International Christian Concern, 18 January 2020

Following protests from local villagers, the administration in Yogyakarta and the Indonesia Pentecostal Church have agreed to move the church to Argosari village.

Last July, the regent of Bantul officially cancelled the building permit of the church. So its congregation was no longer allowed to perform worship services at the building.

Although the church took the matter to court, church leader Tigor Sitorus has now made the agreement with Bantul Regent Suharsono to seek a way out.

Tigor agreed to move the church to Argosari, which is about 4 kilometers away, for his congregation.

“What’s important now is to have a place of worship,” he said.  The new church will be built on land bought with his own money. He hoped the administration would help with the construction.

Suharsono promised to provide 100 bags of cement for the construction and to immediately issue the building permit for the new church.

Nevertheless, the solution has set a bad precedent for cases of intolerance seeming to justify residents’ protests.

Forum 18, 11 December 2019  

An Uzbek Religious Affairs Committee member has claimed that “there is no persecution for religious beliefs in Uzbekistan, but only cases of violation of the Religion Law.”

Officer Sergei of the SSS secret police has told religious leaders that they “must inform the authorities about all missionaries and their activity in writing, and help the authorities prevent violations of religious freedoms.”

One official claimed that the “reason you Protestants have difficulty gaining registration is the Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is because the local authorities cannot distinguish between Christians and Jehovah’s Witnesses.”

Protestants expressed their concerns about this.  “There are no legal grounds for the regime to demand that some religious communities collaborate with them against other communities.  We do not understand why officials demand Christian organisations launch a witch-hunt against Jehovah’s Witnesses.”

Barnabas Fund, 12 December 2019

Despite Putin’s recently proclaimed stance of protecting Christians, court actions by Russian authorities to close or place restrictions on evangelical churches suggest they are deliberately targeting evangelical Christians.

Another three evangelical churches have been closed where witness testimonies and the conclusions of independent commissions and examinations were ignored. 

A motion was filed against the Cathedral Church in Kaluga, on 3 December, prohibiting it from operating and seeking to demolish it.  Since its inception, the church has been subject to constant inspections as well as attempts to institute criminal proceedings against the pastor.

The Christian Evangelical Church has existed in Oryol on land it has owned since 1990. In early 2018, authorities inspected the church and identified 78 safety and other violations. In May 2018, the court issued a decision to close the building despite all violations being rectified.

Christian Olga Glamozdinova won a landmark legal case on 14 November when the Russian Constitutional Court ruled that worship services can take place in private houses.

Barnabas Fund, 6 December 2019

Authorities have forced a church in Jiangxi province to paint over its name and replace it with a communist slogan, “Follow the Party, Obey the Party, and Be Grateful to the Party,” as officials increasingly attempt to “sinicise” Christianity.

The church was also ordered to remove a painting of a Biblical figure and replace it with a portrait of China’s President Xi Jinping, surrounded by communist slogans.

Days later, officials locked the doors and windows and confiscated the keys to the church, registered under the state-sanctioned Patriotic Association, preventing the congregation from gaining access for worship.

Elsewhere, elderly members of an unofficial house church were told by the authorities that their retirement pensions would be stopped if they continued to gather for worship.

A secretive pact was thought to give both the Roman Catholic Church and the Chinese government a say in the appointment of new ministers.

Critics say that the government is now attempting to focus church teachings on Chinese patriotism and President Xi’s communist party, and church ministers are imprisoned or prevented from participating in religious festivals.

World Watch Monitor, 27November 2019

The authorities in Ethiopia’s northern region of Amhara had told the Ethiopian Fellowship of Evangelical Students it no longer could operate in the town of Debark.

Earlier this month, the police arrived to make arrests.

They showed up at a 3 November gathering and arrested an undisclosed number of people attending the event.

Police pressured students to sign an agreement never to gather in Debark.  Seven church leaders, detained for three days, were released after they signed a similar agreement.

The dominant Ethiopian Orthodox Church considers the Debark region to be holy, and pressure on Protestant Christians in the area has been growing for years.

Ethiopia’s politics are charged by pronounced ethnic and religious divisions.

Open Doors, November 27, 2019

On Sunday December 1, armed men stormed a Protestant church near the border with Niger. They killed the pastor, and 13 other worshippers, including five teenagers.

This is the latest in a series of attacks specifically targeting Christians. At least 41 Christians have been killed in 9 reported jihadist attacks since the beginning of the year. An unknown number of pastors and their families have been abducted and remain in captivity.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but it is assumed to be the work of an Islamic extremist group. Clearly some militants are deliberately targeting Christians because of their faith. Extremists have started expelling Christians from their villages, with villagers given an ultimatum: convert to Islam or leave your homes.

Pastor Samuel Sawadogo, who cares for displaced Christians in Burkina Faso, says, “We don’t know who the attackers are, neither do we know who is sponsoring them. All we know is that they attack Christians.”

Christian Solidarity Worldwide, November 30, 2019

 Church leaders, human rights defenders and other activists continue to face government harassment and arbitrary detention in the wake of the approval of a new constitution that further restricts freedom of religion or belief.

The Ladies in White, a peaceful protest group consisting of wives and female family members of political prisoners, are frequently detained from attending Sunday mass and dropped off in a remote area to find their own way home.

Despite this worsening situation, there has been an unprecedented show of unity among the denominations.

In June, seven Protestant denominations, including the five largest in terms of membership, joined together to launch a new Cuban Alliance of Evangelical Churches in a show of inter-denominational unity that has not been witnessed since the 1959 Revolution.

Pray that their efforts will lead to true religious freedom in Cuba.

Barnabas Fund, 19 November 2019

Authorities in Indonesia seem to be combatting hard-line Islamist ideology by replacing school textbooks containing radical material.

Until about a generation ago Indonesian Muslims and Christians lived peaceably side by side as equals. However, in many parts of the country this no longer holds true and Christians, at least 15% of the population, have been facing discrimination, harassment and violence.

It is thought that 19% of civil servants in Indonesia favour establishing an Islamic state. Some 18% of private employees and 23% of students shared this view.

Earlier this year, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the world’s largest moderate Muslim movement, made an unprecedented decision to abolish the legal category of “infidel” for non-Muslims, sweeping away Islamic doctrines used by extremists to justify terrorism.

Barnabas Fund, 18 November 2019

Syriac Christian minister Hoseb Bedoian and his father were shot dead by two motorcycle gunmen who ambushed their car on the road from Qamishli to Deir al-Zor, in north-east Syria, on 11 November.  Some reports have linked the gunmen to ISIS. 

A few hours later, three bombs concealed on motorbikes were detonated at five-minute intervals in the city of Qamishli, in a coordinated attack targeting Kurdish and Christian communities, killing at least eight people. Some reports numbered fatalities as high as 30.

The first exploded in a quiet predominantly Kurdish district. The second bomb exploded in the heart of the city’s market where a large number of Christians own property. The third was detonated on a road near a church and Christian school.

Barnabas Fund, 12 November 2019

Bible translator Benjamin Tem was murdered in his home in the Wum area of Anglophone Cameroon on Sunday 20 October when suspected extremists broke in.   

Tem’s murder comes only two months after the death of Angus Abraham Fung, another Bible translator, who was killed when assailants broke into his home in the early hours of Sunday 25 August. Fung’s wife was viciously attacked and had her arm chopped off. 

Both Tem and Fung worked for the Cameroon Association for Bible Translations and Literacy (CABTAL). They were key members of the Bible translation project which has published over 3,000 copies of the New Testament in the regional Aghem language. Prior to this translation project, the Aghem language only existed in oral form.