World in Brief

A court on 3 May withdrew a six-month prison sentence but upheld a fine on a convert from Islam for carrying Christian literature and some crucifix-shaped keychains into the country.

Idir Hamdad was fined after a judge ruled he was guilty of importing unauthorised items without a licence. He had been held for eight hours without food or water at the airport when he was questioned. He was also told to reconvert to Islam by security at the airport.

Authorities in Algeria’s north-eastern city of Tizi-Ouzou, in the Kabylie region, closed down a day-care centre for Christian children on 17 April.

It was established 14 years ago by The Full Gospel Protestant Church, which has 1,200 at its weekly services and oversees 15 other smaller churches. The authorities accused Pastor Salah Chalah of ‘unlawfully’ running the centre, which has been ordered to remain closed ‘until the situation is administratively settled’.

A church minister and at least 15 people were killed in an attack on a church service and Christian neighbourhood in Bangui on 1 May.

A church leader said: ‘We were holding our church leaders’ retreat. From ten until three in the afternoon there was constant gunfire by armed groups. They surrounded the building and went in while a service was being held, throwing grenades and firing at the participants.

Local authorities in China’s east-central Henan Province removed a number of crosses from churches, closed a church-run kindergarten and asked Christian residents in one city to register, it was reported on 9 April.

The crosses were allegedly illegally built. In Henan, Christians received a request to take part in a census. An anonymous employee at the neighbourhood committee that has been tasked with executing the census told the newspaper that participation was not compulsory.

Another Christian soldier in Egypt died under mysterious circumstances on 22 April.

It was claimed his death was caused by him accidentally firing the weapon as he cleaned it. The wound showed the bullet entered from the back of his head and exited from the front, shattering the jaw, thus indicating someone else shot him. The army has issued no official explanation for his death.

An 18-year-old Christian woman from Beni-Sweif, around 100km south of Cairo, was kidnapped on 8 April.

Rasha Khalaf Thabet set out to visit her grandfather, but never returned home. A friend saw three men force her into a car. The kidnapping of Christian girls in Egypt and their forced conversion to Islam in preparation for marriage to a Muslim is ‘big business’. There are networks of abductors working as mercenary-kidnappers.

Following a long-fought campaign, the High Court of Odisha state in eastern India ensured the disbursal of extra compensation awarded two years ago to dependants of 14 Christians killed in the widespread anti-Christian violence that engulfed Kandhamal district in 2008.

In addition, the court forced the Odisha government to make available more than 153 million rupees to pay compensation to about 6,000 people who lost family members, were injured, or lost their homes in the riots.

Uttarakhand became the seventh state in India to put ‘anti-conversion’ legislation in force, with the Freedom of Religion Bill being signed on 18 April.

A national newspaper reported the news of the governor’s approval of the Bill and enforcement of the Act.

Christians in eastern India were worshipping on 29 April when 60 Hindu extremists attacked and had them arrested on baseless accusations of operating a ‘conversion racket’.

Three of seven Christians arrested have been in jail since, with a judge rejecting their plea for bail.

Maoists took responsibility for the gruesome slaying of a pastor in eastern India on 1 May, but area Christians said they suspected Hindu extremists put them up to it.

Abraham Topno, pastor of Pentecostal Church of God, was kidnapped by unidentified gunmen who slit his throat and beheaded him. The body of the pastor, who ministered in the area for more than 20 years, was found with his head severed from his body, and his vehicle had been set on fire.

Christian families fled their homes in eastern India on 5 April, after telling police a Hindu nationalist mob had attacked a church fellowship meal, only to be met with attempts to silence them.

Only three Christian families remained in the village of Bakel – in Chhattisgarh state, governed by the Hindu nationalist BJP party – after a mob physically attacked attendees at a Bible study who were about to eat together. The police report did not cite the victims as Christians.

A pastor was sentenced in May to four years for religious defamation after discussing Christianity with a Muslim taxi driver.

Rev. Moses, a convert from Islam, put a recording on his Facebook account quoting a Quranic verse about marriage to a taxi driver. During their conversation, the pastor also invited the driver to convert to Christianity. Indonesia’s largest Islamic organisation, Muhammadiyah, filed a blasphemy complaint against him.

An Iranian Christian convert, about whom nothing had been heard since his arrest 45 days previously, was able to contact his family in April to let them know he is being held in Evin Prison, in the capital Tehran.

54-year-old Aziz Majidzadeh is yet to face formal charges, but interrogations have focused on activities related to his Christian faith. Aziz was with 20 other Christians in a workshop near the city of Karaj when security forces raided the premises.

The ten-year sentences handed down to Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani, Mohammadreza Omidi (Youhan), Yasser Mossayebzadeh and Saheb Fadaie in July 2017 were upheld on appeal on 2 May.

They were arrested in 2016 during a series of raids by security agents on Christian homes. Their church was accused of receiving money from the British government. In July 2017, they were found guilty of ‘acting against national security’ by ‘promoting Zionist Christianity’, and sentenced to ten years in prison.

A Kazakh regional Religious Affairs Department demanded the personal data of everyone under 18 who attends Christian meetings for worship, it was reported in mid-April.

‘It was not sent to Muslims, for example, just to Christians, and selectively’, an official stated. She refused to explain what ‘selective-

Security police in Morocco detained a Christian for 24 hours after finding Christian literature in his backpack on 18 April.

Authorities stopped the 35-year-old Moroccan, whose name was not disclosed, as he came out of his home in Rabat. His lawyer, Ahmed Arhamoush, reported the arrest. After 24 hours in custody, the Christian was released without charges.

Over 2,000 displaced Kachin people, including the elderly, the infirm, and pregnant women, have been trapped in the remote ‘Gold and Amber’ region of the conflict-stricken Kachin State since 11 April.

Christian and community leaders met government officials and a military commander to plead for humanitarian assistance and a rescue for the trapped civilians. However, at the time of reporting, the military has blocked any rescue efforts.

The Nigerian army announced on its Twitter page in early May that it had rescued over 1,000 hostages from a terrorist enclave.

Most of the hostages were women and children. In addition it said that 50 extremists had been killed.

Pakistan’s chief justice said on 21 April he will decide, ‘soon,’ the fate of Asia Bibi.

Asia is the Christian woman whose 2009 conviction on blasphemy charges has fixated world attention on the country’s treatment of religious minorities.

Two Christians died and four others were seriously injured on 15 April when attackers on motorbikes opened fire on worshippers leaving a church service in the southern Pakistani city of Quetta.

This follows a similar shooting on 2 April, when armed men on a motorcycle shot and killed four Christians in the Shah Zaman neighbourhood of the city. Islamic State later claimed responsibility.

Iowa lawmakers approved a new ‘heartbeat’ law in May that will come into effect on 1 July, limiting the use of abortion.

The law will require a doctor to conduct an abdominal ultrasound to test for a heartbeat, and if one is found, an abortion will not be allowed. Heartbeats can be detected from around six weeks into a pregnancy.