World in Brief

Because of generous gifts, it was reported in June, work was resumed on the Africa Bible Commentary Hausa Translation, aiming for a high standard that will effectively and strategically serve the needs of 95 million Hausa speakers.

The General Editor, Professor Yusufu Turaki, who teaches at Jos ECWA Theological Seminary, estimates that, with God’s help, the work will be completed by the end of September 2015. From there it will go for internal design and final proof reading, with the technical and financial support of Langham Literature.

Migrants arriving in Austria from countries such as Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq are being given Bibles by local churches and non-governmental organisations, it was reported in early July.

They are being distributed to Christians and others who want them at detention centres across the country.

On 31 May, police raided the Reformed Orthodox Transfiguration Church’s Sunday worship meeting, held in rented premises in Gomel and, on 11 June, officials banned the church from renting premises, therefore preventing it from meeting.

Officials warned congregation leader Pastor Sergei Nikolaenko, who is already facing trial on Administrative Code charges, that he would be investigated on possible Criminal Code charges. Two weeks earlier there was a similar armed police raid on the Soligorsk congregation of Council of Churches Baptists.

Eight Christians were injured when a mob of some 200 Hindu nationalists stormed a church prayer meeting, where around 400 Christians were gathered, held at the municipal library in Attingal, in southern Kerala state, on Sunday 14 June.

The assailants accused the Christians of forcibly converting Hindus to Christianity and attacked the pastor and congregation. Since the attack, radical Hindus have threatened to wipe out the town’s Christian population and burn the pastor. Police have arrested five people in relation to the attack and registered complaints against 20. Authorities are continuing to look for their accomplices.

A new house church planted in April had grown from eight to 20 by late June.

The church had begun through a providential meeting between the brother of an Elam graduate and Amir, a new believer. Thanks to this meeting, Amir was able to connect with Babak, the Elam graduate. Babak has called weekly to teach and pastor Amir and seven other new believers ever since the young church started meeting in April.

Iranian Christian Ebrahim Firouzi on 6 June started a hunger strike to protest being held with dangerous criminals in Ward Ten of Rajai Shahr prison, but ended it on 11 June after prison authorities partially met his demands.

Being held with dangerous criminals is against Iranian laws for separation of convicts. His aim in striking was to be transferred to Ward 12, where political prisoners and prisoners of conscience are held. Originally serving a one-year sentence for Christian activities, Ebrahim Firouzi was sentenced to a further five years in late April.

An estimated 90 Christians are in a prison in Iran because of their witness to Jesus Christ, it was reported in June.

At least 12 have been sentenced, usually for the crime of ‘working against national security’. The sentences range from one year to eight. The rest are believed to be in pre-trial detention. For over 30 of these prisoners there is very little information. A list of all the available names can be found at: https://www.elam.com/article/persecuted-not-forsaken

On 4 July, Iranian Christian prisoner Farshid Fathi was told by prison officials that he will be released on 10 December 2015.

He had previously expected to remain in prison until December 2017. This positive news has greatly encouraged Farshid and his family. Pray for Farshid during his final months in Rajai Shahr prison.

Saeed Abedeni, the jailed American-Iranian pastor, was physically assaulted for no apparent cause on 3 June in his prison cell by a group of inmates.

He was punched in the face, leaving him with serious bruises around his eyes. The attackers also smashed the small table where he reads and studies. Although they did not initially respond to his calls for help, prison guards eventually stepped in, preventing further injury. Pastor Abedini is serving an eight-year sentence for evangelism and planting house churches in Iran and is being held in Rajai Shahr prison.

Christian prisoner Homayoun Shokouhi was released from Adel-Abad prison on 28 June, after completing his three year and eight months term.

Mr. Shokouhi had been conditionally released on 10 November 2014 after three years in prison. However, he was summoned again to serve the rest of his sentence.

1,227 children kidnapped in northern Iraq by ISIS militants have been taken to a ‘cubs of the caliphate’ training camp in Mosul, Ruth Gledhill reported in Christian Today on 24 June.

The children will be trained as fighters and suicide bombers, and will be brainwashed with Islamic extremist ideology. The kidnapping was preceded by another abduction of about 500 children in Anbar and Diyala provinces.

Leaflets signed by ‘Islamic State in Palestine’ found in east Jerusalem on 25 June warned Christians that there would be ‘revenge’ on them and, two days later, more fliers were found in various parts of Jerusalem.

They were signed by ‘Islamic State, Jerusalem Emirate’ and ordered Christians to leave before the end of Ramadan or be killed.

The leaflets stated: ‘We tell the heretic Christians, you must clear out immediately or we’ll massacre you on Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of Ramadan, and one month is time enough to evacuate’. Security forces are taking the threat seriously.

Islamic extremists with Somalia-based Al Shabaab killed 17 quarry workers, including several Christians, in northern Kenya early on 7 July.

The attack in Soko Mbuzi, near Mandera, took place at about 1 am as the workers slept in tents outside two houses their employer rented for them, an area Christian leader said. As in previous attacks, the Islamic insurgents targeted migrant workers from the Kenyan interior who were non-Muslims.

86 Eritrean Christians were abducted by Islamists in Libya on 3 June.

Islamic State militants stopped a group of Eritrean refugees crossing through Libya and demanded to know whether those travelling were Christians or Muslims. After close questioning, they discovered 86 Christians, who were taken captive. The six Muslims were released.

Six people died when a suicide bomber detonated a device at the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) building in the Jigawa suburb of Potiskum, Yobe State on 5 July, just as the congregation was entering the building for the Sunday service at around 10 am.

Five died at the scene, including the pastor, a parishioner and her two children, while another died in hospital.

Suspected Fulani Muslim gunmen stormed the village of Katsak in Kaduna state, central Nigeria, on 16 June and struck down nine Christians as villagers gathered to celebrate the completion of a joint communal farming exercise.

A further 13 were left seriously injured in the brutal attack.

The congregation of Jerusalem Church, Karachi is being threatened with false blasphemy charges by Muslims who wish to seize the church’s land, it was reported in June.

Jerusalem Church is a Pentecostal church of around 300 families strong. The members have said that they have received death threats from a group of armed Muslims who are known for seizing church property from poor congregations and have carried out targeted killings. The church was built in the 1990s.

In a rare move by Pakistani police, an Islamist cleric was taken into custody on 3 July for inciting a Muslim mob to try to kill a Christian couple for alleged desecration of the Qur’an, a police official said.

Hundreds of Muslims in Makki village, near Farooqabad in Sheikhupura District, on 30 June attacked Owais Qamar (35) and his wife Rukhsana after a neighbour complained that they were sleeping on a salvaged advertising sign inscribed with a qur’anic verse.

President Putin’s ruling United Russia party on 8 July unveiled its own ‘straight pride’ flag, the latest response from Russian politicians to the US Supreme Court’s decision in June to legalise same sex marriage.

The flag depicts a man and woman and three children (an ‘average, standard Russian family') holding hands above the slogan 'Real Family'. The flag was unveiled at a Moscow park to mark the Day of Family, Love and Faith, an annual Russian holiday.

Twelve women, reportedly aged between 18 and 23, were arrested on public indecency charges on 25 June after leaving a celebration service at the El Izba Baptist Church in Khartoum.

The women, who were wearing skirts and trousers, were taken to a police station and forced to remove their clothes, which were submitted as evidence to the prosecutor. Two were released without charge.

Hard-line Muslims on the semi-autonomous island of Zanzibar off the coast of Tanzania have driven a pastor and father of five into hiding and taken over his church’s rented worship hall, it was reported in late June.

Once a congregation of 100, Pastor Philemon’s New Covenant Church has shrunk to 25 members. Intent on removing his church from the undisclosed area, the Muslims cajoled a landlord into renting the congregation’s worship hall to them before the term of church’s lease ended. The remaining members now rotate among their homes for worship. At times they discuss joining other churches.

‘We are now free’, said each of the 12 Anatolian Armenians who were baptised on 9 May in Istanbul.

They are just a few of the many who are publicly declaring their decision to follow Christ after their ancestors were forced to convert to Islam or be massacred in the Armenian and Assyrian genocide a century ago.

In a vote on 26 June, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favour of legal same sex marriage across the United States.

The historic ruling that overturned same sex marriage bans in 13 states came as a concern to many Christians, who believe marriage should be reserved for one man and one woman. Evangelical leaders are now speaking out in response to the ruling that changed American history forever.

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder in June signed into law three Bills that will allow faith-based adoption agencies that get state funds to refuse service to gays and lesbians.

The law, which protects Christian adoption agencies that believe in traditional marriage, has been criticised as discriminatory to the LGBT community.

Popular megachurch pastor Tullian Tchividjian in June stepped down from his position as senior pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, south Florida, after admitting to an extramarital affair.

Tchividjian (42) is the grandson of renowned evangelist Billy Graham and the nephew of Franklin Graham. He had held his position at Coral Ridge since 2009. Tchividjian has been married to his wife Kim since 1994 and they have three children.

Nine people were killed on 17 June when a gunman opened fire at a church service at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Charleston, South Carolina.

Chris and Camryn Singleton (teenagers), whose mother Sharonda Coleman-Singleton (45) was one of the pastors and died in the attack, have forgiven the killer, 21-year-old Dylann Roof. In the two weeks following the incident, six other predominantly black churches in the South caught fire. Three of the six were ruled arson, but have not been labelled hate crimes.

‘Vietnam’s official media made it shockingly clear that persecution of religious minorities is state policy’, said Human Rights Watch’s Asia director, Brad Adams, after the advocacy group released a report on 26 June.

Compiling interviews with Vietnamese ethnic Montagnards seeking asylum abroad, the report reveals the government’s deliberate actions to persecute the ethnic minority because of their desire to follow Christianity.

Operation Mobilisation (OM) Zimbabwe, in partnership with local Tonga pastors, in June published the first theological book in the Tonga dialect of Zimbabwe.

Called Kuziba Akucita, Knowing and Doing, the book is a discipleship tool written by John McQuoid. Several Tonga pastors from Siabuwa village worked together for almost a year to translate the book. Other Tonga church leaders have set their sights on translating and producing an audio Bible in the language.