years, as their Dak Lok home was more than 600 miles away from Nghe An, where Y Ngun was imprisoned.

Ngun was sentenced to 18-years in prison on 20 April 2004 after highlighting the government’s discrimination against and targeting of his community.

Many Montagnard Christians have fled into neighbouring Cambodia and Thailand to escape government-sanctioned persecution. More than 350 Montagnard Christians have been imprisoned by the government since 2001.  Local authorities have attempted to coerce these Vietnamese Christians to recant their faith.  10,000 Montagnards remain stateless because authorities refuse to issue ID cards, household registration or birth certificates, often because they refuse to renounce Christ.