World in Brief

Christian Books Worldwide celebrated its ten-year anniversary in October.

They aim to put books into the hands of pastors in nations across the majority world in Asia, the Far East, South America, Eastern Europe as well as Africa. Books in the Chichewa language have led to Muslims and followers of sects leaving their movements after learning the truth. ‘Spurgeon, Calvin and Luther are preaching in the rural villages of Africa’ said one local leader.

On 22 October, Gou Zhongcan from Early Rain Covenant Church (ERCC) in Sichuan was released and returned home to Bazhou city.

Gou was detained in March and spent seven months in prison. Gou is recovering since his vision deteriorated in prison. His father had reported that whilst in prison, Gou had been singing hymns and worship songs. When arrested, aged 23, reporting on the inhumane treatment of prisoners, he became a Christian.

A prominent religious freedom defender in Cuba was detained on 12 November by police who said he would be held incommunicado for four days.

Ricardo Fernández Izaguirre was released 29 hours later. He was held in a windowless cell and deprived of his glasses. During interrogations he was repeatedly threatened by various officials, including a Lieutenant Colonel and a Major.

64 church and church-affiliated building licences were announced on 22 October.

This batch of approvals brings the total number of building licences to 1,235 out of the original 3,730 that applied for registration before the committee began meeting in early 2017. However, three church fires in Cairo appear to be arson attacks. Before the fires, National Security contacted churches to check their CCTV was working.

Two pastors were beheaded in Sebeta, near the capital Addis Ababa, in an outburst of violence against Christians at the end of October.

The army was called in to restore order after 67 people were killed and 213 wounded in Addis Ababa and the Oromia region during several days of unrest. Muslim activist and high profile media mogul, Jawar Mohammed, is thought to have provoked the unrest when he announced to his supporters that the government had removed his personal security protection. Subsequent street protests against Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed erupted in violence.

Police in Tamil Nadu put several house churches under surveillance in October in order to stop worship, in violation of the country’s secular constitution.

Police told congregations to stop worship in homes. Courts in India have repeatedly held that no permission is needed to worship in homes, said Nehemiah Christie, Tamil Nadu state coordinator for legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF)-India.

A pastor in western India suffered severe injuries to his head and back on 22 October after Hindu extremists beat him unconscious for visiting a Christian in their village.

The eight assailants left Pastor Ramesh Pargi in a pool of blood after surrounding and assaulting him, another pastor and his wife. As he was beaten the men said: ‘Do not come to our village either to visit or to preach – we do not want Christians to enter our village.’

A Hindu extremist mob in north eastern India tried to kill a pastor and his family in an attack on their home on 27 October.

Extremists brandishing swords, bricks and rods broke through windows and the roof of the home of Pastor Palathingal Joseph Johnson. The pastor, his wife, and their four children hid themselves in one of the rooms in their two-room house. The attack was well-planned, the 44-year-old pastor said.

Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the Indonesian Muslim political party and world’s largest moderate Muslim movement, made a significant break with Islamic conservatism in October when it abolished the legal category of ‘infidel’ (kafir) for non-Muslims.

Other new rulings include a raft of changes embracing the modern definition of a nation state, instead of a caliphate, and recognising all as ‘fellow citizens’, irrespective of their religion or ethnicity, with equal rights and obligation to obey modern national laws.

Iranian church leader Matthias Haghnejad and eight members of the Church of Iran denomination who were on trial with him have each been sentenced to five years in prison, following a short trial in September.

Pastor Haghnejad was arrested by members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard after a church service early in 2019. Those on trial were called ‘apostates’ and told the Bible was falsified.

‘May the persecution and imprisonment that I endure glorify the name of Jesus Christ,’ were the words spoken by Roksari Kanbari, an Iranian convert to Christianity, moments before she reported to the authorities to begin a one-year prison sentence on 14 October.

The 61-year-old wife and mother spoke in a short video in which she said she had been arrested by agents of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence for ‘the crime of believing in Jesus Christ’.

On 26 October, Pastor U Maung Maung, along with 57 others, was abducted by the ethnic militia in Rakhine State.

Myanmar’s military commander-in-chief acknowledged dispatching helicopters to try to rescue the abductees. It said their helicopters suffered some damage from gunfire and a crewman was lightly wounded, while at least 14 people who had been kidnapped were rescued. Others reported that boats carrying dozens of soldiers and police officers held as hostages had been sunk by the military, with many losing their lives.

Nine Christians were abducted in two separate armed attacks on Christian boarding schools in Kaduna State, Nigeria in October.

In early October, attackers took captive a school’s vice principal, the matron and six female pupils. Police stated that they are ‘doing everything possible to secure the release of all the victims unhurt.’ On 10 October, 20 gunmen stormed a Government Technical School in the predominantly Christian district of Kajura and abducted the school’s Principal, himself a Christian.

In a rare move, police stepped in to stop Muslims attacking Amir Masih, a Christian sanitation worker after he was falsely accused of blasphemy, it was reported in November.

The charges were dropped when police discovered that the pages of the Qu’ran Amir held had been found in a rubbish bag collected by him as part of his sanitation duties. He had taken them to a Muslim shop to confirm if they were from the Qu’ran, whereupon the owner had dragged him to a mosque. There, the Imam called for punishments and the burning of Christians’ homes.

A Christian woman brought a landmark case in the Russian Constitutional Court on 8 October when she challenged a fine imposed by the authorities for allowing her house to be used by her Protestant church for worship services.

Olga Glamozdinova said the decision violated her right to freedom of conscience and religious confession, as well as her right to freely own and dispose of her property. The case exposed a ‘legal ambiguity’ that was being used to stifle freedom of conscience and religious associations.

Saudi Arabia launched a tourist e-visa on 27 September, but Christian visitors have been warned about visiting with a Bible.

The new regulations for tourists state that a Bible may be brought into the country provided it is for personal use only. Bibles must not be displayed in public and anyone found bringing a large number of Bibles will face ‘severe penalties’. Saudi citizens who convert to Christianity face risk of execution by the state for apostasy if their conversion becomes known.

It was reported in October that Sudan’s Court of Appeal had ruled that land belonging to a Baptist Church, which had been confiscated by the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS), should be returned.

The land was seized by the NISS in 2012, preventing the Baptist Church from using it for any purpose. On 9 September, three Court of Appeal Judges ruled that the decision was invalid, and the land must be returned to the Church. The written judgment was not communicated to the Church until October.

A study published in mid-October found church-going 18–35-year-olds are more likely to say they are optimistic about the future, secure in who they are, able to accomplish their goals, and have someone that believes in them.

The report from Barna found that the same group were less likely to say they are lonely or isolated and anxious or uncertain about the future compared to those without faith. The Connected Generation surveyed more than 15,000 young adults across 25 countries.

A Christian printer who was sued after he declined to produce t-shirts for an LGBT festival in 2012, won his case in October.

The state Supreme Court ruled that the US Constitution ‘protects Blaine’s right to continue serving all people while declining to print messages that violate his faith’. The court decided the LGBT group that brought the case had no legal standing, because the city ordinance applied to individuals.

In September police in Urgench raided a Baptist church’s Sunday meetings and officials threatened Pastor Stanislav Kim with eviction from his home.

Despite the local administration then orchestrating a hostile mob, the congregation has been able to meet in October without further interference from officials.