World in Brief

Anahita Khademi , the wife of a Church of Iran leader, has been released on bail after spending over three weeks in prison. She was released after posting bail equivalent to about $4,000, but still faces charges of ‘propaganda against the system’ and ‘disturbing public opinion’.

Ms Khademi was arrested days after her husband, Pastor Matthias Haghnejad, was seized, together with two other Christians. Haghnejad remains in prison on charges of ‘acting against the security of the country by forming a group and propagating Christianity’.

The cross on top of the Hudson Taylor Memorial Tower, behind Xuande Church in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province has been removed.

Built in 2018, the tower was also open to the public. Hudson and Maria Taylor were buried under the Memorial building after their tombs were moved to the Hudson Taylor Memorial Church in 2014. Both the church and the Memorial used to have a cross on top. Although the Memorial’s cross has been removed, the one on the church remains for now.

Suspected Fulani herdsmen have attacked two villages and killed 12 Christians in Benue state, even though Nigerian authorities had been warned that thousands of cattlemen were arriving there.

The assailants attacked Ichembe and Mbaigbe villages in Kwande County and wounded dozens of others, besides destroying houses, crops and farms, said Michael Aondohemba, general coordinator of the Turan People’s Assembly.

A further 44 Christians – 39 women and five men – have been arrested in Eritrea, bringing the total imprisoned for their faith to more than 400. They are being held near the capital, Asmara.

Many Christians are held without charge and detained indefinitely. Torture and brutality are commonplace. Some Christians are held in shipping containers in the desert, where they bake by day and freeze by night. Many have been in prison for more than a decade, just for gathering for prayer in their homes.

The US Embassy in Tanzania has issued a security alert following intelligence of a possible terrorist attack: ‘Terrorist groups could attack with little or no warning, targeting hotels, embassies, restaurants, malls and markets, police stations, places of worship, and other places frequented by Westerners.’

Tanzania has been infiltrated by Islamic State (IS) jihadists due to its proximity to the Muslim-dominated province of Cabo Delgado in Northern Mozambique. In 2020, the insurgents conducted two attacks inside Tanzania after crossing the porous border from Cabo Delgado.

A church in Medan, North Sumatra Province, Indonesia has been prohibited from holding a Sunday service in front of a city hall building, where it had relocated after losing its previous worship venue in a shopping centre.

Following opposition to the church’s services in the shopping mall, the head of the Medan Public Order Enforcer, Rakhmat Harahap, and his unit banned an Elim Church Indonesia Christian (GEKI) congregation from holding worship near the Medan City Hall.

The German Bundestag has refused to establish a new ‘International Day against the Persecution of Christians’. The day proposed was 15 February, the day in 2015 when the so-called Islamic State published the video of the decapitation of 21 Coptic Christians in Libya.

The proposal was for the government ‘to end the worldwide persecution of Christians in the form of persecution, discrimination, and even cultural devaluation as a burning problem and to outlaw it’. But the proposal found no support from other political groups in the Bundestag.

Finland has reformed its transgender law to make personal choice the only requisite for a person to legally change his or her gender.

Parliament voted (by 113 to 69) to amend the law, so people no longer need to undertake a prior medical process, including a psychiatric assessment. Nor will a medical certificate demonstrating the person’s sterility be required. Self-declaration is now enough to legally be declared a man or a woman.

Evangelicals in Portugal have called on the President and Constitutional Court to block a new euthanasia law.

The Portuguese Evangelical Alliance regretted that there was neither a broad ‘philosophical, social and religious’ conversation nor enough guarantees of ‘palliative and social care’. The Portuguese Parliament passed a third version of the text in December. The Alliance said it was ‘deeply concerned’ about the new text and hopes it will not come into force, because it opposes ‘a law that puts medically provoked death as a hypothesis’.

The Colorado Court of Appeals has refused to grant Christian baker Jack Phillips’ appeal against an earlier court ruling that said he was wrong to refuse an order for a cake celebrating transgenderism.

The case was brought by transgender lawyer, Autumn Scardina, after Phillips declined to bake a cake in the pink and blue colours of the transgender flag. Judge Timothy Schutz ruled that Phillips had violated Colorado’s Anti-Discrimination Act because the order had initially been accepted, but then retracted after discovering that the cake was to celebrate Scardina’s transition.

The Sri Lankan Supreme Court has ruled that compensation must be paid to the families of the victims of the 2019 Easter bombings.

More than 250 people were killed when suicide bombers targeted six locations, including three churches, on Easter Sunday four years ago. Many more were injured. The court ordered former president Maithripala Sirisena and four high-ranking officials to pay the equivalent of about £700,000 in compensation from their own personal funds.

The Ukrainian Institute for Religious Freedom has revealed that almost 500 religious buildings, theological institutions and sacred places have been damaged, looted or completely destroyed.

At least 120 places of worship, including mosques and synagogues, were destroyed in the Donetsk region, where most of the heavy fighting has taken place. The Kyiv and Kharkiv regions were the next most affected areas.

Jean Vanier, the deceased founder of Christian charity L’Arche, has been found to have abused at least 25 women over a 50-year period, a new report has revealed. L’Arche helps people with intellectual disabilities better integrate into society.

Commissioned by L’Arche International in 2020, the report found the 25 women were single, married or consecrated and without disabilities. They were all identified as having experienced ‘a situation involving a sexual act or an intimate gesture between 1952 and 2019’ with Vanier.