Apr. 4, 2019

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Church Vandalism in France increases

In France, vandalism of churches is on the rise with nearly three churches per day targeted over the past three years. According to the French Ministry of the Interior, the number of acts of vandalism rose to 1,063 in 2018.

In one week alone this year France saw twelve churches vandalized, including attackers attempting to set fire to a church in Paris. Vandals smeared feces on the wall of the church of Notre-Dame des Enfants and stole objects from the altar. In March, the over 800-year-old Basilica of Saint-Denis in the now heavily migrant-populated suburbs of Paris was seriously vandalized.

Some have actively spoken out against the rise in anti-Christian acts in France, such as Cardinal Robert Sarah, who said: “They are the sad reflection of a sick civilisation that lets itself be swept away in the nets of evil. The bishops, priests, and the faithful must keep up their strength and courage.”

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Apr. 3, 2019
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A Chinese bishop has been arrested in China for allegedly failing to abide by the agreement signed between China and the Holy See six months ago.

Bishop Augustine Cui Tai was arrested March 29.

A priest from his underground Catholic community who wished to remain anonymous said, “The government’s aim is to paralyze the diocese. If the diocese fails to manage the community then the government will use this as an opportunity to take it over.”
Critics say the Vatican has adopted a go-soft policy in China, with negotiations aimed at restoring ties between Beijing and the Holy See taking precedent over the plight of members of the underground church. The situation of clergy in detention remains unresolved. Religious liberties have been subjected to a crackdown over the past year across the country, with strengthened government oversight of religious activities.

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11/27/2018

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Twelve Christian men from Darfur have been arrested by officers of the Sudan National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) for mingling with the local Muslim community.

Darfur is a predominantly Muslim, war-torn region with strict adherence to Sharia. Christians in Sudan who convert from Islam often face discrimination, hostility and imprisonment as a result of their faith. Known as “apostates,” they face danger from their families, neighbors and the state. The penalty for apostasy in Islam is death.

Sudan is ranked number 4 on the World Watch List of the top 50 countries where it is most dangerous to be a Christian. Open Doors says persecution in Sudan comes from the government and radical Muslims and is systematic and reminiscent of ethnic cleansing.

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Nov/26/2018

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On November 10, Chinese Pastor Huang Xiaoning from Guangzhou Bible Reformed Church was detained for five days by the police for ‘disrupting public services.

China Aid, a human rights watchdog, reports Pastor Huang decided to fast and pray inside the police station for the five-days to protest increased government harassment of Christians following new regulations on religious affairs published in February. He is the fourth pastor in China who has been detained for ‘disobedience.’

China Aid also reported that police officers were stationed outside of the church to discourage members from attending worship and the church doors were sealed off by authorities.

“Disturbance of church services and detention of Christians are becoming much more frequent,” said Gina Goh, “as the Chinese government continues its campaign to crack down on Christianity.”

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Armed separatists have kidnapped at least 78 students and their principal from a Presbyterian school in Cameroon's restive northwest region.

A video purportedly of the kidnapped children has been released on social media via men who call themselves Amba boys, a reference to the state of Ambazonia that armed separatists are trying to establish in Cameroon's northwest and southwest regions.

The incident follows only one week after U.S. citizen and missionary, Charles Wesco, was shot and killed in front of his wife and son. Paul Wesco, who had only recently arrived in Cameroon with his wife and 8 children was the brother of Indiana Legislator Timothy Wesco.

At least 400 civilians have been killed in violence since civil unrest broke out in 2016. Tens of thousands have fled the country as refugees, and many are internally displaced.

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11/05/2018

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The joy over the acquittal of Asia Bibi lasted barely 24 hours.

Threats by vigilante mobs who called for her death and warned of national unrest evidently worked. Pakistan's government, is preventing Asia Bibi from leaving the country.

"[B]arring her from leaving the country grants tacit permission to hunt her down and murder her," wrote Robert Spencer, a human rights activist and author.

Asia Bibi's husband, Ashiq Masih, has applied for asylum in the United States, Canada and England.

"I am requesting the president of the United States, Donald Trump, to help us exit from Pakistan", Masih said. "The agreement has sent a shiver down my spine. The current situation is very dangerous for us. We have no security and are hiding here and there, frequently changing our location".

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11/02/2018

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The population of Iraq’s Christians has gone from 1.5 million in 2003 to just 200,000 reports the National Catholic Register with faith leaders saying more is needed to ensure survival of this ancient Christian population.

USAID Administrator Mark Green announced last week a pledge to spend more than $178 million in U.S. foreign assistance to support Christians and other vulnerable communities in Iraq, bringing “total U.S. assistance for this population to nearly $300 million since 2017, implemented by both the State Department and USAID.

“What we’re trying to do is make sure that we’re working with groups that are on the ground,” Green emphasized, “those that are working with communities, and faith communities right on the ground in northern Iraq, so that we can mobilize those resources, get them out most quickly, but, also, have the demonstrable results.”

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11/01/2018

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Christians around the world are rejoicing today, as Asia Bibi—the Pakistani Christian woman who had been on death row for blasphemy for eight years—has been acquitted.

Joining in the celebration is the Save the Persecuted Christians (STPC) Coalition, which in recent months has featured Bibi along with Pastor Andrew Brunson as examples of the Prisoners of Conscience who have been incarcerated for their faith. Like the pastor, her safety must be assured by removing her beyond the reach of those who would murder her and her family.

“Angry mobs are already protesting her release,” says Dede Laugesen, director of the Save the Persecuted Christians Coalition. “We won’t breathe easy until she is safely reunited with her husband and children and secure outside of Pakistan.”

The Coalition believes that it may be possible to discourage such harm by ensuring that persecutors know they will be held accountable and punished for their crimes against humanity.

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Oct/30/2018

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In Kenya, more than 20 Islamic militants ambushed a school in Mandera East and bombed the teachers’ house. As a result, two teachers were killed, and three others were severely injured. The teachers were targeted by Muslim radicals because they were Christians.

The two victims, Johnstone Okumu and Simon Wekesa, taught at Arabia High. Several teachers have expressed their concern about the continued hostility and spate of attacks targeting teachers who live and work in northeastern Kenya.

“It is unfortunate that innocent teachers who are out to bring light and open up the northeastern region are being slaughtered time after time just because of their faith,” said Mr. Martin Kamutu, a teacher in Mandera.

This is not the first killing of teachers in Northern Africa, last month they lost five teachers to the same anti-Christian violence.

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In Uganda, Dorika Kabuo and her four children were chased from their home by Dorika’s husband after Dorika and her children committed their lives to Christ and left Islam together.

People who convert from Islam to Christianity often face similar persecution from relatives like Dorika’s. Uganda’s extremist Muslim population has a history of attacking churches, pastors, and other Christian families.
Dorika says, “Although life has not been easy after converting to Christianity, we are determined to finish the race and keep the faith.”

According to Open Doors, a human rights watchdog for Christian persecution, Islamic Oppression fuels persecution in 8 of the top 10 countries where it is most dangerous to be a Christian.

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President Donald Trump welcomed Pastor Andrew Brunson back to America at the Oval Office over the weekend. Pastor Brunson, released from Turkey having been convicted on charges of Christianization, responded in gratitude and on bended knee layed hands on the President to offer a prayer for his continued leadership and for the nation and leaders who fought so hard for his release.

Meanwhile, in Pakistan, mobs of angry protestors have gathered to demand the execution of Asia Bibi who remains on death row and sentenced to hang anytime now for the crime of Blaspheming Islam for defending her Christian faith. Sources say her execution could take place before the end of the month. Others are hopeful that Asia will be rescued or pardoned. Mob violence towards Christians and anti-blasphemy law protestors is expected to increase.

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American Pastor Andrew Brunson is Free.

The New York Times reports A Turkish court has ordered the release of the American pastor Andrew Brunson from house arrest, a move that will end his 24-month imprisonment and allow him to fly home, signaling a truce of sorts in a heated diplomatic dispute between Turkey and the United States.

Mr. Brunson was sentenced to three years, one month and 15 days in prison. But the judge lifted all judicial controls — including a ban on travel — because of a reduction for good behavior and in view of time served, making him free to leave the country immediately.

He left the courthouse by car shortly after the decision was announced, and American officials following the case said he would depart for the United States soon.

The Trump administration had pressed hard for the release of Mr. Brunson, an evangelical pastor who runs the small Resurrection Church in Izmir.

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Speaking at the Values Voter Summit, U.S. pastor Andrew Brunson’s daughter said Turkey’s indictment against her father explicitly names “Christianization” as his terrorism-related crime.

Pastor Brunson was arrested in 2016 in the wake of a failed coup attempt against the Erdogan regime and is scheduled to return to court on Oct. 12.

“The entire last two years has really shown that these are just baseless charges, stated the pastor’s daughter Jacqueline Furnari. It’s a sham trial, and my dad is being used as a bargaining chip and suffering for Jesus Christ.”

Speaking on the same panel, Secretary Pompeo said, “We are sparing no effort to return Pastor Brunson to the United States … he has been wrongly held, and his proper place is to be able to return here to once again practice his faith in our great nation. Know this, President Trump will never forget about our own.”

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In February, the Muslim terrorist group Boko Haram, stormed Leah Sharibu’s Nigerian middle school kidnapping her and 109 of her schoolmates. After a month in captivity, they were released…all but Leah.

Leah was left behind with her captors because she refused to renounce Jesus even knowing that her decision for Christ would almost certainly mean physical death or even worse – years of torture as a slave to these terrorists.

In mid-September, Boko Haram sent notice with the videotaped execution of a nurse midwife, that Leah is next and will be killed in October if Nigeria doesn’t meet their demands.

Coalition member and author Dominic Sputo says, “I want her to feel our prayers of support…to feel like she’s not forgotten. I want you to share her story, so all know of the brave 15-year-old girl that refuses to disown her faith.”

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In the midst of a campaign by the Chinese Government to “Sinicize” religion and demand unswerving loyalty to the Communist Party, Chinese Christian leaders have declared instead their loyalty to Jesus Christ with a public statement signed by 279 leaders affirming religious freedom and issuing a call to repentance and salvation.

Their concluding statement is a sober one, “For the sake of the gospel, we are prepared to bear all losses—even the loss of our freedom and our lives.”

Bob Fu, founder and president of ChinaAid, warns that China is waging “the most severe systematic suppression of Christianity in the country since religious freedom was written into the Chinese constitution in 1982.”
Faith McDonnell with the Institute for Religion and Democracy reports that once before, in 1998, Chinese Christian leaders bravely signed a joint statement of faith while in the throes of intense persecution.

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A Coptic diocese in Upper Egypt last week saw its eighth church closed following mob violence and attacks by villagers protesting against the church building being legally recognized. Five Copts were then arrested for worshipping in an “unrecognized” church.
Across Egypt, there are thousands of worship spaces informally acknowledged as ‘churches’.

Two years ago, the government introduced a new common law granting church buildings the same rights as mosques. About 3500 pre-existing ‘churches’ were waiting to be legalized at the time: some had been waiting for over 20 years.

In January this year, Egypt’s Ministry of Housing announced that Christians are allowed to continue to meet in unlicensed churches, pending the legalization process.

However, as government inspections proceed, violent Islamic mobs gather to protest, allowing local security forces to then shutdown unlicensed Coptic churches for “safety concerns.”

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Nicaragua’s president has ordered a UN Commission to leave the country after it criticized the government for human rights abuses committed during its six month clampdown on anti-government protestors.

The situation was the topic of a recent UN Security Council meeting. The government of Nicaragua denies the UN report.

While Church leaders have been trying to broker peace, the Church in Nicaragua has also criticized the government, denouncing its totalitarianism, corruption and the crimes it is committing against humanity, said Rossana Ramirez, an analyst with Open Doors’ World Watch Research unit.

That is why “the government has labelled Christian leaders ‘coup plotters’ and ‘enemies of the regime’… and why churches, church leaders and even bishops have been targeted as though they were terrorists,” she explained.

“In fact, no citizen or religious denomination is safe from attack now that paramilitary groups have publicly threatened to ‘blow the head off‘ anyone protesting against the president,” she said.

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Four Christians in Iran, including two converts, have appealed their prison sentences for alleged missionary activities, arguing that they're innocent of the charges.

"Fondness for Christianity and conducting religious services cannot be the basis for incarceration," said Dabrina Bet Tamraz, the daughter of Assyrian pastor Victor Bet Tamraz and Shamiram Isavi, who were both sentenced by a Revolutionary Court in Iran to 10 years and five years in prison respectively.

The couple is currently free on bail along with their two codefendants, Christian converts Hadi Asgari and Amin Afshar Naderi, who had been sentenced to 10 years and 15 years in prison respectively.

Charges include “acting against national security by forming home churches, and insulting the sacred.”

Iran's Christian community, particularly converts to the faith, faces systematic state persecution.

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In Nigeria’s Plateau State, Fulani militants have burned to death a Pastor, his wife and their three children along with several others.

The pastor, Rev. Adamu Wurim, from the Church of Christ in Nation was trapped with his family in their home as militants surrounded them and burned their house to the ground.

News of the most recent violence is still coming in, but at least 10 persons were killed in the Barkin Ladi attacks between Tuesday and Wednesday, Aug. 28 and 29.

International Christian Concern reports the attack lasted for over four hours before security personnel arrived on scene. This was well after the attackers had razed much of the villages of Abonong and Ziyat, and looted valuables such as mattresses, food, electronics, and domestic animals. Three churches were targeted during these attacks.

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Lebanese Internal Security Forces foiled a planned Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist attack with the arrest of two ISIS fighters who were believed to be planning attacks inside of Lebanon.

The terrorists were planning to target a church, and Lebanese soldiers at their checkpoints across the country, before they were apprehended by the ISF.

This news follows troubling reports that ISIS is preparing a resurgence with the release of a credible video of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi who had been rumored dead, but who has resurfaced for the first-time in 11 months.

As many as 20,000 Iraqi Christians are estimated to be in Lebanon, which is home to one of the largest native Christian populations in the Middle East. Lebanon is also host to a large number of Syrian refugees, both Christian and Muslim.

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Christians in Chad are being intimidated and forced from public life, under new rules prioritizing Islam in violation of the North African country’s secular foundations.

A senior Catholic Church source, who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution, called the situation “critical”. The source also said Catholic leaders fear for their lives after criticizing constitutional changes.

The government of Chad, a predominantly Muslim state is enforcing a revised constitution, and requiring office-holders to take a religious oath.

“The new religious oath is exclusive and reductive in its vision of the state and appears to be another way of excluding Christians from public responsibilities,” the church source said.

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Four years ago this month some 140,000 Christians fled Iraq’s Nineveh Plains ahead of genocidal ISIS militants.

Today, despite enormous challenges, Christians of Nineveh are slowly returning to their ruined communities. One group estimates that some 8,815 Iraqi Christian families have returned since ISIS was defeated.

Rebuilding houses, roads and other infrastructure in the Nineveh Plains are going to be an enormous undertaking, estimated to cost around $200 million. Ensuring that towns and villages are safe is also a huge concern. All the more worrying is a new report that shows ISIS has as many fighters as it did at its peak.

The UN estimates that between 20,000 and 30,000 ISIS fighters are still operating in Iraq and Syria, and according to experts "is well-positioned to re-emerge."

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In spite of Nigerian government denials, the United Nations has said the government lied and reported the splinter Boko Haram group that kidnapped the 111 Dapchi girls in February was paid a “large ransom”.

The girls were kidnapped from their school on February 18. One of the girls, Leah Sharibu, is yet to be released for refusing to convert to Islam, other freed girls said.

While the case of the 276 Dapchi Chibok schoolgirls, kidnapped in April 2014 have enjoyed enormous media coverage, UNICEF said in April that over 1000 children have been kidnapped by Boko Haram since 2013.

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Two Catholic priests belonging to an underground church in China’s Gansu province have been dismissed after local authorities accused them of holding an illegal Christian summer camp for youngsters reports Christian Broadcast News.

Around 80 children, ages 10 to 14, were meeting for a week-long youth retreat when police raided the campsite in the northern city of Tianjin and shut it down.

Christians in China are facing an unprecedented wave of persecution as the government wages a campaign against people of faith.

In recent months, hundreds of ‘house churches’ have been closed, crosses atop church buildings have been destroyed, the Bible banned, children were prevented from attending church services and images of Christ ripped down and replaced with posters of China’s Communist president.

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Burma’s Rohingya Muslims have captured the world’s attention, but many do not know that Christians are also suffering from a less visible but also brutal mistreatment and ethnic cleansing campaign at the hands of the Burmese Army, according to aid agencies, human rights groups and U.S. officials.

The campaign against the Christians, which according to estimates has displaced at least 100,000 people, has left thousands stranded in the Burmese jungle terrain.

A U.S. State Department religious freedom report, released in late May, said the Burmese government is “doubling down” its campaign against ethnic minorities, and waging a new campaign of brutality against the Christian minority. Late last year, the U.S again designated Burma a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC) for violating religious freedom.

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A Yezidi girl reports she had to flee Germany to escape continued harassment from the very man who held her captive, tortured and raped her after Sinjar was sacked and occupied by ISIS in 2014.

After escaping her captors she was sent to Germany as part of a program to provide psychological treatment to women kidnapped and abused by IS.

Once in Germany, Ashwaq says she was followed and harassed by the same man who had held her captive in Iraq. German authorities told her they could not arrest him without evidence of his crimes.

Afraid of being kidnapped again, she has returned to Iraq to live with her father in a displaced persons camp. ISIS kidnapped 77 members of her family, and 41 are yet to be rescued or found. At least 3,000 Yezidi captured by ISIS are yet to be liberated.

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The parents of American humanitarian aid worker, Kayla Jean Mueller, abducted 5 years ago by ISIS while working in Syria are asking why their daughter’s captors and torturers have not been charged.

In a letter published in The Hill, Mueller’s parents say three of their daughter’s hostage-takers have been apprehended in Syria, but so far none have been charged with the crimes perpetrated against Kayla.

The Muellers report their daughter was tortured, held in solitary confinement, and then raped by ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who took her as his personal slave before she was reportedly killed in a U.S. Coalition bombing.

“We weren’t able to end our daughter’s torture,” say the Muellers, “but our government can end our torture of not knowing the truth.”

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The Colorado Civil Rights Commission is going after Christian baker Jack Phillips again, although the Masterpiece Cakeshop owner won a resounding 7-2 decision in June before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The state commission moved against Phillips after a lawyer asked him to design and bake a custom cake celebrating a gender transition, pink on the inside and blue on the outside.

Phillips, who calls himself a cake artist, said the requested cake’s message would violate his religious beliefs.

The state Civil Rights Commission has informed Phillips that it found probable cause to believe that Colorado law requires his bakery in Lakewood to create the requested gender-transition cake.
The religious liberty group Alliance Defending Freedom, which has represented Phillips since he turned down a gay couple’s order six years ago for a cake celebrating their marriage, also represents him in the latest federal lawsuit .

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A second appeal for the release of American Pastor Andrew Brunson, has been denied by a court in Izmir where Brunson operated a small Protestant church and ministry for more than 23 years.

US officials maintain there is no credible evidence against Brunson, arrested in 2016 following a failed coup on charges of espionage and having links to terrorist groups. The Trump administration has negotiated to secure his release since he was moved from prison to house arrest in July.

Brunson, who faces up to 35 years in prison if convicted, has always maintained his innocence. His trial is set to resume in October.

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Clashes between the Ethiopian army and the forces of the Liyu militia have led to civil unrest and an escalation of ethnic violence in Ethiopia and the greater Somali region. As the Ethiopian army’s massive intervention was underway, attacks began against targets linked to minority ethnic groups.

News agency Fides says that these attacks were fomented by members of the militia.

The fighting has led to the deaths of many civilians. At least seven Ethiopian Orthodox churches have been attacked and burned, and as many as fifteen priests murdered in the violence that has erupted.

According to sources from the Orthodox Church, more than 20,000 displaced Ethiopians are being supported and assisted by Orthodox parishes.

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Egyptian security forces thwarted a suicide bomb attack on a Christian church just outside of Cairo. A Muslim terrorist wearing a suicide vest was prevented from approaching a church north of Cairo, and detonated the vest about 250 meters from the church, blowing himself up but no one else, state news agency MENA reported.
Christians constitute around 10 percent of Egypt’s predominantly Muslim population.

Muslim terrorists have claimed several attacks on Egypt’s large Christian minority in recent years, including two deadly bombings on Palm Sunday in April 2017 and a blast at Cairo’s largest Coptic cathedral in December 2016 that killed 28 people.

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In India, a nine-year-old-girl from a family that had recently converted to Christianity was kidnapped, gang-raped and strangled to death in early August. Anjali Masih was playing with her friends in the city of Gurdaspur, near the Pakistan border, when a group of men lured her away and murdered her.

Local Christians report a rise in anti-Christian violence in the area, which is predominantly Hindu and Sikh. One Christian, who did not wish to be named, suggested the brutal attack may have been meant to discourage others from changing religions.

India has seen a wave of anti-Christian violence in recent years, with a notable increase since Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist BJP came to power in 2014.

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Christians in China report the country is waging the most severe systematic suppression of Christianity in the country since religious freedom was written into the Chinese constitution in 1982.

President Xi Jinping is enforcing policy to “Sinicize” all the nation’s religions by infusing them with “Chinese characteristics” such as replacing images of Jesus or of the cross with images of Xi and a Chinese flag.

This year, a five-year plan to “Sinicize” Christianity was introduced, along with new rules on religious affairs. Hundreds of “house churches” have been shuttered, Bibles have been seized, faith leaders imprisoned and congregants interrogated and intimidated by local authorities. Children are not allowed to attend worship services and parents are not allowed to teach their children their faith.

The Communist party has long been suspicious of Christianity because of its affiliation with Western values.

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In a positive move, the Trump State Department capped off its first-ever Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom by issuing the historic Potomac Declaration proclaiming religious freedom a far-reaching, universal and profound human right that all peoples and nations of good will must defend.

The declaration says, the freedom to live out one’s faith is a God-given human right that belongs to everyone. Governments cannot justly take it away. Rather, every nation shares the solemn responsibility to defend and protect religious freedom.

As nearly 80 percent of the global population lives in areas with limitations to religious freedom, the declaration reiterates that every person in every nation has the freedom of thought, conscience, and religion. It also reasserts that every person has the right to hold any faith, or no faith, and has freedom to convert from one faith to another.

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At least 17 incidents of anti-Christian persecution have taken place so far in India in 2018 according to religious freedom advocate ADF India .

Among the incidents is the murder of an elderly Christian woman, found in a pool of blood on March 21 on the terrace of her house where she prayed. And the Hindu mob harassment of a Christian pastor who was visiting a sick parishioner.
These acts have taken place within or close to Hyderabad, the capital of southern India's Telangana state, created in 2014 following the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh.

In the same year, Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was voted to power. An ADF India volunteer said the episode of violence against Christians has since escalated.

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Tensions have soared between the United States and NATO ally, Turkey, after the Trump administration leveled economic sanctions on two high-level Turkish ministers for the continued captivity of American pastor Andrew Brunson.

The US Treasury implemented the sanctions under the 2016 Global Magnitsky Act which allows the US to sanction foreign officials implicated in human rights abuses.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told journalists both ministers had "played leading roles in the arrest and detention of Pastor Brunson", who led a Protestant church in the Aegean city of Izmir.

The Turkish foreign ministry warned that the move "will greatly damage constructive efforts" to solve outstanding issues and told Washington it would retaliate.

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The Christian Association of Nigeria sent a letter to Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari condemning the “mindless massacre” of predominantly Christian farmers by Muslim Fulani militias claiming no prominent security operations are being carried out against the Fulani because, the association says, “they are Mr. President’s kith and kin,” a reference to Buhari’s Fulani heritage.
The Christian organization says there has been a “conspiracy of silence“ regarding the attacks and claims, government officials “detest when journalists broadcast news on Fulani killings”.

Despite repeated calls for toughened security the group reports, “there is hardly a day or two that there is no major raid or two taking place; leaving scores of local people across several communities dead.”

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The U.S. has sanctioned Turkish officials over the continued imprisonment of American citizen and pastor Andrew Brunson. The White House announced treasury department sanctions on Turkey’s Minister of Justice and the Minister of Interior that bar Americans from engaging in transactions with them and bars the officials from property, or interest in property, in the United States.

“Pastor Brunson’s unjust detention and continued prosecution by Turkish officials is simply unacceptable,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said. “President Trump has made it abundantly clear that the United States expects Turkey to release him immediately.”

Vice President Mike Pence said over the weekend, "Pastor Andrew Brunson is an innocent man. He’s a man of profound Christian faith, who has ministered in Turkey for more than 20 years ... There's no credible evidence of any wrongdoing against him."

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ANKARA, Turkey — A Turkish court rejected an appeal Tuesday to end the house arrest of American pastor Andrew Brunson who is facing charges of espionage and terror which he denies and which the Trump administration has said are unsubstantiated. Pres. Trump is threatening “large sanctions” if the pastor is not released from house arrest and returned to America.

Christians are beginning to return to their towns and villages in Iraq’s Nineveh Plain, but many refuse to return to Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, claiming they are afraid jihadi networks are still on the ground — especially in Mosul. Thirty thousand Christians lived in Mosul before ISIS. Today, fewer than several hundred have returned says Ken Timmerman, author of a new book, ISIS Begins.

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Save The Persecuted Christians brings you news of anti-Christian violence in today’s SaveUs Minute.

In a positive move, the Trump Administration led by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, is setting up a religious liberty task force to protect the conscience rights of pro-life medical professionals, and pastors who speak about pro-life issues from the pulpit.

Arizona Senator Jeff Flake questioned Secretary of State Mike Pompeo about the status of religious freedom in Rwanda. The Kagame government has closed more than 8,000 churches in the first half of 2018 and has made it illegal for citizens to gather for prayer or worship in any place other than government approved buildings.

85 years ago this August, 63 Assyrian villages in the Dohuk and Mosul districts of modern-day Iraq were attacked by the newly formed Iraqi Army. As many as 6,000 Assyrians were brutally murdered. The Assyrian people are still seeking justice.

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Save The Persecuted Christians brings you news of anti-Christian violence in today’s SaveUs Minute

In Egypt, a Coptic Christian Bishop has been found murdered inside the monastery where he was abbot. Bishop Epiphanius had left his cell at St. Markarious Monastery on his way to midnight prayers when he was attacked. His body was found bloody with serious head wounds. Authorities are investigating.

Last week in Orleans, France, Saint-Pierre du Matroi church was set on fire and vandalized with the words “Allahu Akbar” spray-painted on a wall. Christianophobia Observatory, reports there were 128 incidents of church vandalism or other anti-Christian attacks in France in the first five months of 2018.

The U.K.’s Barnabus Fund reports none of the 1,100 Syrian refugees resettled in Britain in the first three months of 2018 were Christian, despite their vulnerable status after having been targeted for genocide by ISIS.

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