World in Brief

Lepel town police arrested members of a church library ministry for singing and offering Christian books and magazines to passers-by at the entrance to the town market, it was reported in December.

The local court repeatedly fined one of them to the total equivalent of double his monthly wage. ‘I’ve been conducting the street library ministry for 16 years, offering Bibles, children’s literature and magazines for people to read and return,’ said a church member. ‘Over the last ten years we never had any conflicts.’

A Canadian couple’s daughter’s school encouraged her to ‘transition’ without their knowledge, leading the child to the point of suicide, it was reported in December.

The school began using a male name and pronouns to describe her. Alongside autism, she has body dysmorphia, a mental health problem where there is preoccupation with non-existent or slight flaws in their physical appearance. The district had received training on LGGBDTTTIQQAAPP issues (Lesbian, Gay, Genderqueer, Bisexual, Demisexual, Transgender, Transsexual, Twospirit, Intersex, Queer, Questioning, Asexual, Allies, Pansexual and Polyamorous).

It was reported in December that Christian girls in Egypt are being targeted for kidnapping, forced marriage and conversion, with hundreds being taken from poor rural areas.

An epidemic believed to be funded by religious leaders with cash from Saudi Arabia was described in a report, with the latest target being young Christian boys. Report authors see this as a deliberate strategy of persecution and are urging Egypt to protect its vulnerable Christian minority. Men are paid up to £3,000 for an educated woman.

At least eight Christians were killed and several others wounded after gunmen attacked parishioners leaving a worship service in a town south of Cairo on 29 December.

Some of those wounded were in a critical condition after the attack by two gunmen on a motorbike as they left the church. One of the gunmen dismounted and tried to break through the security barrier in front of the premises, but police stopped him. An IS-affiliated group claimed responsibility for the attack.

All 32 Indian Christians from Madhya Pradesh who were arrested for blasphemy and false conversions on 14 December while singing carols, were set free from Satna Jail after intense police questioning.

Eight priests who were sent to help release the 32 victims from prison had also been arrested despite being victims of violence that resulted in their vehicle being torched. They have now also been released. However six of them have been placed on bail with an impending court hearing regarding an alleged forced conversion.

After being granted temporary release over Christmas, two of seven Christians who have been in prison for ten years, were back in jail on 6 January.

Evidence is mounting that their convictions may be false. Six of the seven are illiterate, and all continue to maintain their innocence. They were convicted of murdering a Hindu leader whose death in 2007 sparked the worst case of anti-Christian violence in India’s history.

Survivors of Islamic State’s genocide against Christians are not receiving justice in government trials of militants, it was reported in mid-December.

Christians have not been able to give evidence as witnesses and the widespread use of counter-terror laws in place of complex charges being applied is likely to result in perpetrators of the genocide not being held fully accountable for their actions.

Archaeologists discovered a 2,700-year-old seal that supports the Bible’s record of a governor ruling over the city of Jerusalem, it was reported in late December.

The seal is comprised of a stamped piece of clay and dates back to the period of the first Jewish temple. The coin-sized seal bears an inscription: ‘Belonging to the governor of the city.’ Archaeologists were able to date it because it was discovered in soil from the first temple period.

A Baptist community in eastern Kyrgyzstan feels threatened after unknown attackers set its church building on fire in early January.

Instead of pursuing the arsonists, police asked questions about who funded the church building, how many Kyrgyz are members, and why, as ethnic Muslims, they do not go to the local mosque. The church is in Kajisay, a small town in the Issyk-Kul region that borders China.

Authorities in a district in southern Laos arrested four Christians from the same village at the end of December.

A pastor from a neighbouring village who had been invited to help organise Christmas celebrations was also arrested. By inviting the pastor, the Christians had breached regulations which only permit believers to celebrate Christmas within their own village. At the time of writing the five believers had not been released.

Kachin Christians in northern Myanmar suffer greatly because of a military blockade that has cut food and fuel supplies, it was reported on 21 December.

A local church leader in Tanai, in northern Kachin state, said that the military has been restricting deliveries of rice and fuel for months. Some of the worst affected are Christians, who have already been displaced. Many of them are sheltering in churches in the town. The military’s brutal tactics have displaced tens of thousands of ethnic minority Kachin people, many of whom are Christian.

The latest in a series of Muslim Fulani attacks on a village in northern Nigeria saw a Christian’s two adult sons killed, churches closed and residents fleeing the area.

The village was attacked near midnight. The man’s wife and his niece were kidnapped, but released after a ransom was paid. The man himself had been a kidnap victim earlier in the year and had been released upon payment of a ransom. Four churches have been shut down and 15 people kidnapped during a sustained period of attacks.

New Year celebrations were marred by rapes and the murder of dozens across the country, including in peaceful states and in the predominantly Christian south.

Women were raped while returning from church services, people were robbed and church buildings destroyed. At least 16 people were killed as gunmen opened fire at churchgoers returning from a midnight service in the southern Rivers state. At least 50 people lost their lives in Benue state, on New Year’s Day.

A Christian woman and her adult daughter face kidnapping charges filed to pressure them into following her husband’s conversion to Islam, it was reported in January.

To get a government job, her husband converted to Islam, but the woman and her children are refusing to follow him (they separated since his conversion). As a result, the two have been threatened, beaten and subjected to all forms of indignity by the man and his Muslim collaborators.

A pastor who was stitched up by land-grabbing Muslims in his home town of Kamahan in Lahore was set free on 6 December.

During the proceedings Judge Malik ridiculed the evidence shown by the prosecution against the obviously innocent Christian man. The man, though illiterate, had been accused of writing his name on torn pages of the Qur’an a year ago. Despite the judge’s rule, he still had to pay a fine of £1,370 to be set free.

A seven-year-old Christian boy was killed in a grenade attack on the gates of a Christian community in Chaman, Balochistan, on 1 December.

Two other people were injured in the explosion, which shattered the windows of nearby homes. The apparently deliberate targeting of the Christian colony in Chamal took place on the final day of Mawlid – the annual observance of the birthday of Muhammad.

The Polish Government was warned by the EU about its plan to introduce pro-life legislation, it was reported in January.

Polish ministers are pressing ahead with plans to change the law to protect unborn children with disabilities from being aborted. The EU claims that the proposals represent a ‘serious breach of European values’. Despite the proposals receiving support from 830,000 Poles in a petition delivered to the Polish Government, the European Parliament said that if plans proceed, it may suspend Poland’s EU Council voting rights.

An Islamist judge in Sudan upheld the eviction of two pastors from their church-owned homes on 3 December while 60 other Christians were summoned to court over their refusal to relinquish property.

In what Christians believe is a campaign to take over church property, the judge ruled that a Muslim businessman, Hisham Hamad Al-Neel, should take over the houses. Documents had the wrong house number on them, and the business man is behind almost all the property claims.