Secret police in Kyrgyzstan have deported and banned a jailed pastor who suffered a traumatic brain injury from torture, according to rights group Forum 18.
An independent Orthodox priest in Kazakhstan who publicly opposed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine remains in solitary pre-trial detention on drug charges his supporters call “fabricated.”
A Russian bomb on April 25 damaged a church building in eastern Ukraine for the second time, the same location where the pastor’s two sons were kidnapped during a service, tortured and killed in 2014.
The Rev. Vladimir Rytikov faces expulsion from his birthplace in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine after authorities accused him of “illegal missionary activity” and cancelled his residence permit, a rights watchdog reports.
A court in Russia on Thursday (Dec. 18) found a Russian priest guilty of “showing an overt disrespect for society” and imposed a 30,000 Ruble ($379) fine after authorities last month beat him, shaved his hair and beard and shocked him with a stun gun.
Russian courts intensified civil bans on Baptist churches for meeting without state permission in the past year, according to rights group Forum 18.
Amid allegations by U.N. special Rapporteurs of prison personnel torturing a church leader in Kyrgyzstan, the pastor has traumatic brain injuries that have left him cognitively impaired, according to rights group Forum 18.zstan
A Russian court last week jailed a church pastor for four years after he spoke out against the invasion of Ukraine in a sermon.
A documentary about the suffering of evangelical Christians in Ukraine shows how one objective of the Russian invasion is to degrade Christianity, including allowing Chechen Muslims to partially Islamize occupied areas.
Horrific human rights abuses of evangelical Christians by Russian authorities illegally occupying territories in Ukraine have been documented in a report released earlier this year.
A church pastor in Kyrgyzstan facing possible conviction on Thursday (May 29) of ‘inciting enmity’ was struck with an iron pipe, kicked and received blows to his head and chest after his arrest in November, according to rights group Forum 18.
A gang of Islamist youths in France shouting the jihadist slogan “Allah Akbar [God is greater]” this month threatened a Catholic priest and vowed to burn down his church building before fleeing.
