World in Brief

Six elders of a church in Ontario are facing fines of up to $10,000 for holding church services.

The church says no outbreak has been traced back to its services since they reopened in June. But they ‘have heard a plethora of stories from many of our congregants about how they were negatively affected spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and financially during the first lockdown,’ the elders said in a statement. Officers from the Waterloo Region Police Service visited the homes of the elders at night and gave them each a summons to court.

A Chinese court has sentenced Zhang Zan, a 37-year-old Christian and citizen journalist, to four years in prison for her coverage of Covid-19 in Wuhan.

The court found Zhang guilty of ‘picking quarrels and provoking trouble’. Zhang went to Wuhan when severe lockdowns were in place. She documented residents lamenting their financial distress. She criticised the government for being too harsh in its lockdown and for silencing people who spoke out against China’s handling of the pandemic. She went on hunger strike, and was then force-fed. She has asked for a Bible whilst she is in prison.

Egypt’s Public Prosecutor is looking into contesting an Appeals Court ruling that acquitted three Muslim men charged with stripping naked an elderly Christian woman and dragging her through the streets in 2016.

Suad Thabet, who is in her 70s, and her husband, Abdu Ayad, were attacked by a mob of 300 men following a rumour that their son was having an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly couple’s home and the homes of six other Christians were looted and five were set on fire by the mob.

The Cabinet-affiliated committee responsible for licensing churches in Egypt rounded off 2020 by authorising 62 new registrations.

This 18th batch of licences approved brings the number of churches and affiliated service buildings granted official recognition to 1,800 out of the original 3,730 that applied for registration following the repeal of Ottomanera restrictions on church buildings.

The French armed forces have given permission to develop ‘augmented soldiers’ following a report from a military ethics committee.

Medical treatments considered for use include prosthetics and implants that improve ‘physical, cognitive, perceptive and psychological capacities’, location tracking, and connectivity with weapons systems. Other options considered include medical treatments to prevent pain, and substances that would improve mental resilience if a soldier were taken prisoner. Any modification that would affect a soldier’s ability to manage the use of force or affect their sense of ‘humanity’ is forbidden.

A Korean Christian and three Indian nationals are in jail accused of fraudulent conversion attempts while distributing food and other aid to people in need due to Covid-19 lockdown. These are the first arrests under the new anti-conversion laws in Uttar Pradesh.

A neighbour reported the group, which included two people who weren’t Christians, after they had met at a home and organised a list of people who would benefit from relief aid given by the church. All denied they had offered money for people to convert. It is alleged that the police didn’t ask them to give their side of the story.

Police officials in India’s Karnataka state have placed an indefinite ban on a community of Christians, stopping them from gathering for worship services.

The officials justified this unconstitutional action by claiming that none of them (approximately 50 in number) were Christian by birth and must have been coercively or fraudulently converted to Christianity. The police asked the Christians to show evidence that they were Christian, and accused them of collecting government benefits as both Christians and Hindus.

Islamic terror group Boko Haram raided a mostly Christian village in northeast Nigeria on Christmas Eve, killing at least 11 people and burning down several structures.

‘The terrorists … burnt ten homes and looted food supplies that were meant to be distributed to residents to celebrate Christmas,’ militia leader Abwaku Kabu said. The attackers rode on trucks and motorbikes while shooting guns. They also burned down a church and a hospital after abducting a priest and stealing medical supplies.

Biphobic or transphobic speech in Norway is now punishable by a three-year jail sentence if spoken in public, or one year if spoken in private, under legislation brought into law at the end of 2020.

This puts the crime on a level with manslaughter, which carries the same sentence in Norway. For prosecution to take place, the comments must be direct attacks against a person, or include language that intentionally dehumanises the person to the public. It is unclear if this last point would include preaching on Biblical marriage.

Muslims who employed two young Christian women as live-in house cleaners in Lahore have forcibly converted them to Islam so they can be ‘turned into slaves’, alleged a relative.

The former employers are not permitting Christian relatives to see them. Nasreen Bibi, a Christian aunt of 20-year-old Anum Manzoor and 18-year-old Maham Manzoor, said that the women are being held against their will.

A 25-year-old Christian is in police custody in Lahore after he shared another person’s post critical of Islam on his Facebook page.

Hundreds of Muslims converged on Raja Warris’ neighbourhood threatening to behead the outreach lay leader and set fire to homes unless police arrested him. Warris apologised to the Muslims in person, saying he had shared the post for academic understanding between Christians and Muslims and did not mean to offend anyone. Fearing violence, hundreds of Christian residents fled their homes while around 400 anti-riot policemen were deployed in the area to thwart violence.

Statistical Office data collected during 2019 shows the number of people identifying as Protestant has fallen from 49% of the population to just 23% in 50 years.

The cohort with no religious affiliation has gone up, from 1% in 2014, to a staggering 28% in just five years. Evangelicals account for 5.6% of the population and Muslim communities represent 5.3%. Alternative practices and beliefs are also on the rise, with 24% practising yoga, tai chi, or qigong in the 12 months prior to the survey, and 23% being engaged in personal development programmes.

Muslim extremists raped a church pastor in eastern Uganda.

The female pastor, whose identity is withheld for her protection, was returning home from Christmas preparations at her church site when someone asked her for help. People came out of the bush shouting: ‘Allah is greater … we have warned you to stop converting Muslims … we shall teach you a lesson you won’t forget.’ The pastor, a widowed mother of five, said: ‘I hope these Muslim rapists have not infected me with deadly diseases. I forgive them.’

Data on suicide shows that it is not implausible that there is some causal relationship between marriage and lowered suicide risk (see graph below).

Other factors may have a protective effect, e.g. people who are well educated and in employment are more likely to be married, and less likely to commit suicide. Any one of these factors could play a more significant role in protecting against suicide.

Since the turn of the millennium, the suicide rate has risen 35%, increasing year-on-year. In 2018, there were nearly 50,000 suicides, the highest per capita rate since the Second World War.