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.

World Watch Monitor, November 2, 2018

At least seven people have been killed and 14 injured in another attack on Coptic Christians in Egypt.

The attack reportedly took place at almost exactly the same location as the May 2017 attack by Islamist militants which left 28 dead. This latest attack again targeted a bus full of Copts heading back from St. Samuel’s monastery in Minya.  Local contacts confirmed that two church-owned buses were targeted – one big, one small.

“The driver of the big bus managed to escape the scene and no-one in that bus got hurt. The second, smaller bus, did not manage to escape. The terrorists stopped the bus and opened fire on the passengers,” said a priest in Minya.  

The injured have been taken to different hospitals in the area.

Hanaa Youssef Mikhael, who lost her husband in the 2017 bus attack, said: “I am very sad about what happened. And I am startled: How is it possible that this happened again?”

“Why were they not protected?” asked Emad Nasif, a deacon in a church in Minya. “There seems to be an indifference to the safety of the Christian minority.”

Open Doors, 11 October 2018

 As our workers walked through a village in Indonesia, surrounded by the rubble and destruction left behind by the recent earthquake, they could hear voices singing ‘Hallelujah’.  Coming round the corner they found a group of believers, under a tent, singing their praises to God.

 It’s incredible to see the faith of our brothers and sisters in Indonesia, even in the most difficult circumstances. The toll of dead and missing following the earthquake and tsunami now approaches 5,000, and thousands more are homeless.

On top of that, Christians are facing discrimination because of their faith as aid is distributed.

 One of the Open Doors workers shared that, when military tents and other relief aid were sent to the Muslim victims of Petobo, only a small amount of instant noodles were given to the Christians of a neighbouring village. The worker says that such discrimination is widespread.

 And yet, our brothers and sisters still choose to sing ‘Hallelujah’.

Morning Star News, October 12, 2018

Rights groups learned last week that two Christians in Iran have been sentenced to prison.

Saheb Fadaei, already serving a 10-year prison sentence in Tehran, and Fatimeh Bakherti, both converts from Islam, were sentenced to 18 months and 12 months respectively for “spreading propaganda against the regime,” a common charge, according to Miles Windsor of Middle East Concern (MEC).

“It is essentially used along with charges such as ‘acting against national security’ as a broad charge against Christians,” Windsor said. “And it will relate to innocent activities as members of a house church.”

The verdict, which is being appealed, stated that house church discussions of Christian doctrine regarding the ascendancy of Christ and the ultimate authority of the Bible were interpreted as attacks on Islam.

Such a statement reveals the true religious-based motives behind the arrests, Windsor said.

Morning Star News, October 17, 2018

Security officials in Sudan last week arrested 13 Christians during a worship service in the Darfur Region.

Sudan’s National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) gave no reason for arresting the Christians, except to say that they were all converts from Islam.  Authorities are targeting Christian converts from Islam in Darfur.

One source said that “the Christians gathered as one body of Christ from different denominations.”

NISS, widely regarded as an agency staffed by hard-line Islamists, may hold people in detention for up to four and a half months without charges.

Sudan since 2012 has expelled foreign Christians and bulldozed church buildings. Besides raiding Christian bookstores and arresting Christians, authorities threatened to kill South Sudanese Christians who do not leave or cooperate with them in their effort to find other Christians.

Due to its treatment of Christians and other human rights violations, Sudan has been designated a Country of Particular Concern by the U.S. State Department since 1999.

Sudan ranked fourth on Open Doors’ 2018 World Watch List of countries where Christians face most persecution.

World Watch Monitor, September 26, 2018

Around 30 people have died following attacks by Fulani militants on five predominantly Christian communities in northeast Nigeria.

Between September 13 and 16, the villages of Gon, Bolki, Ndumusu, Yotti and Yanga were under attack by Fulani militants who pillaged, murdered, chased, kidnapped, and burned down the houses of villagers.

3,000 homes were destroyed last December after fighter jets, sent by the Nigerian Air Force, allegedly fired rockets at villages where Fulani herdsmen were attacking Christians.

In the current attack, 27 people had been confirmed dead.  When residents heard gunshots, many fled into the bush or the river. Many who fled to the river drowned because they could not swim.