World in Brief

Eleven church buildings were destroyed in the course of a three-day attack which started on 18 April.

The perpetrators, from the Gan ethnic group, wreaked havoc in the town of Loropeni, where Christians are a small minority, as they burnt out and caused severe structural damage to the churches. The attacks are thought to be in revenge for the police arrest of eight Gan locals, including a tribal chief, for their desecration of a Christian grave in order to impose a ‘traditional funeral ceremony’.

Members of the Canadian Armed Forces will soon be ordered to begin using ‘gender neutral’ pronouns for all service members in official military documents, according to an unclassified document reported on in April.

‘Forthwith the use of gender pronouns such as he/his and she/her are not to be used … Members will be referred to by rank and name or by using gender-neutral pronouns such as they/their,’ the official notice from the Canadian Armed Forces reads.

Authorities arrested a church founder on a trumped-up charge of ‘inciting subversion of State power’ in April.

Zhao Huaiguo, who established Bethel Church, was targeted by the officials for not merging his church into the State-run Three-Self Patriotic Movement church. Ten days prior to his arrest, items were seized from the church, and Zhao and others were interrogated.

Authorities in Xiamen Province shut down a service on 3 May, injuring several church members.

Police violently dispersed church members, removing by force those who resisted. One church member sustained several significant injuries. Mobile phones were removed by police, who also broke a window and door lock as they forced their way into the service venue. Church members chanted ‘illegal’ as the police interrupted the service.

Tribal animists, who demolished a pastor’s house and drove him and his family out of their village in March, seriously injured him on 3 April.

After beating, choking and pelting pastor Lalu Kirade with stones, the villagers threatened to destroy his vocal chords as one of the assailants put her foot on his throat. ‘They had sprung on me like a pack of wild dogs,’ Pastor Kirade said. ‘They told me to call upon my God to come and rescue me.’ The assailants were upset at the pastor for filing a police report about the previous attack and for reporting the ill-treatment of his daughter to school authorities.

After a tribal mob killed three men on 16 April, Hindu nationalists and media attempted to blame the mob killing on Christians, who fear this will provoke violence against them.

‘Linking this gruesome incident to the church looks like a deliberate attempt to malign the Christian community and can increase attacks on Christians,’ said Vijayesh Lal, General Secretary of the Evangelical Fellowship of India.

Two men came to the door of a Christian family’s home in eastern India on 16 April

and shot the daughter of a pastor who had been killed in the same house five years ago, family members said.

Neelam Purty, 25, sustained bullet wounds to her thumb and thigh in the attack. Before the shooting, one of the men said: ‘That pastor was killed, but you did not learn a lesson’.

Christian Fatemeh Bakhteri was released from 12 months in prison on 12 April.

Ms Bakhteri, from a Muslim background, had been found guilty of ‘spreading propaganda against the regime’. Local sources reported that the verdict against her, and another woman imprisoned, claimed that discussions of Christian doctrine held in house churches were considered attacks on Islam. During the trial, the judge told Ms Bakhteri that her charges would be dropped if she returned to Islam, but she rejected this offer.

Five missionaries kidnapped in March were released on 22 April.

In a short statement that gave no details, leaders of Calvary Ministries (CAPRO) said: ‘Please rejoice with us as the remaining five of our missionaries kidnapped 52 days ago are now safely back to freedom’.

A Presbyterian assistant pastor, Sarfaraz Raja, was arrested on false charges and had his family harassed by police on 10 April.

The police broke into his house and harassed his mother and other family members. They took him to a police station and photographed him with liquor manufacturing equipment, accusing him of illegally manufacturing and selling alcohol. He believes he was arrested because he had complained previously that the police were protecting criminals.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church, the largest Lutheran denomination in the country, faced criticism for posting a prayer to ‘Mother God’ online.

The prayer asked ‘Mother God’ to ‘raise us up into salvation and rid us of our bitterness’. Conservative Lutheran pastor Hans Fiene urged Christians to leave the denomination.