These articles were first published in our November edition of the newspaper, click here for more.
An 18-year-old Christian lost her job in September after publicly sharing her opposition to same sex marriage on Facebook.
Her employer, Madlin Sims, said: ‘Today I fired a staff member who made it public knowledge that they feel ‘it’s okay to vote no’. Advertising your desire to vote no for SSM is, in my eyes, hate speech. Voting no is homophobic. Advertising your homophobia is hate speech. It’s not okay to vote no.’
It was reported in October that since 2015, Cameroon has forcefully deported over 100,000 Nigerian refugees who had escaped into the country fleeing Boko Haram Islamist violence.
One of the deportees said of the Cameroonian soldiers: ‘They humiliated us like animals and beat us like we were slaves.’ The Cameroonian army often accuse the refugees of being Boko Haram militants in disguise, and the women of being ‘Boko Haram wives’.
While a government-hired thug in China threatened to kill a Christian family, officials in a neighbouring province arrested a pastor, her daughter and her three-year-old grandson on 22 September.
The pastor and her daughter had taken part in an evangelistic effort by their unregistered congregation, Zion Church, to proclaim Christ in public parks and squares. In the outreach, which included song, dance and music on bamboo instruments, the women shared the gospel even as local religious affairs, public security, and national security bureau authorities frequently interrupted them.
Felix Yuniel Llerena López, a religious freedom activist, was informed on 2 October that criminal charges against him had been dropped by Cuban state security, and that he will be allowed to travel abroad again.
Llerena López, who worked for an organisation promoting freedom of religion or belief, had been interrogated by state security agents as he returned from an advocacy visit to the United States. He had been expelled from university and had received threats.
European countries and the EU have been accused of being ‘wilfully blind’ to the risks facing Afghans who fail in their asylum claims and are sent home.
‘All returnees face a real risk of serious human rights violations,’ said Amnesty International, but some, such as religious minorities and converts to Christianity, face additional risks. Conversion from Islam is deemed apostasy in Afghanistan, which under the Afghan courts’ interpretation of Islamic law is punishable by death’.
A 16-year-old Coptic Christian girl kidnapped in June to be ‘converted to Islam, then married off or sold’, was released and returned to her family on 30 September after police found her and arrested her kidnappers in a city just outside Cairo.
Marilyn was recovered from a city named 10th of Ramadan, but she is from a village several hundred kilometres south, in the governorate of Minya.
Georgia’s ruling Georgian Dream party appeared in September to be moving to amend the Constitution to restrict freedom of religion and belief in ways Georgia’s legally binding international human rights obligations do not allow.
Unless the government changes the text before Parliament holds its third reading, the amended Constitution would allow new restrictions on freedom of religion and belief based on the vague and undefined criteria of ‘state [national] security or public safety’, ‘the prevention of crime’, and ‘the implementation of justice’.
On 17 September, a church in Chitradurga in the southern state of Karnataka was broken into and items inside, including Bibles, were set on fire.
By the time the pastor reached the church, everything had turned to ashes. As well as Bibles and Christian literature, the furniture and the church’s PA system were set ablaze.
A launderette in the state of Johor which banned non-Muslims was ordered to end discrimination, after coming under criticism from the Sultan.
The Sultan said he could not ‘accept this nonsense’… this is not a Taliban state’. Another self-service launderette in the north-western Malaysian state of Perlis, was found displaying a sign stating it was ‘dedicated for Muslim use only’.
The Maldivian Government suspended one-third (56) of all lawyers in the islands after they tried to submit a petition to the Supreme Court in September calling for the rule of law to be respected.
Despite being a popular tourist destination, the Maldives is one of the most difficult places in the world to be a Christian. Muslims are banned from converting, leaving open the possibility of the stripping of citizenship for any converts to Christ.
Four Nepali Christians sentenced in 2016 to five years in prison for ‘violence and witchcraft’, after praying for a mentally ill woman, were released in September after their sentences were overturned.
In a statement, the Federation of National Christian, Nepal (FNCN) thanked the court for ‘setting free our innocent people’, and said it would continue to support the Christians and their families following their release. They had been found guilty despite the healed woman testifying in court that she had been healed.
Authorities allowed over 100 ‘Chibok girls’ to be reunited with their families in September.
Boko Haram released 82 girls, 75 of whom are Christians, in exchange for captured terrorists in May. However, the girls were kept in Abuja to undergo psychological therapy. According to the government, they are now ‘fully rehabilitated’ after their years of captivity (during which many of the girls were forced to convert to Islam and marry Islamist militants) and have been given school scholarships. Around 113 girls are still being held by Boko Haram.
Church leaders in the city of Bahawalpur urged the Prime Minister of Pakistan to uphold the Constitution after the administration imposed restrictions on Christian worship in their city.
Authorities ordered the closure of house churches in Balawalpur after Muslims complained that they were disturbed by Christian prayers. Permits to build new church buildings in the area are not granted if the site is within 200 metres from any mosque or 100 metres away from a Muslim residential home.
Asia Bibi, a Christian woman who was sentenced to death for blasphemy eight years ago and who is still in prison, was nominated for the European Union’s high-status award edition 2017 of the prestigious ‘Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought’.
The prize is awarded to individuals or groups battling to defend fundamental human rights. A proposer for Asia Bibi, explained that ‘her case is of symbolic importance for others who have endured simply for expressing freedom of religion’.
Reports emerging from Sudan in September suggest Christian refugees fleeing the fighting in South Sudan have been denied government food aid unless they convert to Islam.
Nearly a million people have fled south into Uganda, where they are being assisted by local Christians and the UN High Commission for Refugees estimates that there are now approximately 460,000 South Sudanese who have been forced to flee as refugees to Sudan.
On 22 September a church leader was detained and questioned because of his refusal to hand over the leadership of his church to a government-appointed leadership.
This followed the arrest of seven other leaders in August over the same matter. One had previously been arrested in 2015 and only acquitted nine months ago after being charged with spying and inciting hatred against the government. Further arrests have included allegations of spreading false information and causing hatred among communities.
Originally banned in June for stating his views on biblical marriage, a farmer was allowed to recommence trading at a farmers’ market during September, pending the outcome of a lawsuit.
Steve Tennes, was told by East Lansing Farmer’s Market in Michigan that his Facebook post was a violation of a city ordinance against discrimination. A District Judge said a ban against Tennes violated his ‘freedom from speech retaliation’ and ‘free exercise of religion’.
In October a student group at Princeton University removed the word ‘evangelical’ from its name after members of the group said the word ‘has a negative perception’.
The Princeton Evangelical Fellowship became Princeton Christian Fellowship. The term ‘evangelical’ is more divisive after the election of President Donald Trump, in which media reported that nearly 81% of white evangelicals voted for him.