World in Brief

An order to close a church building in the city of Oran was issued in 2019 but was not conveyed to the pastor until the middle of January.

This action prevented an appeal being made at the time. The church pastor’s lawyer notified the judge of the delay and it is hoped that the church can still appeal within ten days of receipt of the order.

One Rohingya Christian is missing and 12 were seriously injured, including several children, in multiple attacks by Rohingya Muslim mobs.

These occurred on the isolated Rohingya Christian community in a refugee camp on 27 January, days after the persecution of Christians was noted by a UN official. In the immediate aftermath of the assaults, a Rohingya Christian leader posted a prayer for the attackers asking God to forgive them, likening the attackers to those who stoned Stephen, asking God not to hold ‘this sin against them’.

At least seven Christians were killed as gangs of around 300 Boko Haram militants raided five Christian villages in Far North Cameroon in early January.

A ten-year-old boy and two other children were kidnapped alongside the murders. The two church buildings used by the affected communities were sabotaged and burnt. Eyewitness reports described heavily-armed militants encircling villages, and shouting and chanting menacingly throughout the night. A local pastor pleaded: ‘Pray for those who lost their beloved. Pray also for little children left without even clothes.’

The detention of Egyptian Coptic activist Rami Kamil, who is facing terrorism charges, was extended by 15 days after he was interrogated in prison by prosecutors, it was reported in February.

It was reported he had been told to stop writing about violations of freedom of religion or belief if he wants to be released. Kamil, 33, is a prominent human-rights activist who took part in the 2011 uprising, in which the government of Hosni Mubarak was overthrown.

Christians who had gathered for a church prayer meeting fled in terror after a mob of Hindu nationalist extremists pelted a church in West Bengal with objects at the end of December.

A group of eight men attacked with shouts of ‘Jai Shri Ram’ (Glory to Lord Rama) in Bhagwanpur, East Midnapore. As worshippers ran away, the men stormed inside, smashing furniture, windows and microphones. As they left the building, the men vandalised the pastor’s car parked outside.

A private prayer meeting was disrupted on 18 January with Christians threatened, insulted and intimidated.

As a meeting of approximately 250 pastors and their families drew to a close in the home of a fellow Christian, eight individuals stormed the property. They caused a commotion and used their vehicles to block the Christians from leaving the premises. Witnesses said the intruders had asked if the organisers had obtained legal permission from the local authorities to conduct the meeting in the house.

Four organisations published a report on the situation of Christians in Iran on 20 January, highlighting individuals and churches that were targeted by the authorities during 2019.

The report notes that Iranian Christians, along with other religious minorities, ‘continued to suffer multiple violations of their right to freedom of religion or belief’. The report calls on the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, Ahmed Shaheed, to investigate the ongoing mistreatment of Christians and other religious minorities in Iran.

Pastor’s son Ramiel Bet Tamraz was summoned to Iran’s Evin Prison, notorious for its harsh conditions, on 7 January to begin a jail sentence for ‘acting against national security’ after being arrested at a picnic.

The 35-year-old was given a four-month sentence, although the one month he has already spent in detention will be deducted from the time he serves. His parents are also awaiting appeal against prison sentences. The crime Ramiel committed was organising house churches.

Somali Al Shabaab rebels killed three Christian teachers in northeast Kenya on 13 January.

An eye witness who escaped reported that an attacker said: ‘We cannot allow infidels to teach our children,’ then fired at three teachers. The teachers were sleeping, and it seems the attack was planned as they knew where the staff residential rooms were on the site. A fourth teacher was carried away and his whereabouts are not known. Police reported that another teacher was wounded.

Nineteen Nigerian Christians are known to have died in an attack by Fulani militants on the village of Kwatas on 26 January.

Villagers were taking part in a social gathering when the militants struck in the evening. It was a relentless assault that continued into the early hours of the following day. Attacks earlier in January included the kidnapping of a mother and her six-month-old baby.

Maintaining their innocence, 39 Christians accused of killing two Muslims after 2015 church bombings, reached an agreement to pay the victims’ families in exchange for acquittal at the end of January.

Irfan Bashir Masih, one of the acquitted said: ‘The five years that I spent in jail cannot be described. I was not even present at the scene when the two Muslim youths were burned alive.’ He said that the acquittals in the ‘false case’ had reinforced his faith in Christ.

Temporary worship structures in southeastern Sudan were set ablaze on 16 January, three weeks after the buildings they had replaced were burned down.

Islamists were suspected of burning down the structures erected after arsonists razed the worship buildings of the Sudan Interior Church, Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox Church. A rights organisation reportedly criticised police for taking no action after Christians requested an investigation. One suspect had been arrested and released.

Christian businessman, Ashraf Samir Mousad Obid, was informed by the Ministry of the Interior on 30 January that he is not allowed to leave or enter the country as he is on a watch list because he sold land to a church in 2015.

Obid had been detained at Khartoum airport as he re-entered the country for the first time since 2015, when he went into exile following a campaign of harassment by the security services. Prior to trying to re-enter Sudan, he had been told all names had been removed from travel-restriction lists.

In January, a transgender ‘male’ gave birth to the baby of her transgender ‘female’ ‘spouse’ with both listed on the birth certificate as father and mother with these titles not matching their biological sex.

The state originally ruled that the transgender man, Myles Brady Davis, would be listed as the mother because Myles was the one who carried the baby. Precious, the baby’s so-called ‘mother’, provided the sperm. Myles identifies as transmasculine. Myles is the communications director and press secretary for Equality Illinois.

A man who had been the first person to have his birth certificate legally changed to female, had his certificates returned to male after he denounced his former trans identity.

The former soldier, James Clifford Shupe, had been known as Jamie, and became ‘non-binary’ in 2016. He wrote that he had been abused by someone called Clifford and had never accepted his own name because of that. Shupe said nothing had helped him, and ‘it’s now time to give God and my newly-found faith a chance.’