Large numbers of churches were closed last year, with only four of Algeria’s 47 official Protestant congregations continuing and at least 10,000 churches shut down in China, according to Open Doors’ 2024 World Watch List (WWL) of the 50 countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian.
Tens of thousands of Christians from the Kuki-Zo tribal community in India’s northeastern state of Manipur continue to be displaced, more than eight months after the onset of ongoing violence. During this period, at least 80 individuals, including women and children, have died due to inadequate healthcare and substandard living conditions in makeshift shelters in one district alone.
As Pakistan gears up for general elections on February 8, the country’s religious minorities, including Christians, have launched a countrywide community engagement campaign as part of efforts to draw the attention of the mainstream political parties toward the challenges facing minorities.
The Rev. H. Chungthang Thiek, a prominent evangelist and former secretary of the Evangelical Fellowship of India's northeast region, has died, leaving a profound legacy in northeast India's spiritual and social spheres. He was 75. His 27-year tenure at EFI, from 1988 to 2015, was marked by significant contributions to the organization and the broader Church community, said the EFI, a national alliance of Evangelical Christians, in a Jan. 4 statement. He is credited with launching the "Prayer Mou
Police in Pakistan refused to file charges in the case of a Christian mother who lost her unborn son in a Muslim co-worker’s attempt to rape her, sources said.
Dr James Masih Shera MBE, a British-Pakistani Christian politician, educationist and former Mayor of Rugby in the United Kingdom, passed away on January 15 at the age of 76. He was visiting his native Pakistan for the wedding of his brother’s grandson when he succumbed to a sudden illness. He is survived by his wife and son.
Continuing violence against religious minorities in Pakistan belies the government’s Jan. 8 statement that it promotes religious freedom and protects the members of non-Muslim faiths, rights activists said.
Acquittal after a false blasphemy charge has not kept a Christian widow in Pakistan from being driven from her job and village amid threats to her life, sources said.
In a case that has raised significant human rights concerns, a 28-year-old Mongolian Christian imprisoned on trumped-up charges is in critical condition after facing severe persecution in a high-security prison in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia.
A Christian woman was brutally attacked and murdered at the St. Mary's Cathedral Church compound situated in the Cantonment area in Varanasi on January 1. This, according to local media, marks the second murder of the year already, causing heightened concerns within the locals.
Two Christians were arrested and booked under the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act for praying on New Year’s Eve in Ayodhya district of Uttar Pradesh. Pastor Arun Kumar and Pastor Ram Tahal gathered to pray on New Year’s Eve along with about 100 believers on December 31 in Ram Charan Ka Purwa in Ajrauli, Khandasa.
In the 25 years since the U.S. State Department has designated countries with the worst records of religious rights violations as “Countries of Particular Concern (CPC),” it has applied sanctions related only to those violations just three times, according to a new report.
