World in Brief

A Chinese bishop, who has been missing for more than 17 years, is suspected dead after China advocated for his replacement in July.

The Chinese Communist Party have begun to press for the appointment of Bishop Francis An Shuxin as a replacement for Bishop James Su Zhimin. This has led his supporters to fear that Bishop Su was murdered. Su was last seen at a Roman Catholic hospital in 2003. Since then, no one has been able to contact or locate him.

Chinese authorities are stepping up a policy of withdrawing government social welfare benefits from vulnerable Christians who refuse to renounce their faith.

In June, government officials had threatened to remove financial support from vulnerable elderly and disabled Christians in the provinces of Jiangxi, Shandong, and Henan. Emerging information indicates that the policy is now being rolled out to the wider Christian population and is being increasingly used as a means to intimidate and coerce believers.

Reports have emerged of the arrest and imprisonment of 45 people at Christian gatherings in Asmara, Eritrea’s capital city, over the summer.

15 Christians were arrested as they attended a worship service in a home in the Mai Chehot area of Asmara in April. They were initially detained in a local police station for several days, before being transported to Mai Serwa Prison, which is infamous for its inhumane conditions. A second group of 30 people were arrested at the wedding of a Christian couple during the last week of June.

A Christian family were asleep in their beds in central India when 15 villagers, who follow the local tribal religion, broke in and began beating them with wooden batons.

The family of Bhima and Devi Markham fled from their home in Devkupli Para, Chhattisgarh State ‘to save their lives’, their pastor said. The couple ran into the wilderness with their children while the assailants vandalised their house. The family then journeyed about two miles on foot before reaching their local church premises in Burdi village at 3am.

Two Christian families from Dassmora village, Azamgarh District, Uttar Pradesh, were forced to flee their village on 4 July, leaving their homes and livestock behind amid fears for their lives.

Christians began to experience harassment two days prior, when a mob of about 35 villagers entered a prayer house and verbally abused the people who were in the property. According to a local source, about 500 people from neighbouring villages used to visit the home for prayers.

In July, an Iranian Christian convert, convicted of being a member of a ‘zionist’ evangelical group, lost his appeal against two prison sentences.

The 65-year-old member of an Anglican church was informed that two of the three prison sentences he received earlier this year have been upheld, while one has been overturned.

Iranian officials have arrested at least 12 Christians in coordinated raids across three cities, giving harsh sentences to seven others.

In late July, security agents raided a Christian meeting in Tehran. Seven believers were handcuffed, blindfolded, abused and taken away; five others were arrested at their homes in two nearby cities. It is believed that an informant infiltrated the group and tipped off the authorities.

Ramiel Bet-Tamraz, an Assyrian Christian, and son of Pastor Victor Bet-Tamraz, was released from prison this Spring.

Bet-Tamraz, 35, was serving a 14-month sentence for his participation in house-churches. His father, Pastor Victor, was previously convicted of ‘conducting evangelism’ and ‘illegal house-church activities’ amounting to ‘actions against national security’. As Iran sought to combat the spread of the coronavirus earlier in the year a number of other prisoners were also reportedly released.

The Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) has released a video depicting the executions of four aid workers and a private security guard, who were abducted on 8 June.

The executions occurred on the Monguno-Maiduguri road in Borno State, after ransom negotiations reportedly failed. Abdulrahman Babagana, Darman Dungus, Joseph Prince, Ishaku Yakubu and Luka Filibus had all pleaded with the Nigerian Government to save their lives.

Persecuted Christians in North Korea are facing increasing oppression amid the COVID epidemic. Many now fear that they will die from starvation since their defecting relatives have been banned from sending money back home.

Songyon Lee, a Christian living in South Korea, told Radio Free Asia that she’d received several letters from her mother in North Korea detailing the increasing hardships believers are now facing because of the coronavirus. The inability to send money has severely affected the underground church in North Korea. One believer said: ‘The church cannot survive without food.’

An anti-abortion activist painted the words ‘Baby Lives Matter’ in front of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Salt Lake City, Utah, arguing the ‘Black Lives Matter movement’ wasn’t talking about the actual problems in their community.

Tayler Hansen painted it on the road at 1am on 18 July in washable paint. He said: ‘With recent events unfolding, everyone knows about the Black Lives Matter murals unfolding around the nation. I thought I would bring awareness of the biggest human rights crises that nobody wants to talk about.’ His sign, however, was removed within hours.

The global crash in births could dramatically shrink every country’s population and economy by the end of the century.

Researchers at the University of Washington Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation say that the worldwide average number of children that a woman gives birth to will drop below the threshold 2.1 by 2100. By way of comparison, in 1950 the global average was 4.7 children. Many countries are set to see their populations halved by the end of the century.