In Depth:  Barnabas Fund

Christians, from a wide span of ethnic groups, have been killed in coordinated attacks which included sickening violence and desecration of the dead bodies.

The victims had been singled out to be murdered by people who carried lists of Christians and who went from door to door seeking out their victims. Police are reported to have stood by and watched.

A pastor and his wife have fled Iran after the final appeal against a 15-year combined prison sentence failed. They are reported to be in a safe location.

Pastor Victor Bet-Tamraz was sentenced in July 2017 to ten years in prison for ‘acting against national security’ by organising and conducting house church services. Shamiram Issavi received a sentence of five years in January 2018, for ‘acting against national security’ by organising small groups, attending a seminary abroad and training church leaders and pastors to act as ‘spies’.

Saudi Arabia has called the United Nations to focus on ‘eliminating Islamophobia’ as an outworking of tackling online racism and xenophobia.

Meshaal Bin Ali Al Balawi, Saudi’s Head of Human Rights at the United Nations Mission in Geneva, addressed the Human Rights Council, flagging the internet as a ‘space for practicing racism’ as he called for the UN to work towards finding a ‘solution’. The Saudi leader stated that the world needs to ‘prohibit racial discrimination in all its forms’.

Thousands of ethnic Chin Christians are enduring severe food shortages in Mynanar because government forces have put up road blockades, cutting off food supplies.

For the last six months, the transport of rice has been severely limited in the Christian-majority Chin state. Families are struggling to survive on limited rations of bananas and vegetables. Food shortages have forced many Christians to leave the villages of Shangon and Mingaladon near the Dalet Chaung village tract. However, a government-imposed block on internet and mobile services means little is known about how the situation is affecting communities in the area.

An ancient marble cross, thought to be as much as 1,200 years old, was discovered in the foothills of the Karakoram mountain range in the heart of the Himalayas, providing evidence for Christianity’s early arrival in northern Pakistan from the Middle East.

Three researchers from the University of Baltistan found the 2.1m x 1.8m cross near their base camp in the predominantly Muslim region bordering with China, Afghanistan and India. It is estimated to weigh around four tonnes.

Hindu extremist groups have been stopping Christians getting government aid due to their faith, it was reported in early May.

Pastor James went to collect the food that the central Indian government provides to poor families affected by Covid-19 lockdown. The distribution was organised by local Hindu extremist groups, who dominate the government in Pastor James’ state. As a result they refused to give him anything unless he renounced his faith. Unable to deny his Saviour, James went home emptyhanded to his hungry family.

The UN warned on 21 April that the world faces a famine of ‘biblical proportions’ over Covid-19 pandemic.

Urgent and immediate action is needed to prevent widespread famine as the pandemic worsens existing world food crises, said the head of the United Nations World Food Pro-gramme (WFP).

Islamist militants murdered at least 57 people and damaged a church building in a spate of attacks in early April.

Militants operating in Cabo Delgado left five dead in Quirimba – an island off the northern coast. One person was shot, another was burned alive, and three drowned as they tried to escape. About 60 people were taken hostage, but released later the same day.

A spokesman for the Al-Shabaab terror group active in Somalia declared coronavirus as a ‘punishment visited by Allah upon the disbelievers’ in an audio message reported on 27 April.

As the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Mogadishu began to climb, the militant, known as Ali Dhere, called on Muslims to gloat about the ‘painful torment’ inflicted on any non-Muslims who contract Covid-19.

Authorities, which already held tight restrictions on the freedoms of Christians, have prevented Christians further from even accessing live-streamed church services.

‘Our first and only online gathering was blocked by the government soon after it started,’ said a pastor of an unofficial house church in the south-eastern province of Jiangxi. The church had suffered police harassment before the coronavirus outbreak, and was forced to change venue at least five times.

Christian families set free from the yoke of bonded labour in Pakistan’s brick kilns (because of the generosity of Christian donors) are, in turn, releasing their brothers and sisters from that same burden, it was reported in March.

1,001 families have been freed since 2017. Despite earning incredibly low wages, they have gone on to help a further 86 families caught in the quagmire of debt.

Christian converts from Islam no longer have the choice of keeping their faith secret after the Islamic Republic removed the ‘other religions’ option from the new application form for the national ID card, it was reported in March.

The National Census Bureau narrowed the choices available to new applicants to only the four religions recognised under the Iranian Constitution: Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Zoroastrianism.

Four Muslim men abducted, beat and robbed a street preacher in Trondheim, finally demanding at knifepoint that he convert to Islam or be killed, it was reported in January.

Roar Fløttum, who regularly preaches and prays for the sick on the streets of the historic northern city, was lured away by the four seemingly friendly men to pray for a friend who had ‘injured his foot and was waiting for an ambulance’.

It was reported in December that Russian security agencies are using sweeping surveillance powers to impose harsh restrictions on evangelical Christian groups in the name of tackling vaguely defined ‘extremist’ activities.

The ‘Yarovaya Law’, introduced in 2016, imposes tough fines and potential expulsion from Russia, and places heightened restrictions on religious groups including requiring an official permit to meet outside officially-registered religious buildings.

Chinese authorities forced a church in Jiangxi province to paint over its name and replace it with a Communist slogan in December.

The church was forced to display: ‘Follow the Party, Obey the Party, and Be Grateful to the Party,’ amid increasing attempts by officials to ‘sinicise’ (make Chinese) Christianity.

Seven people were killed and 21 children and young adults were kidnapped in another spree of devastating Boko Haram attacks on mainly-Christian villages in the far north of Cameroon in December.

The rampage in Mayo Sava district began on 1 December. Gunmen opened fire on mourners gathered at a funeral in Kotserehé, forcing them to flee in all directions. An eyewitness said, ‘It was a total rout … women have fled without being able to take their children with them.’

It was reported in December that the Chinese government is rolling out a complete-coverage artificial intelligence (AI) surveillance system. The system will give authorities access to massive quantities of raw data and the capacity to monitor citizens’ every move.

Pilot schemes of ‘social scoring’ data already active in Beijing and Shanghai use advanced facial recognition technology to monitor location and track movement.

Authorities are attempting to combat hard-line Islamist ideology by urging members of the public to report extremist content posted online by civil servants and taking action to replace school textbooks deemed to contain radical material.

On 12 November, the government announced the launch of a website where people can report posts by civil servants containing elements of ‘hate, misleading information, intolerance or anti-Indonesian sentiment’. This could include ‘liking’ or commenting positively on radical content on social media.

Syriac Christian minister Hoseb Abraham Bedoian and his father were shot dead on November 11 by two motorcycle gunmen who ambushed their car in north-east Syria.

Another church leader managed to escape the unidentified assailants, who attacked their unescorted vehicle around midday. Some reports have linked the gunmen to ISIS.

Ebrahim Firouzi, an Iranian Christian in a weakened state of ill health, was released on 26 October after six years in Rajai Shahr jail.

He is expected to serve a two-year period of internal exile in Sarbaz, a deprived area in Sistan-Baluchestan Province. Since his conversion from Islam to Christianity, Firouzi has endured numerous arrests and periods of imprisonment on charges including ‘plotting against the Islamic regime’, which is typical of those faced by Iranian Christians actively engaged in ministry.

Churches in Henan, China, were forced by authorities to take down displays of the Ten Commandments and replace them with quotes of President Xi Jinping, according to reports in September.

Every state-registered ‘Three-Self Patriotic Movement’ church and meeting venue in the county of Luoyang, received an order to remove the biblical commandments from display as part of the authorities’ on-going campaign to ‘sinicise’ (make Chinese) Christianity.

In September it was reported that a tiny and unknown group of Rohingya Christians have faced violence from some of the 750,000 Muslim Rohingyas who fled Myanmar as refugees.

A church leader told of an upsurge in violence and pleaded for prayers for the estimated ‘several hundreds’ of Rohingya Christian converts from Islam. Already belonging to what some have called the ‘most persecuted people on earth’, the small community of Rohingya believers are now being subjected to anti-Christian violence in the camps in Cox’s Bazaar district.

Boko Haram terrorists cut off the ears of at least three Christian women after snatching them from their homes during a night-time raid on a mainly Christian town in the far north of Cameroon on 29 July.

The Islamist extremists broke into homes, grabbed the women and dragged them to the outskirts of Gagalari town in the district of Yagoua where they sliced off one ear from each victim, according to local sources.

Chinese authorities erased the words Bible, God and Christ from classic children’s stories including Robinson Crusoe and The Little Match Girl as part of moves to redact Christian references, it was reported in early August.

The stories are among four works by foreign writers to feature in a new Chinese school textbook that offers students an ‘understanding of other cultures’, according to the Ministry of Education.

At least 100 men, women and children were slaughtered in a mainly-Christian village in Mali by heavily-armed Islamist extremists on 10 June.

It was described as the worst massacre in Mali since 1946. Jihadists encircled the isolated village of ethnic Dogon people at night and set fire to everything that moved in a well-targeted attack.

Operation Safe Havens (OSH), a project to rescue persecuted Christians from Syria and re-settle them in Australia, has bought plane tickets for 78 out of the 100 people it planned to help in the three-month period which started in March.

‘[The persecution] began in a bakery’, recalled one woman. Two of her brothers were queueing to buy bread when they were killed in a drive-by shooting. The terrorists were from the Jabat al-Nusra rebel group. They drove on to a village nearby, shooting and plundering as they went. The terrorists entered every home, gathered the Christians together and told them to leave and never come back, or they would be killed and their children raped.

After two cyclones struck Mozambique in March and April, villagers left without aid have welcomed relief from Christian organisations.

Chief Antonio in one village said: ‘I would like to say to Barnabas Fund that you are so welcome here in our village and we thank you for this help! Since the disaster, no one has physically arrived in our area to help us until you came. Your food is a gift of life for our elderly and the orphans in our area. There are still so many villages in the surrounding area needing help. We pray that God will continue to send people like yourself to these areas to continue to help!’

A miraculous rescue took place after 72 Muslim-background Christian women and children captured by Boko Haram were about to be gunned down, it was reported in mid-March.

After being tortured, four male leaders of the group were told at gunpoint to renounce their faith in Christ and revert to Islam. When they refused, holding fast to their Saviour, the men were shot in front of their families and friends. The following week, the wives of the four martyred men were also ordered to renounce their faith or their children would be executed.

A Christian father of five was beheaded in Odisha (formerly Orissa) state, eastern India, in February, nine months after con-verting.

Anant Ram Gand, 40, was baptised in December 2018, which had angered locals. Reportedly, the execution-style murder was carried out by Maoist Naxalites, a communist guerrilla group, at the behest of local extremists.

On 9 January, Christian online activity came under more pressure with a ban on uploading short videos to the Internet that violate ‘national religious policies’.

Anything that authorities view as promoting ‘religious extremism’ is now officially outlawed and authorities warned that websites hosting non-compliant media will be shut down.

An elderly Iranian Christian woman endured 10 days of intensive interrogation by intelligence officers and was forced to go to an Islamic religious leader to be ‘instructed’, it was reported in late February.

Ruhsari Kamberi, 65, was one of five women converts from Islam arrested from different church groups. The whereabouts of the other four are unknown.

A Christian father of five was beheaded on 11 February in Odisha (formerly Orissa) state, eastern India, because of his Christian faith.

Anant Ram Gand, 40, became a Christian nine months ago. His recent baptism had angered locals in Raigarh Tehsil village, Nabarangapur district, according to local Christian leader Shibu Thomas. Reportedly, the execution-style murder was carried out by Maoist Naxalites* at the behest of local extremists.

Three Christians suffered serious injuries when a mob of 25 extremists attacked a prayer meeting in India’s northern state of Uttar Pradesh on 7 February.

The mob broke into the pastor’s home in Chapar village, Sultanpur district, and began insulting worshippers before slapping them and hitting them with sticks. Bibles were also set on fire.

China-backed separatist authorities in the north-east of Myanmar’s Shan state are cracking down on Christians over alleged links to Western missionaries, it was reported in December.

The United Wa State Army, which controls the Wa Special Region that borders China’s Yunnan province, issued an edict ordering an investigation into ‘missionaries’ and banning the construction of new churches.

Under the slogan, ‘once untrustworthy, always restricted’ China’s planned AI (artificial intelligence)-controlled ‘social credit’ system will bring a new depth of intervention into the lives of Chinese citizens, including Christians.

The Chinese Government pilot schemes, in cities including Beijing and Shanghai, are underpinned by a vast network of advanced surveillance technology which uses face recognition to monitor location and track movement. Individuals’ social ‘scores’ are updated in live CCTV streams as they are going about their daily lives.

After being secretly filmed, four Christians were reported to the police and arrested in early November near Kathmandu, charged with breaking Nepal’s anti-conversion laws.

It was alleged that the individuals, two of them Japanese nationals, had been ‘proselytising’ door-to-door, ‘targeting Dalits’ (the lowest level of the Hindu caste system).

Christians gathered in Sofia for three consecutive Sundays in November, protesting planned amendments to the Law on Religious Communities.

The amendments would place restraints on evangelising, bans on worship outside officially recognised buildings, restrictions on training denominational ministers, and a membership threshold of 300 people required for official recognition of religious groups. Financial donations are also being targeted, with the state demanding greater control over ‘international donations for religious purposes’.

Upsetting Muslims and Christians alike in a speech on 20 November, Imran Khan claimed there is no historical record of Jesus Christ.

This could have been a slip of the tongue by the Oxford University-educated leader of the centrist PTI party, but has been viewed as a direct attack on the Christian faith by Pakistani Christians, who number as many as three million in the country.

With Saudi Arabia in the headlines regarding the killing of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, concerns over the arms deals with the UK, and the war in Yemen, Barnabas Fund take a look at the nation and its treatment of Christians.

Western oil interests and a quest for Middle Eastern ‘stability’ mean Saudi Arabia is welcomed as an ally of the so-called Christian West – a profound contradiction that ignores the country’s treatment of Christians and involvement in jihadist violence around the globe. The largely unquestioning support of Western governments for Saudi Arabia is an insult to Christ’s followers there who live in the shadow of death.

Thirty-four Christian students attending a Bible camp in Sulawesi died after a mudslide caused by the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami buried a church on 28 September.

A further 52 students are still missing at the time of writing. The death toll has now exceeded 1,300, while the UN estimates that almost 200,000 people are in desperate need of aid.

The growing crackdown on unofficial churches deepened on 9 September when authorities closed one of the largest churches in Beijing.

The church had faced growing threats from authorities, including eviction, since it refused to comply with a government order to install closed-circuit television cameras at its worship site.

Armed men raided a church in Alchevsk, eastern Ukraine on 6 August and detained a church pastor.

The men, thought to be from the security ministry of the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR), interrupted a service and forced the congregation to lie face down on the floor. They then seized the church’s computer. The pastor and a number of other leaders were detained for several hours and then ordered to appear in court.

A vigorous southwest monsoon left a trail of destruction across India’s southern state of Kerala, starting on 8 August, killing over 400 people and leaving over 220,000 people homeless.

The floods were the worst in 100 years. The high death toll is set to rise with reports of dengue fever, influenza, amoebic dysentery, malaria and other waterborne infections reaching unprecedented levels.

Tight security foiled an attempted suicide attack on a church in Mostorod, north of Cairo, on 11 August.

Security guards stopped the attacker from entering the church grounds to target worshippers. The bomber then detonated his explosive vest on an overpass around 250 metres from the church, killing himself and one passer-by, as well as injuring a policeman.

Muslims in the village of Sultan Basha uprooted Christians’ crops on 24 August after police intervened to stop demonstrators opposing the granting of legal status to a church building in the village.

Muslim villagers gathered outside the church in Sultan Basha, around 150 miles south of Cairo. Police intervened and reportedly caught three Muslims who had damaged CCTV cameras on the church wall and gate, and warned the mob against perpetrating further violence. Local Muslims then uprooted Christians’ crops and damaged irrigation pumps.

In response to a Freedom of Information request from Barnabas Fund (BF), the UK Home Office released figures on Syrian refugees resettled in the UK for the first quarter of 2018.

The UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) recommended 1,358 Syrian refugees for resettlement in the UK of which only four were Christians, representing a tiny fraction of just 0.29%. The Home Office agreed to resettle 1,112 of these (82%), all of whom were Muslims, and refused all recommendations of Christians for resettlement.

The government of the Philippines formally created a fully-autonomous region in Muslim-dominated Mindanao, which includes allowing elements of sharia law.

Mindanao Christians objected to a previous agreement in 2008 which proposed an area with sharia law. The Philippines’ Supreme Court ruled that the agreement was unconstitutional. Muslim armed groups responded with violence against Christians.

Over 250 Christian families have been freed from bonded labour after efforts by Barnabas Fund, the charity reported in July.

About 1,435 Pakistanis were set free from living like slaves.

A new decree issued by the Laos Government last year is leaving Christians and churches vulnerable to prosecution, it was reported in July.

The vaguely-worded law requires ‘associations’ – a term which covers groups from clubs to non-profits – to meet stringent registration criteria.

A group of 262 Nigerian Christian farmers fleeing a murderous attack by Muslim Fulani herdsmen were saved when they were given shelter by an imam on 24 June.

The village was attacked by around 300 armed men, reportedly Fulani cattle herd-ers. The gang opened fire killing scores of Christians and set fire to people’s homes and the local church. Some Christian families escaped from the gunmen to a mainly Muslim village nearby. A local imam took in around 262 people, hiding women and children in his home, and taking the men to the mosque.

Attacks are taking place in refugee detention centres in Libya, with Christians reporting crimes of an horrific nature, in June.

Sara, a 23-year-old Ethiopian Christian, described how she and other believers had to hide evidence they were Christians from centre guards at the detention centre in Libya where they were being. ‘We hid our crosses, because the Libyan police working in that place didn’t appreciate Christians.’

A warning was given to the EU Parliament on 5 June that religious freedom is one generation away from being lost.

Discrimination and intolerance of Christianity in Europe was debated for the first time in the European Parliament, in a meeting hosted by Nathan Gill, MEP. ‘Christianophobia in Europe: a case study’ called for vigilance from Europe’s leaders as discrimination against Christians was growing.

Christian children are particularly being targeted by authorities in Communist Cuba, according to the latest report from the independent United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.

Researchers found ‘community officials discriminate against Christians in employment and schools, including denying some Christian children food in schools’.

The family of 46-year-old Naser Navard Goltapeh, a Christian convert from Islam imprisoned in Iran, fear that a severe gum infection will cause him further health problems it was reported in mid-April.

A family member told local sources: ‘If he does not receive immediate medical attention we are afraid he might lose all of his teeth’.

Sixteen people were killed in a gun attack by semi-nomadic herdsmen on a church in Gwer, Benue State, in the early hours of 23 April.

Local herdsmen attacked the church in Ayar-Mbalom during a morning service. Amongst those killed were two ministers named as Joseph Gor and Felix Tyolaha. Terver Akase, a spokesperson for State Governor Samuel Ortom, told news sources that the attackers went on to set 50 houses on fire, causing serious disruption to the entire community.

A Christian woman, who converted from Islam, was held captive in her home and beaten by her Muslim family in late April for refusing to renounce her faith in Christ.

‘Gulum’, who has a two-year-old son, was held in her home for two days by her family before being taken to the mosque in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, where she was held and questioned intensively by Islamic clerics in front of her son.

A 25-year-old Christian woman from Punjab province, Pakistan, died of horrific injures 11 days after being set on fire on 11 April for refusing to convert to Islam in order to marry a Muslim man.

Asma Yaqoob refused to convert to Islam as demanded by Muhammad Rizwan Gujjar as a condition of a marriage proposal. When Asma refused to renounce her faith, Gujjar doused her with petrol before setting her on fire.

­Barnabas Fund

The pastor of a church in Tajikistan has called for prayer after secret police raided a church worship service in March.

Police took photographs and filmed the congregation. They also attempted to search church ministry offices, without the permission or presence of the church leaders, and confiscated a piece of Christian literature. After the service, the police questioned the two church leaders at length before leaving. The pastors of the church have already been given two warnings and fined. If a third fine and warning are issued, the church faces the possibility of being shut down.

The brutal killing of a pastor and his family has caused the church in Darfur to grow rapidly, it was reported in March.

Pastor Stephen lay asleep at home after a day of open-air evangelistic ministry in one of the slums of Darfur, a mainly Muslim area of Sudan. He had prayed with 56 new believers who made the decision that day, 1 March, to leave Islam and follow Christ.

Boko Haram militants freed the rest of a group of kidnapped schoolgirls on 21 March, but are still holding captive a Christian girl who refused to convert to Islam.

The girls were abducted on 19 February 2018 from a Government Science and Technical Secondary School in the town of Daptchi in north-east Nigeria. Around 70 were returned to Daptchi in the early hours of 21 March. ‘I don’t know why they brought us back, but they said because we are children of Muslims. One [girl] is still with them because she is a Christian,’ one of the released girls told journalists.

A special committee set up to review church registration applications legalised the status of 53 Egyptian churches on 26 February.

In 2016, the Egyptian Parliament voted to abolish Ottoman-era restrictions on church building. But the committee set up to review applications from the many pre-existing churches did not meet until October 2017 – previous restrictions left no option but to worship illegally in unlicensed buildings.

The Pakistan Government unveiled an historic fatwa (religious ruling) in mid-January condemning Islamic extremism and vigilante ‘blasphemy’ attacks, in a potentially positive development for the country’s minority Christian community.

By issuing the fatwa with the support of 1,829 religious leaders the Pakistani Government is addressing extremism from a religious perspective.

A group of Iranian Christian refugees were given two weeks to leave Austria on 19 February after the US Government denied their asylum applications. They now face potential deportation back to Iran.

Around 100 mainly Christian Iranian refugees have been stranded in Vienna for more than a year. They had expected to be allowed to enter the US under the Lautenberg humanitarian programme, which was instigated in 1990 to enable Jews and Christians from the Former Soviet Union to emigrate.

The government of Mauritania strengthened ‘blasphemy’ laws, so that anyone found guilty will face the death penalty, even if they ‘repent’, it was reported in an official statement on 17 November.

The Mauritanian Justice Minister said: ‘Every Muslim, man or woman, who mocks or insults Muhammed … is liable to face the death penalty, without being asked to repent. They will incur the death penalty even if they repent.’

Earlier in 2017, Whitehall officials attempted to block access to statistics which revealed how Christian victims of genocide are neglected by the UK and UN.

A Freedom of Information request was submitted to the UK Home Office in February. No reply was forthcoming. After a complaint was lodged with the Information Commission’s office, the Home Office was told to release the information or face contempt of court proceedings.

Dumdaw Nawng Lat, 67, and Langjaw Gam Seng, 35, were imprisoned on 27 October for a combined six and a half years for ‘exposing the military’s crimes’.

The two Christian leaders assisted visiting journalists reporting on damage caused by military air-strikes to a church and other civilian structures in Muse, northern Shan State, in late 2016. Consequently, the military arrested them. Signed confessions that they supported the Kachin Independence Army – which their lawyers claim were signed under extreme duress – were the only evidence used to convict them.

More than 50 Islamists attacked the church of Anba Moussa (St Moses) building in Ezbet al-Qeshri, Minya, 250km south of Cairo, on 22 October.

The mob stormed to the church from the local mosque, chanting: ‘No matter what, we’ll bring the church down.’ Although unsuccessful in breaking into the building, they managed to set the main gate on fire and damaged security cameras before the police arrived to restore order. The first floor of the building houses a pre-school nursery serving 38 toddlers. The mob also attacked Christian-owned homes and vehicles with rocks, injuring three Christians. The village is home to 1,000 Christians.

Iraqi and Syrian Christians feel ‘abandoned, even betrayed’ by the international community, said one church leader, who represents Christian communities across the Middle East.

Western politicians do not take an interest in the plight of Christians – despite the fact that they have been the targets of violence and genocide for years – because, he said: ‘We don’t have the numbers, we don’t have the oil, we don’t pose any terrorist threat to the civilised world. We have been put aside and neglected. Many Iraqi Christians remain displaced, with no funding to rebuild the towns in which they used to live, while Western countries are denying Christians official refugee status. (See articles on Whitehall cover-up and Hungary’s response to refugees.)

A leading Christian aid agency called in early September for greater attention to be given to Myanmar’s persecuted Christian community who, like the Rohingya Muslims, have been targets of violence and intimidation by the military.

There is a new threat of jihadist violence which now faces the Christian community in nearby Chin state as a direct result of the Rohingya crisis. Muslim militants, who launched a series of attacks last October which led to this year’s heavy-handed and repressive overreaction by the Myanmar military, could soon have their numbers reinforced by Islamist fighters from Al-Qaeda and Islamic State.

Hostages who escaped the clutches of jihad-ists in Marawi, described being made to build bombs for militants, it was reported in October.

More than 200 hostages, many of whom are Christians, were held by militants and forced to construct improvised explosive devices, as well as scavenge for food and weapons. Some were press-ganged into fighting for Islamist rebels. At the time of writing, government forces are expecting to retake Marawi shortly, after four months of fighting. One escaped hostage recalled how the jihadists – excited by their ‘success’ in Marawi – openly discussed possible other targets, including the Philippines’ capital, Manila.

Eight churches in Baghdad permanently closed in the past few months following years of declining attendances, as congregation members fled due to more than a decade of anti-Christian violence.

While Western governments rejoiced that Mosul was ‘liberated’ from Islamic State, Baghdad’s forgotten Christians live with daily insecurity and the threat of violence. Christians have been deliberately targeted in kidnappings and some Christian shopkeepers are forced to pay ‘protection money’ to militias.

A mob of about 30 Hindu extremists armed with sticks invaded a church service in Faridabad, a city south-east of New Delhi, on 3 September.

Members of the mob handed children a leaflet and forced them to be photographed holding it, before they dragged the pastor, Abraham Thomas, to a police station. The mob accused Thomas of forcibly converting children and showed police the images they had taken – the leaflet the children were holding incited communal violence and included the line ‘Let us use guns to shoot all the Hindus’.

On 22 August, police found Sameera, a missing 16-year-old Christian girl; she had been kidnapped and raped.

She had also been made to marry her rapist, and forced to convert to Islam.

On 8 August, Nepal’s Parliament passed a Bill restricting religious conversion and criminalising ‘hurting religious sentiment.’

The new legislation means anyone convicted of encouraging someone to convert could be sentenced to up to five years imprisonment.

A Barnabas Fund project partner in Cameroon reported in July the ‘theft of domestic animals, kidnapping of children, and killings … suicide bombers and bombs in markets and public places.’

The situation for Christians in Cameroon has improved since July last year, as attacks from Boko Haram are now sporadic. But in the rainy season many roads are impassable, restricting the mobility of security forces. This benefits Boko Haram ‘who can easily follow the trails on foot to go and mount their attacks.’

In July, Barnabas Fund highlighted the situation in Aleppo, Syria, after receiving a letter from one of its Project Partners there.

The letter said: ‘A lot of young people lost their friends, killed during the war or who left the country for good … Several industrialists or small business owners are looking for workers to revive their projects and they are confronted with the lack of skilled manpower … The high cost of living, the rising prices and the decline in purchasing power mean that [we] continue to support the families through a regular monthly distribution of food and hygiene baskets … many voices are calling for the distribution of food baskets to stop, to force people to normalise their lives. But we realise that the misery is greater and the basic needs are immense’.

Sixteen Muslim youth organisations issued an ultimatum for the predominantly Christian Igbo tribe to leave northern Nigeria by 1 October 2017.

Regional governors in Kaduna state were reportedly planning to send buses to evacuate Igbo communities, but the Muslim state governor, Nasir El-Rufai, intervened to halt the plans and ordered the arrest of the signatories to the anti-Igbo ultimatum. The government states it has been consistent in taking action to punish hate speech and incitement: ‘People … cannot use our state to do or say things that threaten the peace.’

On 16 June, police forcibly entered a three-storey Christian community centre in Saft al-Kharsa, a village around 60 miles south of Cairo, and destroyed it.

They flung furniture and worship materials on to the street and barred the door with chains. The building is not officially registered as a church. However, local Christians applied to formally register it in November 2016 – following the Egyptian Parliament’s landmark ruling which was supposed to replace Ottoman-era restrictions on the construction of churches – but to date have received no official reply.

Gangs of nationalist youths terrorised a Christian community in Song Ngoc, northeast Vietnam, attacking a church and homes and targeting Christian business owners, it was reported in June.

Local Christian leaders appealed to the authorities to act, noting that ‘we see that the attacks have been carried out in an orchestrated manner, and the police know well what is occurring, but are ignoring what is going on’.

A group of Islamic organisations called, in late June, for evangelical Christianity to be effectively outlawed in the country .

They claimed that ‘In Malaysia, the dangerous movement that is evangelicalism must be kept in check as it threatens religious harmony… the government needs to consider introducing anti-evangelicalism laws’. The group also voiced support for the banning of a four-day Christian event in Malacca, suggesting that police actions were ‘in line with the duties of the country’s administrators in protecting the Muslim faithful’.

A Sudanese pastor and a Sudanese Christian student, who were sentenced to 12 years imprisonment in February for helping to document the plight of persecuted Christians in southern parts of Sudan, were released on 11 May.

The Revd Hassan Abduraheem Kodi Taour and Abdulmonem Abdumawla were finally set free, having been held in jail since December 2015 when they were first accused of ‘espionage’. The two men were given a presidential pardon. The Czech aid worker arrested with the two Sudanese Christians, Petr Jacek, was pardoned in March.

In two separate incidents in Madhya Pradesh state on the night of 21-22 May, at least ten Christian church workers and at least 70 Christian children (aged between six and 15) in their care were detained by police as they travelled to a Vacation Bible School summer camp.

A mob of about 400 Hindu extremists demanded that the Christian church workers, held by railway police at Ratlam station, be booked on charges relating to kidnapping and forceful conversion.

A church pastor and members of a congregation in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh were attacked and beaten by a Hindu mob on 14 May.

Pastor John Dawson said that a ten-strong mob ‘hit all the males present with the lattis [wooden sticks] so hard that we could barely walk. While hitting, they accused us of carrying out forceful conversion’.

Morocco’s High Religious Committee decreed earlier this year that individuals who leave Islam should not face the death penalty for apostasy.

This astounding ruling from a body charged with issuing fatwas (an authoritative religious or juridical ruling), reverses the classical shari’a legislation that has stood since medieval times.

An Egyptian Christian boy murdered on 13 April was killed by Islamic extremists hoping to further intimidate Christians in the run up to Easter, say his family.

Allam Bashay Gabriel found his 16-year-old son, Gamal, with his throat slit and lying in a pool of blood, in Qai village, Upper Egypt. This took place four days after two Egyptian churches were bombed and on the same day that three Christian homes were burnt down in Minya.

A Protestant pastor became the first person to be deported under amended anti-terror laws in Russia, it was reported in March.

The laws, implemented in July 2016, introduced sanctions against ‘foreigners conducting missionary activity’.

An illiterate evangelist in Pakistan who was arrested in December over accusations of blasphemy was cleared of all allegations and released in March.

Babu Shahbaz Masih was arrested after pages of the Qur’an with his name written on them were found in the street.

After 30 days in custody, police released Babu Shahbaz Masih, an illiterate evangelist from Lahore, who was arrested and accused of ‘blasphemy’ in December after pages of the Qu’ran with his name written on them were found in the street.

Although cleared of all charges, police have advised 41-year-old Babu, his wife and three children not to return home, as local Muslims are still pressuring police to charge him. Christians accused of ‘blasphemy’ are rarely able to go back to their former lives, even if, as in Babu’s case, charges have been dropped, because of often violent threats from zealous Muslims.

There are encouraging signs that Gambia’s new president, Adama Barrow, may ease the pressure on Christians in the West African country, following years of creeping Islamisation, it was reported in late January.

Gambia’s previous president and de facto dictator, Yahya Jammeh, who seized power in a coup in 1994, had increasingly promoted an Islamist agenda. In 2015, Jammeh declared that Gambia was an Islamic republic. The declaration was presented as a move away from the country’s British colonial past, but also signalled a renewed effort to increase the role of Islam in a country which has a secular constitution and has historically had a tradition of religious tolerance.

In January, one of the prosecution’s witnesses in the ‘blasphemy’ trial of Jakarta’s Christian governor, Basuki ‘Ahok’ Tjahaja Purnama, has admitted to threatening that he could incite mob violence to get police to press charges.

The secretary of an Islamic organisation, who reported Ahok to police in September for ‘blasphemy’, for an alleged anti-Islamic comment made online, has admitted under cross-examination that he told police: ‘If they didn’t file my report, thousands of Muslims would come [to the police station].’

A Fulani Christian was murdered by six gunmen on 17 November.

Moussa, who was active as an evangelist, was travelling between Douenzta and Kerana, just north of the border with Burkina Faso, when he was attacked.

A report on Turkey by the European Commission in November highlighted the ongoing persecution of Christians in 2016, stating that ‘hate speech and hate crimes against Christians and Jews continued to be repeatedly reported’.

Typical incidents recorded by churches include Islamic anti-Christian posters and graffiti being placed near church buildings, anonymous threats sent by text and email to pastors, as well as physical attacks. In many cases, no official action is taken by police.

At least 11 Christian TV stations in Pakistan have been blocked from broadcasting via cable, it was reported in December.

The move, initiated by the Pakistan Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA), is a major setback for Pakistan’s minority Christian community, who rely on the channels for spiritual input. PEMRA does not issue licences for religious channels. Many Christian broadcasters operate externally, but for those in Pakistan licences are unavailable. Christians complain they are being unfairly targeted as other unlicensed channels, including Islamic ones, are allowed to continue broadcasting.

On 25 October, 12 Christians were killed in the town of Mandera, in north-east Kenya, when al-Shabaab militants attacked a guest-house with guns and grenades.

‘We, the Christian community in the region, are living in fear of attack. The security forces appear to be unable to protect us from these targeted attacks, two in a month’, said a Christian living in the area.

On Sunday 30 October, a few Christians gathered inside a fire-blackened church in the town of Qaraqosh, northern Iraq.

They held the first communion service since Islamic State (IS) took control of the town in 2014. Retreating IS militants had set fire to the church when Iraqi government and Kurdish forces advanced on Qaraqosh as part of the wider campaign to retake the city of Mosul.

Christians have been caught up in the politics of frequent clashes in the Ukraine despite a ceasefire being negotiated with Russia, making the situation in Lugansk ‘very hard’, according to Christians in the area.

Protestant churches in eastern regions have been targeted by separatist elements, as they are perceived as pro-European, whilst Ukrainian Orthodox (Moscow Patriarchate) churches have been seized and attacked in western Ukraine.

Through Operation Safe Havens, Barnabas Fund reported in October that it has rescued 693 believers who have made the agonising decision to leave their homeland for countries where they can live and worship in peace and safety.

Many more are wanting to make the trip in the coming months. Governments are willing to provide visas and local churches are willing to help Christians settle in – but most of the families do not have the financial resources needed to make the journey to peace and security or to support themselves once there.

Local residents and members of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), a radical Islamist group, protested on 23 September outside a church building in the city of Makassar, South Sulawesi, angered by the renewal of the church’s building permit.

The protests in Makassar began after complaints from local residents that the church did not have the required papers to renew the permit. ‘The presence of the church in this area does not have the approval of most of the Muslim population’, said an FPI spokesman. ‘Residents said they never gave permission for the renewal of the project.’

In a landmark ruling in late August, Egypt’s parliament has approved a long-awaited new law which it is hoped will make it easier to build and restore churches.

A two-thirds majority of MPs voted in favour of the Bill, which represents a significant breakthrough, as the construction of churches has been tightly regulated by a decree issued during the Ottoman Empire in 1856.

A Christian pastor in Suzanovo, charged with organising an unsanctioned protest involving children, was declared innocent at a hearing on 23 September.

Alexander Demkin had been accused of violating a June 2004 law on ‘meetings, rallies, demonstrations, marches, and picketing’.

A Christian politician was stabbed to death in a church in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu on 2 October, and Christians were assaulted on a Bible stall in Kanataka state in late September.

Dhanasekharan was at a church service when a phonecall lured him outside, where five men were waiting for him. The 34-year-old ran into a nearby church but was caught and killed.

Seven members of a house church in Kazakhstan, two of whom are in their late 70s, have been fined for meeting to worship in a building without state registration.

In court hearings on 29 August, two of the believers were fined the maximum amount of 106,050 Tenge (around £232), while the two older members of the congregation and those with families were ordered to pay a reduced penalty. All the believers were charged with violating religious laws introduced in 2011, which require churches to obtain state permission to meet and also prohibit carrying out ‘missionary activity’ without state registration.

Two failed rainy seasons followed by catastrophic flooding have destroyed crops in large parts of Ethiopia.

Like Joseph, the Ethiopian government had stored grain during the good years, but it was not enough.

A four-day Vacation Bible School (VBS) programme attended by 200 local children was disrupted and the venue vandalised by a mob of Hindu extremists in an area known as Prem Nagar in the capital city of Delhi on 4 June.

The incident took place on the last day of the VBS programme, run from 1–4 June by the Children's Gospel Club. The programme was organised in an open space on the street in front of church member Mahesh Kumar’s house.

A Bill primarily aimed at anti-terrorist activities was signed into law by President Putin on Sunday 3 July.

Protestant Christians in Russia fear that the new law will be chiefly enforced as a weapon against them but not used against the Orthodox Church, which Mr Putin has favoured in the past.

Christians in Tanzania are witnessing escalating Islamist violence, it was reported in May.

There have been three arson attacks on churches in north-west Tanzania since January, the latest being on 2 May. Since 2013, attacks on churches have increased, as well as on security forces and any moderate Muslims who oppose the Islamists.

A crowd of around 300 Muslims attacked, ransacked and set on fire the homes of seven Christian families near Abu Qurqas, Minya province, on 20 May.

Souad Thabet (70), a Christian, was dragged from her home, stripped of her clothes by the mob and made to walk naked in the streets. The incident was provoked by rumours that Souad Thabet's son had been romantically involved with a Muslim woman, but she denies that this happened. A local Muslim family took her in, gave her clothes and hid her until her Christian nextdoor neighbours came to take her home.

There could be an approaching crisis.

In late May, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and German Chancellor Angela Merkel met at a UN human rights conference in Turkey.

Since 2013, Bangladesh has been experiencing a series of targeted assassinations of bloggers, journalists and academics, who have been hacked to death with knives and machetes as a result of being perceived to have criticised Islam.

In the latest attacks in April, a professor of English and the editor of a magazine, together with his friend, were brutally murdered by knife-wielding gangs.

‘Today it was a taste of hell as portrayed in the Bible. Fires everywhere. Explosions. Mothers missing their children. Families shattered. No one is asking for food or support, but [instead] where they can hide themselves and their children.’

These grief-stricken words were written to Barnabas Fund by its representative, who is a senior doctor and leader in the Baptist community in Aleppo. An intense bombardment of mortars, gas cylinders and missiles had rained on residential areas throughout the divided city.

A court in Alexandria has blocked the demolition of a church and in doing so set an important legal precedent. The case arose out of a land dispute as to who owned the property the church was built on. However, the Egyptian court not only blocked the demolition of this particular church building, but also established a wider legal precedent that effectively banned other churches from being either destroyed or converted for other uses.

Until recently Egyptian Christians needed special permission from the president to repair churches, which was extremely difficult to obtain. To add to these difficulties many churches were destroyed by Islamists after the Muslim Brotherhood was ousted from power in 2013.

Four national Christian Bible translators were killed when Islamic militants raided the office of Wycliffe Associates in the Middle East, the organisation confirmed on 20 March.

The attackers sprayed bullets around the office, shooting and killing two of the translators, injuring several more, and destroying the office equipment. Then, with their spent weapons, they bludgeoned to death two other translators who had leapt on top of the lead translator, saving his life. The invaders burned all the books and other translation materials in the office but the hard drives containing the translation work for eight language projects were preserved. The remaining translation team has decided to re-double their efforts to translate, publish, and print God’s Word for these eight language communities.

The Evangelical Fellowship of India in early March published a report of persecution against Christians in India during 2015.

A summary reveals the scale of the violence and injustice against India’s believers.

Kenya’s church leaders in January protested against strict new regulations for religious societies announced by the Attorney General’s Office, the Registrar of Societies and the Communications Authority of Kenya.

The rules ‘are aimed at gagging and muzzling the church in Kenya’, wrote church leaders in Nairobi in ‘A Message to Christians in Kenya’ on 11 January.

President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi promised to repair every one of the country’s churches that have been burned, it was reported in January.

At a special Christmas service at St Mark’s Cathedral in Cairo on 6 January, President al-Sisi made a landmark apology to Egypt’s Christian community for the delays in restoring torched churches. This was President al-Sisi’s second visit to a church at Christmas. He is the first Egyptian president ever to make such a visit.

No one was hurt when Aleppo’s Emmanuel Armenian Evangelical Church was hit in a rocket attack on Sunday 17 January, leaving the church badly damaged, but thankfully missing congregants who had met earlier that morning.

The 200-strong congregation met at 10 am for their regular Sunday worship and afterwards several activities for different groups took place. The last to leave the building was the youth group. ‘Thanks to God no one was hurt and the church was empty!’ wrote a Barnabas Fund partner the next day.

Barnabas Fund reported in December that there have been wonderful responses from Western governments to the desperate plight of Christians in Iraq and Syria.

For many months Barnabas Fund has been raising awareness about the great danger facing Christians in the Middle East and drawing attention to the way they have been overlooked in many rescue programmes. After visiting a number of capital cities in Europe and initiating a major campaign in Australia, there are signs of a growing concern for suffering Christians.

Islamic State (IS) militants freed a group of 25 Christians from Syria’s north-eastern Khabur river area on the morning of 25 December, a Christmas blessing. However, just five days later 13 Christians were killed when jihadists bombed three Christian-run restaurants in northern Syria.

The 25 Christians had been held for ten months. They are part of a larger group of 253 believers who were captured when jihadists raided their villages last February, some of whom have previously been released in small groups.

Reports say that 22 Syrian Christian families (over 60 people) are being held captive by Islamic State (IS) in Raqqa, the capital city of their territory.

These families tried to escape in mid November, but were detained and returned to the city, where they are now trapped. Sources informed Barnabas Fund that they were apparently being used by IS as a human shield.

A Christian family who fled Iraq only to suffer again at the hands of Syrian Islamists in a refugee camp in the German town of Freising, eventually returned to Iraq when they could take no more, it was reported in early November.

‘They yelled at my wife and beat my child’, said the Iraqi father. Cases like this one are being reported from various parts of Germany. A young Syrian man in the German town of Giessen decided he could not stay when he heard violent threats from Islamists. ‘They shout Qur’anic verses’, he said. ‘These are words that the [Islamic State] shouts before they cut off people’s heads. I cannot stay here. I am a Christian.’

An influential Christian, Sukhdev Negi, was killed by Naxalites in front of his family on 12 August in Bhairamgarh, Chhattisgarh state.

When local Christians protested, the attackers beat them. Local Christians reported the killing to the authorities, but there has been no police response to date. Sukhdev Negi’s brother, Sahdev, was abducted by Naxalites in 2013. When he was released, the Naxalites warned him never to return to his home village or to speak about his Christian faith, according to the Evangelical Fellowship of India.

On 17 September, Barnabas Fund announced that Operation Safe Havens has made a significant breakthrough.

The campaign to rescue Christians from the killing fields of Iraq and Syria has been spotlighting the plight of Christians in the Middle East who are specifically targeted by Islamic State (IS) fighters. One government has now indicated that it is willing to accept approximately 10,000 Christians fleeing the Middle East.

In September at an emergency summit in London, a coalition of faith groups, including Christian, Jewish and Muslim representatives, called upon governments around the world to acknowledge the gravity of the threat to religious minorities, including Christians, in war-torn Iraq and Syria.

Representatives from 14 organisations attended the emergency summit, held to look at immediate steps to address the ethnic cleansing of religious minorities in Syria and Iraq.

Widely hailed as a positive move in a region where Islamic radicalism is spiralling, United Arab Emirates (UAE) President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan in July passed a new law that outlaws ‘all forms of discrimination based on religion, caste, creed, doctrine, race, colour or ethnic origin’.

Announced on 20 July, the law makes takfir an offence. Takfir is the pronouncement and labelling of Muslim individuals or communities as apostates and infidels (kafirs), deserving the death sentence, thus making them legitimate targets for jihad. Under the new law, takfir is a crime which carries a death sentence if the discrimination leads to murder.

Aleppo was under severe bombardment in early July – the city appeared to be on the brink of falling as the situation rapidly deteriorated. On 15 June, 150 people were injured in fighting, while ten people were killed, most of them children.

Two of Aleppo’s large minority of Armenian Christians were killed in a mortar explosion on 20 June. One of the men, a visiting pastor, had arrived from Armenia only two days earlier.

Breaking into his home during the night of 14 May, armed men attacked a Tanzanian church pastor, slashing his head with a sword.

Pastor Samson’s brother, Bishop Gwajima, also faces eviction from his church premises, as well as court charges, because of his outspoken opposition to the proposed Kadhi (Islamic) courts Bill. If implemented, these Kadhi courts would deal with family matters such as marriage, divorce, and inheritance for Tanzania’s Muslim population. Tanzanian Christians are particularly concerned that rulings cannot be appealed or referred to the High Court. Already in place in the Muslim-majority Zanzibar archipelago, the Bill proposes to introduce Kadhi courts across mainland Tanzania.

Islamic extremists in Nigeria’s northern Kano state set fire to a church on 1 April after they could not find a young man who had renounced Islam and decided to return to Christianity, whom they were looking to kill.

Enraged by the Christians’ refusal to react violently to their attack, they proceeded to torch the home of church Pastor Habila Garba, whose daughter died as a result.

Thwarting Hindu nationalist attempts to introduce a nationwide ‘freedom of religion’ law, India’s Ministry of Law and Justice told the federal government on 15 April that it does not have jurisdiction over the matter.

The statement marks a triumph for Christians and other religious minorities in India.

Labelled the world’s worst humanitarian crisis since World War II, the conflict in Syria has now entered its fifth year, it was reported at the beginning of April.

According to the UN, 18 million people are in need of urgent help as conditions have worsened dramatically and violence continues to escalate. While four million Syrians have fled into neighbouring countries, another 7.6 million are displaced within Syria. And an entire generation of children is growing up with no experience of a peaceful existence. Christians face the double problem of the war itself and the persecution they face as believers.

Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah Al al-Sheikh, Saudi’s Grand Mufti and top authority on Sunni religious law, called for all churches in the Arabian Peninsula to be destroyed, as per Muhammad’s command to rid the region of all Jews and Christians.

The statement was made on 17 March in response to an enquiry from a delegation from Kuwait after Kuwaiti MP Osama al-Munawar made a statement on Twitter in February that he was planning to submit a Bill to remove all churches in the country. The same MP later clarified that what he really meant to say was that he would submit a Bill to prevent the construction of any new churches in the country, not the destruction of existing church buildings.

February saw a spate of Boko Haram attacks across north-eastern Nigeria, the massacre of around 90 people in Cameroon, and first-time attacks in Niger and Chad.

Apparently outraged by Chadian and African Union decisions to provide military units to combat the scourge of radical Islamism in West Africa, the group is taking its revenge on Christians and on Muslims who do not share their ideology.

High-quality insulated tents being provided for displaced Iraqi Christians have arrived in Dohuk, in Iraqi Kurdistan.

They were sourced and shipped from the British Army’s Camp Bastion in Afghanistan, after it was closed down last year. The tents are made from heavy-duty rubber and have a special outer layer to protect against harsh weather conditions. Preparation of the ground and assembly of the tents will commence shortly. The site will be known as Sawra Village (Sawra means ‘hope’ in Assyrian, the mother tongue of Iraqi Christians). Once set up, the tented village will include diesel generators, washing machines, showers and toilets.

A family of five Vietnamese Montagnards, including two children and an infant, who had fled their homes and crossed the border into Cambodia, were discovered in the Cambodian Ratanakiri jungle and arrested on 1 February.

Handcuffed, they were detained by police and taken to a secret location. No further news as to their whereabouts has yet been given.

Burmese president Thein Sein has been criticised by human rights associations for approving a draft Bill on 3 December curbing conversion to other religions and marriages between Buddhist women and men of other religions.

Initially proposed by nationalist Buddhist monks who form the Committee for the Protection of Nationality and Religion – a group also known as Ma Ba Tha – the Bill was signed and submitted to Parliament for final approval.

Christian children in Indonesia’s most easterly province are bearing the brunt of a multi-faceted Islamisation programme that is changing the character of the formerly Christian-majority region, it was reported in mid-December.

Papuan children are being trafficked to Islamic boarding schools in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, forming part of a growing trend of Islamisation in this politically-disputed region. Government-sponsored transmigration has also diluted the indigenous Christian population, so that census figures now reveal they no longer constitute a majority.

Six Hmong Christian families were forced to leave their village after converting to Christianity, it was reported in late November.

Local authorities ordered them to renounce their faith, but they refused and have had to abandon their homes, land and farm. In July, local authorities detained two men for a month after the families had decided to convert to Christianity. Refusing to revert to traditional animist beliefs, all six families, consisting of 25 people in all, were then evicted from their homes in Ko Hai village, Khamkeut district. Two of the families left on 27 August and the other four families were evicted in September.

Around 25 extremist Hindu militants interrupted a Sunday worship service in Karnataka, southern India on 23 November. After vandalising the church, they attacked worshippers with rods warning them not to rebuild the church.

Eight of the church members were injured, two of whom were hospitalised with broken legs.

Four schoolgirls who were seized by Boko Haram six months ago have escaped from a camp run by the Islamist group in Cameroon, it was reported on 16 October.

The four girls were from a group of around 270 (not part of the more widely publicised group of 200) kidnapped from their boarding school in the predominantly Christian town of Chibok in Borno State, Northern Nigeria in April this year. They were helped to escape by a fellow prisoner, a teenage boy. They walked west for more than three weeks, guided by the setting sun, until they arrived in a Nigerian village. They were starving and traumatised on their arrival.

Reports have emerged in September that Christian women who are being held captive in Mosul’s Badush prison by ISIS (the Sunni militant group that now wishes to be known as Islamic State) have been given the option either to convert to the group’s brand of Islam or to suffer daily rape.

Currently Mosul’s Badush prison houses hundreds of Christian, Yazidi and Turkmen (Shia Muslim) women and girls who are suffering sexual violence at the hands of ISIS. While many of these women are being gang-raped for refusing to convert to ISIS’s version of Sunni Islam, others are being sold to ISIS fighters as sexual slaves. Some of the victims are reportedly as young as 14 years old.

The Saudi religious police arrested and detained overnight on September 5 at least 27 people accused of practising Christianity in a house church.

The Christians were gathered at a home in the Eastern Province city of Khafji when the house was raided. Those detained were expatriates from various Asian nationalities, and some reports suggest that children were arrested as well.

Kenneth Bae, an American-Korean missionary serving 15 years’ hard labour in North Korea, was discharged from hospital on July 30 and immediately sent back to a labour camp.

The missionary had been transferred to the Pyongyang Friendship Hospital for foreigners after he developed health problems.

On July 17, the Nepalese authorities released a Christian pastor who had spent almost two years in prison for eating beef.

In October 2012, Pastor Chhedar Lhomi Bhote (37) was arrested after a mob of Hindu militants burned down his home. After discovering that the minister had eaten beef, local residents, in an uproar, claimed that they also saw him killing a cow, an act considered a criminal offence in Nepal.

A hardline Buddhist group in Sri Lanka in July launched a four-day campaign against ‘Christian fundamentalism’ in the country, as Christians face vicious attacks in ongoing efforts to stop their activities.

Ravana Balaya launched its programme on July 15, starting in Polonnaruwa before visiting other parts of the eastern and north central provinces. In an ominous message, Ravana Balaya General Secretary Ittekande Saddhatissa Thera said they would ‘advise’ Christians to halt their activities, but, if they failed to take heed, would take firmer action. He said that the group decided to conduct a campaign after receiving complaints from Buddhist monks and others about evangelism by Christians.

Pakistan’s Supreme Court has, on June 19, ordered the government to take a number of steps to protect religious minorities from violence and intolerance, in a welcome move for the country’s Christians.

The 32-page ruling was made in response to the deadliest-ever attack on Pakistan’s Christian minority, the suicide bombing at All Saints Church in Peshawar that claimed over 100 lives in September 2013, as well as incidents targeting other minorities. Chief Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jilani acknowledged that religious minorities were subject to intolerance and violence, and that the state had failed to protect them.

A Christian man was arrested and tied to a post before being imprisoned, after several failed attempts by the authorities to force him to give up his faith, it was reported in June.

Mr Sort (40), who became a Christian over a year ago, was arrested in Loynam village, Nong district, Savannakhet province. Police and village security officers had gone to Mr Sort’s home and threatened him with eviction from Loynam and confiscation of all his property if he did not give up his faith.

Around 50 people were killed in an al-Shabaab attack on a mainly Christian town in Kenya on June 15 with the gunmen going door-to-door questioning occupants about their faith and shooting non-Muslim men.

The militants descended on Mpeketoni, a coastal town in Lamu district near the border with Somalia, throwing explosives into the local police station before looting its armoury and going on a shooting spree throughout the town, shouting Allahu Akhbar (Allah is great).

At least 118 people were killed in a double bombing in Jos on May 20, with the first bomb detonated at 3pm, the second around half an hour later in a busy market area; then on May 21 Boko Haram gunmen attacked two villages in southern Borno State, killing over 40 people.

On May 18, at least five people were killed in a blast in the predominantly Christian Sabon Gari district of Kano in the North. A girl aged around 12 was among those killed. Kano police said five people – including the bomber – died in the blast, but Christian sources put the death toll at around 20.

Christians and other religious minorities have been asked to ‘reconsider their faith’ as all citizens apply for an identity card upon which their religious affiliation will be stated, it was reported in late May.

Members of religious minority groups will be subjected to greater scrutiny to obtain the official documents, a plan that has prompted accusations of discrimination. They will be asked to reiterate their faith before registering, and if no affiliation is expressed, they will be classified as Hindus. One Christian rights activist told Asia News that the government is trying to discourage people from converting from Hinduism.

A pastor’s home was attacked on May 17, and two of his children injured, but when he went to report the incident to the police he was falsely accused of rape.

The pastor, who leads a church in the Kilimanjaro region, has faced much opposition because of his outreach to Muslims, scores of whom have turned to Christ. Several failed attempts have been made to frame him with false accusations.

Concerns have been raised for Christians and other minorities in India following the landslide victory of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the country’s general election in early May.

The BJP won 282 out of 543 seats, routing the secular Congress party, which has been in power for the last ten years. BJP leader Narendra Modi, a divisive and controversial figure who focused his campaign on reviving the flagging Indian economy, is set to become prime minister.

Gangs in Baghdad are seizing homes left empty by those – mostly Christian families – who have been forced to flee because of violent attacks, it was reported in April.

William Warda, head of the Baghdad-based Hammurabi Human Rights Organisation, said they had received dozens of cases, adding: ‘Most of them are afraid of submitting complaints to the government, because they do not believe they can protect themselves if they file a lawsuit – they are fearful of being kidnapped.’

The Christian community in Pakistan is campaigning for justice for a seven-year-old Christian girl who was gang-raped by four Muslim men on April 23.

Her father was abducted to stop the family from pressing charges.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled on April 8 that a controversial law in Hungary that stripped many churches of their registration violated their right to freedom of assembly and association and that their right to freedom of conscience and religion had been breached.

Hungary introduced the Church Act in 2012 as part of changes to its Constitution and associated laws. Over 300 religious groups – including several Christian denominations – lost official recognition and with it certain fiscal advantages, such as tax exemptions and subsidies. Only 14 retained state backing.

Balaclava-clad gunmen stormed a church in Kenya during a service on March 22; two people were killed at the scene, and a further five later succumbed to their injuries.

The attackers descended on Joy in Jesus Church in Likoni near Mombasa at around 10am. They killed a 60-year-old watchman before shooting into the congregation, as well as at those standing outside. One of the attackers shouted, ‘Allah is great’.

A homeless shelter run by a young Christian man in Belarus was stripped of its legal status on February 7 after what appears to be a campaign of official opposition to the charitable project.

Aleksei Shchedrov (29), a primary health-care worker, turned his home in the village of Aleksandrovka, into the shelter, and since it opened in December 2011, it has given refuge to around 100 homeless people. He was charged in 2013 for leading an unregistered religious organisation; the authorities took issue with a prayer room at the site, though Aleksei insisted that he was running a charity, not a religious organisation. The case attracted wide publicity in Belarus, and the local media launched a smear campaign against the Christian.

A young Christian man was sentenced to death for blasphemy on March 27, over an allegation that triggered Muslim riots in Joseph Colony in 2013 that left hundreds of Christians homeless.

Sawan Masih (26), a father of three, was convicted under section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code, which refers to defiling the name of Muhammad.

Egyptian security forces, in early February, carried out a major operation to bust Muslim gangs that have been terrorising the Christian community in Assiut province.

They dismantled an organised crime network behind a campaign of kidnappings, robberies, attacks and extortion against local Christians. A bishop in Assiut said that the action marked a decisive change of police policy. ‘For months and months, [Christian] families and entire communities in Assiut and the province have lived in anguish. Kidnappings took place every day. The perpetrators of these crimes were known to all, but when they [Christians]… reported them to the security forces, nothing happened,’ said the bishop.

Shari’a laws will be extended to non-Muslims in the Indonesian province of Aceh under a controversial new by-law approved in December.

Elements of shari’a are already in force in the territory but are applied only to Muslims. A Councillor, Abdulah Saleh, said: ‘The qanun does indeed oblige everyone in Aceh to follow shari’a without exception. It would be unfair if Muslims were punished while non-Muslims were not, just because shari’a violations are not stipulated in the criminal code.’

The conviction of a Moroccan convert from Islam to Christianity for evangelising and ‘shaking the faith of a Muslim’ was overturned on appeal on February 6.

Mohamed El Baladi was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison and fined 5,000 dirhams (£400; US$600) in September. However, an appeals court judge dismissed the case because of lack of evidence. Mohamed had been arrested, tried and sentenced within a week without any legal representation. He was arrested after someone complained to the police about a conversation he had allegedly had with them about his faith. Evangelism among Muslims is illegal in Morocco.

During late January and early February, a delegation of senior Syrian church leaders visited Washington to raise the plight of the Christian community in the war-ravaged country. It was the first time since the start of the civil war, in March 2011, that such a visit had taken place.

On January 27, they participated in a panel discussion at the Heritage Foundation titled, ‘Marked for Destruction: The Plight of Syria’s Christians’. The church leaders spoke of the unbelievable atrocities that have been committed against the Christian community by rebel groups, who are backed by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey.

Attackers killed people at a church service on January 26, despite the church being guarded by police officers, who were also murdered in the rampage.

Armed with AK47 rifles, they locked the congregation inside the building, detonated bombs, and then shot and cut the throats of those who tried to escape. The militants then went on a four-hour rampage in the village. They burnt down homes and seized residents, including women, children and the elderly, as hostages; some of them were later killed. Around 53 people from Wada Chakawa are reported to have died, with dozens more being wounded.

Egyptian Christians, in mid-December, criticised prison sentences issued in connection with an outbreak of violence against their community.

On December 15, three Christians were jailed – one for 25 years, the other two for 15 years – for the death of a Muslim, while no-one has even been charged over the deaths of five Christians. At least six Muslims were convicted of vandalising churches and Christian property, and each jailed for either three or five years.

Libya’s national assembly voted on December 4 to make shari’a the source of all legislation in the country as militant Islamists grow in influence.

The General National Congress (GNC) made the move in what has been viewed as an effort to outflank extremists. One of the most prominent militant groups is Ansar al-Sharia, which is suspected of carrying out the attack on the US consulate in which US ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed in September 2012. They have accused some lawmakers of being un-Islamic.

People caught in possession of a bible were among 80 killed in public executions in seven North Korean cities on November 3.

Witnesses of one of the executions, in Wonsan, said that eight people were tied to stakes at a local stadium, had their heads covered with sacks and were then killed by machine-gun fire. Around 10,000 people, including children, were forced to watch.

A pastor who is serving an 11-year jail term for ‘undermining national unity’ has told his wife that his life is in danger after repeated beatings by prison guards and inmates, it was reported in mid-November.

Nguyen Cong Chinh (44), who was sentenced in March 2012, has reported the attacks to the prison authorities, but they have failed to take action against the perpetrators.

A Christian body in India has called for an investigation after 54 defendants on October 29 became the latest in a long line to be acquitted in connection with the 2007–2008 anti-Christian violence in Orissa state.

Sajan George, President of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), accused prosecutors of having a: ‘hidden agenda… to weaken the cases against arsonists and looters in [the] Kandhamal riot’.

Members of the European Parliament condemned violence and persecution against Christians in Syria, Pakistan and Iran in a resolution passed on October 10.

They expressed particular concern about attacks on Christians in Maaloula, Syria, and the suicide bombing of All Saints Church in Peshawar, Pakistan. They called on the Pakistani government to overhaul the blasphemy laws, noting that these were open to misuse, and urged the Iranian authorities to acquit and release jailed pastor Saeed Abedini.

Dozens of people were killed when Islamist rebels besieged the Christian towns of Saddad and Haffar in October. As churches, homes and schools were looted and destroyed, 2,500 families fled, while 3,000 people, including children, were held as a human shield for a week.

Militants from the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front stormed Saddad and Haffar on October 21, shouting Allahu Akhbar [‘Allah is great’]. They set up sniper posts and launched a campaign of shelling, killing anyone they found in the streets. Children were crying in fear as the militants took over the towns.

According to the UN, more than 11 million people are believed to have been affected by one of the most powerful storms on record which raged across the central Philippines on November 8, leaving a trail of almost total devastation in its wake. The area is inhabited mostly by Christians who are extremely poor.

As EN went to press, the death toll stood at more than 2,200 and 673,000 displaced. Survivors are in desperate need of water, food and emergency shelter.

A Moroccan convert from Islam to Christianity is appealing against the two-and-a-half year prison sentence handed down to him in September for evangelising and ‘shaking the faith of a Muslim’.

Mohamed El Baladi was also fined 5,000 dirham (£400). He was arrested on August 28 following a raid on his home in which Christian literature was seized; government agents had tracked his movements for some time.

Islamist protesters in Indonesia are demanding the removal of a new local authority chief in a Muslim-majority area of West Java because she is a Christian.

Susan Jasmine Zulkifli was appointed the sub-district head of Lenteng Agung by Joko Widodo, Governor of Jakarta, in June.

Scores of people have been killed in clashes which erupted in February — at least 37 died as police tried to quash protests in the capital Dhaka, where 70,000 Islamist demonstrators took to the streets on May 5, calling for the introduction of an anti-blasphemy law.

This was the deadline that one Islamist group, Hefazat e-Islam Bangladesh (HIB), had given the government to implement its demands, which include shari’a rule, virtual segregation of women and the death sentence for those who insult Islam or Muhammad.

Christians in the Central African Republic (CAR) are being targeted by Islamist militants who seized control of the country in March.

A pastor in CAR said that ‘a reign of terror’ is being conducted against Christians by the Seleka rebels who took over the country in a bloody coup on March 24 (see WIB, May EN). A number of Christians have been killed or wounded.

At least five people were killed and around 60 wounded in the bombing in May of a new church building during a service to mark its official opening.

An explosive device was thrown into the church compound in Olasti, a predominantly Christian suburb of Arusha, on May 5. Senior church figures were in attendance for the inaugural service.