Officials in Mauritania have released all Christians arrested after a video of a baptism ceremony in November prompted Muslims to call for their punishment, Christian leaders in the region said.
The killing of an elderly woman and her daughter in Gaza City’s Holy Family Church on Saturday (Dec. 16) was the sixth attack by Israeli Defense Forces on the compound since war in Gaza broke out, a relative told The Washington Post.
Authorities in Mauritania have arrested 15 Christian leaders since late November following calls for punishment by Muslims outraged over a video showing a baptism ceremony, sources said.
Noting a widespread wave of arrests of religious minorities in Iran since June, the U.N. General Assembly last month adopted a resolution calling on the Islamic regime to “cease the widespread and systematic use of arbitrary arrests and detention.”
The Islamic State (ISIS) claimed responsibility for a blast that killed four worshippers at a Catholic Mass on Sunday (Dec. 4) in an area of the Philippines that had become an autonomous Muslim region in an attempt to end such violence.
New regulations for “religious activity venues” in China advance officials’ desire to replace spiritual instruction with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) political teaching, rights experts say.
