Village officials in central Laos on Saturday (June 22) arrested a pastor and five other Christians as they prayed in preparation for worship services the next day, according to a rights watchdog.
A heightened sense of impunity and nationalism contributed to a surge in attacks on Christians and church properties in Israel in 2023, according to a Jerusalem-based inter-religious organization report.
A court in Iran upheld a 10-year prison sentence of an Armenian Christian for “deviant proselytizing” even though evidence against him was so weak that the judge decided the case on only his “intuition,” an advocacy group reported.
A Christian refugee in Egypt arrested for his faith and imprisoned alongside Islamist criminals has been denied medical care for heart and liver ailments despite complaining of chest pains as recently as April, sources said.
Jihadist insurgents in Mozambique are targeting Christians as they ramp up attacks in the country’s northern-most province, just as neighboring countries are planning to withdraw troops helping government forces to fight them.
On May 23, 2004, authorities in Eritrea arrested Kiflu Gebremeskel, a church pastor who had earned his Ph.D. in mathematics in Chicago, along with another Eritrean pastor from his Full Gospel Church of Eritrea denomination, Haile Nayzgi.
A court in Algeria last week upheld a one-year prison sentence for a top church leader baselessly convicted of “illegal worshipping,” according to a legal advocacy group.
Three days after Coptic Christians in southern Minya Governorate were attacked over “rumors” of plans for a new church, Muslim extremists upset over a permit to construct a church building on Friday (April 26) attacked Copts in another village.
The 16-year-old boy who allegedly knifed Eastern Syriac Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel in Australia on April 15 was part of an extremist group of teenagers, and authorities arrested seven of them on Wednesday (April 24), news media reported.
An Eastern Syriac bishop and at least three others were stabbed as he presided over a worship service in a suburb of Sydney, Australia that was being livestreamed on Monday evening (April 15).
Authorities in China issued threats of a long prison sentence and loss of property to Christians charged with “illegal business operations” for printing devotional materials intended only for their church, their attorney said.
Nicaragua has banned the Catholic Church’s public Holy Week celebrations for a second straight year amid other repressive measures that have included Protestant organizations.
