In Depth:  Christian Solidarity Worldwide

Seventy Christians have been released from three prisons in Eritrea.

Twenty-one female and 43 male prisoners were released from Mai Serwa and Adi Abeito prisons, close to the capital city, Asmara. The prisoners had been held without charge or trial for periods of between two and 12 years.

A group of 70 Christians were attacked on 5 February whilst travelling home from the Third National Congress of the Synod of Pentecostal Churches in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu.

Three men on motorcycles targeted the bus and minivan in which the group was travelling, at approximately 12.15am at Anna Nagar, on the Bhavani Sagar Road, Erode, Tamil Nadu. The men verbally threatened the passengers before smashing the windscreens of the vehicles, causing injury to the driver and passengers, which included women, children and the elderly.

A government secretary in the state of Hidalgo, Mexico, claimed in December that there are no cases of religious intolerance in the Huasteca region. This came despite evidence from Protestant Christians who were forcibly displaced and others who are currently under threat because of their faith.

One Mexican believer said in December: ‘They took all of the government benefit programmes from us, they took everything from us. They get their benefits and they don’t let us know and they deliver them, but not to us. That is how we are left, with nothing.’

Two Protestant families in Mexico were threatened with forced displacement by the end of July if they did not apologise to community leaders and agree to contribute financially to Roman Catholic festivals and ringing the Catholic church bells.

Earlier in July, community leaders cut the families’ water supply to pressure them into complying. While state officials have intervened to resolve the conflict, they have taken the side of the community leaders, blaming the religious minority families for refusing to take part in what they admit are religious activities.

On 18 May, a court upheld a verdict issued against Iranian Christians Saheb Fadaie and Fatemeh Bakhteri for ‘spreading propaganda against the regime’.

Both were given prison sentences, and Mr Fadaie received an additional two years of internal exile in Nehbandan, a remote area close to the border with Afghanistan. Local sources reported that the verdict confirming the sentences claimed that discussions of Christian doctrine held in house churches were considered attacks on Islam.

Matthias Haghnejad, a pastor from the Church of Iran, was arrested in the city of Rasht after a church service on 10 February.

Islamic Revolutionary Guard members entered the church where the service was being held just after it had concluded and arrested Pastor Haghnejad. They confiscated Bibles and mobile phones belonging to the attendees. They also went to the pastor’s home, where they confiscated his books and his wife’s phone.

During a final appeal hearing on 15 January in Tehran, Iranian Christians Saheb Fadaie and Fatemeh Bakhteri were asked by presiding judges Hassan Babaee and Ahmad Zargar to renounce their faith, but refused to do so.

In September 2018, Mr Fadaie and Ms Bakhteri were sentenced to 18 and 12 months in prison respectively. Mr Fadaie also received an additional two years in internal exile in Nehbandan, a remote area close to the border with Afghanistan. Local sources reported that the verdict confirming the sentences claimed that discussions of Christian doctrine held in house churches were considered attacks on Islam.

The al Barnawi faction of the Boko Haram terrorist group executed the second of three female humanitarian workers in the Autumn, stating that the remaining health-care worker and a schoolgirl will be slaves for the rest of their lives.

Midwife Hauwa Mohammed Liman, 25, who was working for the International Committee of the Red Cross, was seized on 1 March, along with fellow worker and midwife Saifura Husseini Ahmed, 25, and nurse Alice Loksha Ngaddah, a UNICEF employee.

Pastor Elfren Martínez Pérez was killed on 16 September outside his home in Antioquia, Colombia by members of an illegal armed group.

The pastor had pushed back against the presence of the illegal group, believed to be a neo-paramilitary group which is active in the region. A member of the community said he ‘would confront [the neo-paramilitary group]. They would approach him to tell him that they had arrived to protect the community, that only they could do it. He would reply saying that the community did not need this form of protection’.

Pastor Yang Hua of Living Stone Church in Guizhou Province, was released from prison in the early hours of 19 June after completing a two and a half year sentence.

According to friends and supporters, he is in urgent need of medical care and is suffering from several unspecified health problems.

A church-run holiday Bible school was disrupted when two men stormed into the Victory and Light Prayer House in Palavanatham village, Virudhunagar District, Tamil Nadu on 1 May.

The annual Bible school was attended by approximately 50 children aged between four and 12. Local sources said that the intruders belonged to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Hindu Munani (Hindu Front).

A Christian labourer from the District of Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu was attacked on 19 April by a neighbour who accused him of sharing his faith to Hindus.

Thangaraj Ramasamy, a former party worker of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), sustained severe injuries to his head and shoulders in the attack.

A report, launched on 5 February in Parliament, revealed that the motivation for people defecting from North Korea has changed over time and that the regime is being gradually affected by pressures put upon it by the international community.

The report, Movies, Markets and Mass Surveillance: Human Rights in North Korea after a Decade of Change, is based on information directly provided to the report’s authors by over 100 respondents, including North Korean escapees. It examines changes in economic modes of survival, information flows from outside North Korea, defection patterns, freedom of expression and criticism of the state, and changes in human rights in law and practice.

A Sudanese Evangelical Presbyterian Church (SEPC) in El Haj Yousif, Khartoum North, was demolished on 11 February by Sudanese security agents.

Witnesses reported that at least three police trucks arrived at the church without notice, moments after the service had ended, and security personnel proceeded to clear and confiscate property before demolishing the church. The confiscated property included chairs, Bibles and musical instruments.

The Sudanese Church of Christ (SCOC) challenged a government decision in late August to impose an unelected leadership committee on the church, which only came to light when church leaders were arrested.

The Ministry of Guidance and Religious Endowments, which oversees religious affairs in Sudan, appointed an alternative Executive Committee of the SCOC, led by Mr Angelo Alzaki, to manage church affairs. Eight senior SCOC leaders were arrested and charged with trespassing on the church headquarters and refusing to hand over control of the church to Mr Alzaki. They were released on bail later that day.

Pastor Nguyen Cong Chinh, a Vietnamese pastor and former prisoner of conscience, arrived with his family in the United States following release from prison on 28 July. His release, which was conditional on the basis that he leaves Vietnam, came amid a spate of arrests of human rights activists in the country.

Pastor Chinh, a passionate advocate for religious freedom and the rights of ethnic minorities and indigenous peoples, had been serving an 11-year sentence for ‘undermining national unity’ under Article 87 of the Penal Code.

A Christian journalist in Nigeria’s Kaduna State was returned to jail in July, following a bail hearing in which a judge set bail terms so stringent that they have been described as ‘nearly impossible’.

On 12 July, Justice Bashir Sukola remanded Mr Binniyat in custody for writing a story about an attack by armed Fulani herdsmen in southern Kaduna that later proved incorrect. Mr Binniyat’s case highlights an erosion of press freedom and the inequality before the law of different religious communities in Kaduna State.

After announcing that they were dropping their claim that ‘Ahok’ Tjahaja Purnama had insulted Islam, he was found guilty of blasphemy by prosecutors and sentenced on 9 May to two years in prison.

Commentators have said that the verdict and the sentence represents an outrageous miscarriage of justice and a further, severe, erosion of Indonesia's values of religious pluralism as set out in the Pancasila, the state ideology.

Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) is calling for an independent investigation after an alleged attack by police officers on a Christian community in Bangladesh in March, which left 25 injured.

On 24 March, four plainclothes police officers raided the home of a Christian woman, Mina Dores. The police officers did not produce their identity cards or a warrant and took around £50 from her home. Family members, thinking the men were thieves, challenged them to show their identity cards. The men refused and locked the family in a room.

On 15 February Zhang Xiuhong, the former deacon of Living Stone Church, Guizhou province, was sentenced to five years in prison.

Zhang was first arrested in July 2015 and was held in detention for a year and a half before standing trial on 23 January 2017. In late July 2015, Zhang Xiuhong, the presiding deacon of Living Stone Church, was stopped and hauled from her car as she was driving near the church building. One of the assailants climbed into her car and drove away.

On 18 November 2016, Vietnam’s 14th National Assembly passed the nation’s first-ever Law on Belief and Religion, amid concerns that multiple drafts of the Bill did not conform to international standards.

Although the final text has not been published, it is not expected to have altered significantly from previous drafts. However, the inclusion of basic guarantees of the right to freedom of religion or belief was undermined by onerous registration requirements and excessive state interference in the internal affairs of religious organisations.

The funeral service for those who died on 11 December in a bomb attack on a church adjoining the main Coptic Orthodox Cathedral, took place at the Church of the Virgin Mary and St Athanasius in Cairo.

Three men and a woman are reported to have been arrested in connection with the explosion, which occurred at 10am local time in a section of the Church of St Peter and St Paul that was reserved for women, and which also injured at least 41 people. Egyptian authorities are now describing it as a suicide bombing and said in a statement that the death toll is expected to rise.

A call was made in December for the release of the Revd Hassan Abduraheem, the Revd Kuwa Shamal, Mr Petr Jasek and Mr Abdumonem Abdumawla, ahead of the first anniversary of their respective arrests by Sudan’s National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS).

Mr Abduraheem, Mr Abdumawla and Mr Jasek, have been in detention since their arrests in December 2015 while Mr Shamal was taken into custody in May 2016. The four men are charged jointly with seven crimes – including at least two national security breaches – which they deny. Their trial has been subject to several postponements and delays.

Five men who were convicted on 28 September 2016 of the murders of three Christians in Malatya, Turkey in 2007, were arrested on 29 September 2016 amid concerns that they might flee the country.

The three Christians, two Turkish men and Tillman Geske, a German, were killed at the offices of Zirve Publishing House in April 2007. The five convicted men, who were apprehended at the scene of the crime, were released on bail in 2014, following controversial judicial amendments to terrorism laws that reduced the time suspects can be held without conviction. Following their conviction, they were allowed home pending the outcome of an appeal, but were arrested amid concerns they might abscond.

Czech Christian, Petr Jašek is being tried jointly with the Revd Hassan Abduraheem, the Revd Kuwa Shamal and Mr Abdulmonem Abdumawla in Sudan, charged with the propagation of false news (Article 66 of the Sudanese Criminal Code).

He is also accused, along with Mr Abduraheem, Mr Shamal and Mr Abdumawla, of at least seven crimes, including waging war against the state (Article 51 of the Sudanese Criminal Code) and espionage (Article 53) which carry the death penalty as the maximum sentence.

Five Iranian Christians were arrested by Intelligence Ministry (VEVAK) agents on 26 August at a picnic 90 miles east of Tehran.

Amin Afshar Naderi, Hadi Asgari, Amir Saman Dashti, Mohammad Dehnavi and Ramil Bet-Tamraz were arrested while picnicking with their wives in a private garden in Firouzkooh. In a comment to the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, Mansour Borji, spokesperson for the Council of United Iranian Churches (HAM- GAAM), said that VEVAK agents also confiscated three Bibles and assaulted Amin Afshar Naderi after he asked whether they had a warrant to enter the private garden. He emphasised that ‘the arrested individuals were not conducting a religious meeting and had gathered only for a good time’.

A call was made in late August for a judicial review in the case of Uyghur Christian Alimujan Yimit, who is currently serving a 15-year prison sentence for ‘illegally providing state secrets to foreign nationals’.

Alimujan Yimit (also written Alimjan Yimit or Alimujiang Yimiti) is a Uyghur Christian from Xinjiang in Northwest China. In 2009, he was convicted of ‘illegally providing state secrets to foreign nationals’ and is currently serving a 15-year prison sentence. Mr Yimit has denied these charges.

The Revd Kwa Shamal, of the Sudan Church of Christ, was re-arrested by the police on 24 May.

Mr Shamal had been reporting daily to the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) offices as a condition of his release, following his initial arrest in December 2015 during a crackdown by the authorities on Christians in the country. His reporting conditions had been removed on 16 January, but were reinstated in February, when he was also required to hand over his passport, laptop computer and other personal items. On 24 May he reported to NISS as usual, but was unexpectedly arrested by the police and his case is now with the prosecutor.

In his report to the UN Human Rights Council on 14 March, Marzuki Darusman, the Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), said that repression in the country continues ‘unabated’ and that efforts to hold the ruling regime to account must continue.

‘The totalitarian governing structure in North Korea absolutely denies rights to its people and its unchecked power appears as strongly entrenched as ever throughout the whole country’, he said.

According to social media reports, Chinese human rights lawyer and religious freedom defender Zhang Kai was released on 23 March and is back in his hometown in Inner Mongolia.

Zhang Kai was detained on 25 August 2015 and accused of ‘disturbing social order’, stealing and spying, among other crimes. During six months’ detention under ‘residential surveillance at a designated location’, Zhang had no contact with his family or his lawyer and was then placed in criminal detention. On 25 February, Zhang was shown on state media giving a televised ‘confession’ admitting to ‘disturbing social order’, ‘endangering state security’ and behaving in an unprofessional manner. Activists believe this confession was made under duress.

Marie-Thérèse Keita-Bocoum, the UN independent expert on the Central African Republic (CAR), called on the international community to continue supporting the country as newly elected President Faustin Archange Touadéra (a Christian) took office on 25 March.

In a statement to the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva on 22 March following her recent visit to CAR, Ms Keita-Bocoum applauded the progress achieved by the Transitional Government and UN Peacekeeping Mission with the support of the international community, and noted that the presidential and legislative elections held in December 2015 and February 2016 were largely free, fair and relatively peaceful. However, Ms Keita-Bocoum said: ‘There have been great steps taken, but the next six months are vital.’

Emanuel Church, a large church in eastern Cuba affiliated to the Apostolic Movement, an unregistered Protestant denomination, was demolished by the authorities on 5 February while hundreds of church members were detained.

The property of Reverend Alain Toledano in Santiago de Cuba was surrounded by officials including members of the police, state security and the military at approximately 5am. They detained his wife, Marilín Alayo Correa, before demolishing both Emanuel Church and the pastoral home.

In January, Pastor Yang Hua of Living Stone Church in Guiyang, Guizhou Province, was formally arrested, while, in an unrelated development, Senior Pastor Gu Yuese was dismissed from his post in Chongyi Church in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province.

Pastor Yang Hua, also known as Li Guozhi, was formally arrested on 22 January on suspicion of ‘divulging state secrets’. In 2015, Yang had been placed in administrative detention for ‘obstructing justice’ and ‘gathering a crowd to disturb social order’.

Two Protestant churches were demolished and at least three church leaders held incommunicado in Cuba on 8 January.

State security agents and police also blocked off roads and surrounded the home of Mario Felix Lleonart Barroso, a prominent pastor and religious freedom activist, in an unsuccessful attempt to arrest him, but they did manage to detain scores of other Cubans linked to the churches to prevent them from going to the site of the demolitions.

Nine Protestant families were forcibly displaced from their village in Chiapas, Mexico on 4 January because of their religious beliefs.

Armed village leaders, led by Village Commissar Reynaldo Jiménez Hernández and Municipal Agent Francisco Jiménez Santiz, attempted to force the victims to renounce their religious beliefs. When they refused to do so they burned their homes in Gabriel Leyva Velázquez, Margaritas Municipality, forcing them to flee.

A man was killed and a church burned down in violent clashes in Aceh Singkil on 13 October, while thousands have fled the area.

The clashes broke out after a demonstration by an Islamic youth group demanding that the local government tear down a number of churches that they claimed had been built illegally without permits. The local government agreed to demolish at least 13 churches in Aceh Singkil and force them to register for new permits to build churches. Police started tearing down the church buildings with axes and sledgehammers on the morning of 19 October.

In early November, Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) was informed that 13 Christians had been arrested in the city of Varamin, south east of Tehran.

Zari Shah Khasti (Poorkaveh), Simmin, Bahram, Amin, Leyla, Zahra, Mehdi and Farzaneh, Shayan, Sara, Nazanin, Elnaz and Mohammad Shah Khasti were arrested by agents of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence following a raid on a house church.

An anti-conversion clause inserted in Nepal’s new constitution has some worried that persecution of religious minorities will increase, it was reported in mid-September.

The new constitution declares Nepal a secular state. However, section 26 makes illegal ‘any act to convert another person from one religion to another or any act or behaviour to undermine or jeopardise the religion of another’.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported in early October that three Christians, who were part of a group of 200 or more held captive by Daesh (Islamic State) since February, have been executed.

The terrorist group released a video on 8 October showing Dr Abdel-Maseeh Aniyah, Ashur Rustam Abraham and Bassam Issa Michael in orange jumpsuits. The men were ordered to confirm their names before being shot dead. In an apparently scripted moment, a Christian then pointed to the bodies on the ground and said: ‘our fate is the same as these if you do not take proper procedure for our release.’ Daesh have threatened to execute the remaining hostages if their ransoms are not paid.

On 31 August, the Khartoum Administrative Court restored administrative powers to the official lands and buildings committee of the Sudan Evangelical Presbyterian Church (SEPC) denomination, chaired by Rafat Obid.

The court’s decision overturns a March 2013 order made by the Ministry of Endowments and Religion, the body that governs religious affairs in Sudan, to grant an illegitimate church committee the power to administrate on behalf of the church. The illegitimate committee was subsequently involved in the contentious sale of church property to local businessmen.

The Revd Jesús Noel Carballeda, a 45-year-old Cuban pastor of an unregistered church in Havana, who had been imprisoned for six months for holding unauthorised religious services, was released on 31 August.

Carballeda was detained in February and imprisoned in the Valle Grande prison in San Antonio de los Baños outside Havana. He does not appear to have been tried, but while in prison was informed by officials that he would be held for six months as punishment for his continued unauthorised religious activity.

The Revds Yat Michael and Peter Reith, the South Sudanese clergymen, had been released from prison following a court hearing on 5 August. The court convicted Mr Michael of participation in a criminal organisation and Mr Reith of breaching public peace.

Both were released on time served, although they were stopped at Khartoum Airport on 6 August and informed that a travel ban issued against them on 23 March was still in force. An appeal has been launched.

Two Protestants were released from prison on 10 July and local authorities promised to respect religious freedom after state authorities intervened in their case.

Andres Lopez and Virginia Lopez, both from the village of Tseteltón, had been imprisoned in the municipal capital of San Juan Chamula, Chiapas State, since 7 July because of their conversion to Protestantism.

A group of five Coptic families from the village of Kafr Darwish in Upper Egypt returned to their homes on 2 June after they were expelled following sectarian violence in the Beni Suef Governorate, 100 km south of Cairo.

The families were forced to leave their village after claims that one of the sons, Ayman Youssef Tawfiq, had uploaded cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad to Facebook, sparking violence from gangs of Muslim youth, who attacked the homes and businesses of local Copts with stones and Molotov cocktails. During the violence, another group of Muslim youths are reported to have helped the Coptic families defend their homes, along with the police who reacted promptly.

The Revd Yiorvis Bravo, a national leader of the Apostolic Movement in Cuba, was noti-fied on 28 June that he is banned from travelling outside the country because he refuses to pay the government rent on a property that the authorities arbitrarily confiscated from him in 2013.

An official letter, which Mr Bravo received on 28 June, the day before he was due to travel to Peru to participate in a course on Leadership, Democracy and Multi-media Communications, states that his refusal to acknowledge the government as rightful owner of his property and his failure to pay rent to the authorities has resulted in debts that prevent his leaving Cuba for any reason. The letter refers to Mr Bravo’s status as ‘a permanent tenant of the state’.

On 30 May, Egyptian TV presenter Islam al-Beheiry was sentenced (in absentia) to five years in prison with labour for ‘contempt of religion’.

The charge comes with the right to appeal, although Beheiry has yet to do so. In addition to this sentence, Beheiry also faces a further two trials for the same charge, one of which was filed by the Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar.

Two court hearings in Mexico on 22 April, held by the State Commission for Human Rights and the Public Ministry, heard new evidence supporting the case of two men who were imprisoned and forcibly expelled from their village in Hidalgo State in March 2015 because of their religious beliefs.

Casto Hernández Hernández, aged 30, and his cousin Juan Placido Hernández Hernández, aged 25, both members of the United Pentecostal Church of Mexico, were imprisoned by village officials on 12 March. While imprisoned, they were put under pressure to renounce their faith. When they refused to do so after 30 hours, they were released and told they had 18 hours to leave the community. Since then, Juan Placido has been allowed to return to the village, but Casto has not and is living in another city.

Two men in Hidalgo State were arbitrarily imprisoned and then expelled from their community, along with their families, after refusing to renounce their religious beliefs on 12 March.

Casto Hernández Hernández and his cousin Juan Placido Hernández, both Protestant Christians, were imprisoned for approximately 30 hours by village officials in Chichiltepec village, Tlanchinol Municipality.

A group of 47 displaced Protestants from Chiapas State were refused re-entry to their village in January, despite state government promises that village leaders had agreed to uphold religious freedom.

The Protestants, who were forcibly expelled from Buenavista Bahuitz village in Chiapas State in 2012, were initially told that they could only return to their homes if they converted to Roman Catholicism and participated in Roman Catholic religious activities.

Nepal’s Constituent Assembly (CA) was unable to agree a draft of the new Constitution for the new secular Republic of Nepal by the 22 January deadline, raising fears among religious minorities that the constitutional negotiations, which also include provisions for guaranteeing secularism and religious freedom, may collapse altogether.

A new Constitution was stipulated by the Comprehensive Peace Agreement which ended Nepal’s ten-year military conflict in 2006. Prior to this, Nepal was the only official Hindu Kingdom in the world.

Bishoy Armia Boulous, an Egyptian convert to Christianity who is currently serving a prison sentence, is being mistreated in prison, it was reported in mid-December.

Bishoy Armia Boulous, formerly known as Mohammed Hegazy, is being held in Tora Prison, Cairo. His lawyer has said that Mr Boulous is being held in solitary confinement in a cell designated for those awaiting capital punishment. Prison staff are abusing him verbally on account of his religion and are also abusing him physically, including breaking his glasses and making him walk barefoot to hearings in Minya Misdemeanour Court. There are unconfirmed reports that Mr Boulous has begun a hunger strike in protest at his detention and maltreatment.

A police officer who was involved in the death in custody of Vietnamese church elder Hoang Van Ngai in March 2013 has been arrested, apparently in connection with the case, it was reported in mid-October.

According to the Vietnamese media, the local authorities are conducting an investigation into possible acts of ‘irresponsibility’ by the police which may have contributed to the death of Hoang Van Ngai.

An investigation has been called for and charges to be brought against those responsible for the attempted murder of Baptist Pastor Marcelo Nieva in Río Tercero, Cordoba Province, Argentina on 21 October.

Pastor Nieva, who leads the Pueblo Grande Baptist Church, which works with victims of domestic violence, sex trafficking and drug addicts, was shot at multiple times while driving along with church member Daniel Carreño. They were not wounded.

Six Protestant Christians, who were arrested on 28 September by local authorities in Laos after a religious meeting, were released from detention on 3 October. Pastor Sompong Supatto is still being held at Boukham village government headquarters.

The group, aged between 18 and 60 years old and accompanied by a three-year-old girl, were arrested by local authorities after they had met together for worship at Pastor Sompong Supatto’s home. A week before, village officials told the Christians they were not allowed to gather for worship, despite the fact that Christians have been meeting there for worship for three to four years.

The Egyptian Ministry of the Interior has been urged to launch an urgent and transparent investigation into raids conducted by police in Al-Minya on September 23, in which members of the Coptic community were harassed and assaulted, their homes and property destroyed, and 12 people were detained.

The raids occurred after members of the Coptic community protested outside the police station, demanding police action over the abduction of a Christian woman. According to the police, some of the protestors threw Molotov cocktails at the police station, leading to the arrest of over 30 protestors.

Two more detainees from Nanle County Christian Church, Henan Province, detained in November 2013 after a group of church members attempted to petition a higher authority about a land dispute involving the church, have been found guilty of ‘gathering a crowd to disrupt public order’, it was reported on September 9.

Zhang Cuijuan, sister of Pastor Zhang Shaojie, was sentenced to one and a half years in prison, while Zhao Junling was sentenced to one year in prison with a reprieve of two years, during which he will be under surveillance.

An official in the Hidalgo state government has made public statements defending religious freedom violations, including barring children from attending primary school because of their religious beliefs and threats of expulsion, it was reported in September.

At least one Protestant child has been barred from attending primary school because of his refusal to convert to Catholicism, and 17 families are at risk of being expelled from their village. The group of Pentecostals from the Huastec indigenous group have been threatened by village officials in the village of Tepeolel because of their refusal to participate in, or contribute to, Roman Catholic religious festivals.

The Sudanese Minister for Guidance and Religious Endowments, Shalil Abdullah, reaffirmed on July 12 that the government will not issue permits for the building of new churches in Sudan.

The minister stated that, since South Sudan’s secession, the existing churches remaining in Sudan are sufficient for Sudan’s Christian population. This is the second time that the Ministry for Guidance and Religious Endowments has confirmed the policy.

Chinese human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng was released on August 7 and is reportedly with his brother Gao Zhiyi.

Gao Zhisheng is a prominent Christian human rights lawyer who is best known for his work defending Falun Gong adherents, Christians, and other persecuted social groups. As a result, the government shut down his law firm and revoked his lawyer’s license.

Three members of Nanle County Christian Church detained since November 2013 were released on June 11, according to reports from China Aid Association.

Fan Ruiling (also known as Fan Ruizhen), Yan Beibei and Zhao Zhijun were among over 20 members of Nanle County Christian Church detained in November and December 2013. Yan Beibei, 23, was the youngest church member detained.

Cuban government agents, including state security and Cuban Communist Party offi-cials, destroyed the home of Pastor Esmir Torreblanca in the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba on July 2.

The unannounced demolition began at 6 am while the pastor, who is a leader in the church, his wife and their young children, aged two and seven, were sleeping inside. They are now homeless.

Multiple sources have reported that 11 Christians detained in Savannakhet Province on May 11 remain in prison after being arrested for meeting in an unauthorised location.

After signing documents agreeing to not meet at that location again, 12 others, including women and teenagers, have been released. The Christians in Savannakhet Province belong to a church in Paksong Village in Songkhone District, which was barred from holding church services in 2012. The pastor of the church was arrested and coerced into signing a document saying the church would stop meeting. According to Human Rights Watch for Lao Religious Freedom, the authorities, including the new village chief, claimed that Christians in that area did not receive permission to hold worship services; however, the Christians claimed they received permission from the former village chief approximately a year before.

Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) has learned that Pastor Behnam Irani, who was sentenced in 2011 to six years imprisonment on political charges, was beaten in prison and transferred to an unknown location in the early hours of June 7.

Pastor Irani was summoned by Judge Mohammad Yari, chief of the Sixth Chamber of the Revolutionary Tribunal, at 6:30am on June 7. As the summons appeared irregular and contrary to judicial process, Pastor Irani rejected it and wrote a letter of protest. However, at 9am, intelligence agents entered his prison cell and proceeded to beat him before he was taken to see Mohammad Yari. He was subsequently transferred to an unknown location.

The trial of Chinese pastor Zhang Shaojie began on April 10 in Nanle County, Henan Province, but court proceedings were later suspended indefinitely, after Zhang’s lawyers were detained and he had to dismiss them from his case.

According to a statement issued by Zhang’s family, the decision to dismiss the lawyers was taken following concerns that they were at risk of losing their licences. Nanle County was subject to a heavy police presence on the day of the trial; only two members of Zhang’s family were permitted to attend, and a US Embassy official was reportedly barred from the court room. China Aid also reports that Zhang’s daughter Zhang Huixin was taken to Nanle County Public Security Bureau for ‘interrogation’ along with her one-year-old daughter and mother, Zhang’s wife.

An Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) church in Tudun Nupawa, Kaduna, Northern Nigeria, held a Friends’ Day Service on April 13 as part of peace-building efforts with the local community.

Around 50 Muslim traditional rulers and clerics attended the service, 15 of whom received gifts at the end of the service. The dignitaries and over 50 disadvantaged or disabled Christians and Muslims joined the congregation in a shared lunch.

A state report, published in late March, has recommended that reparations be made to the victims of religious freedom violations including the closing of a church in the Oaxaca State.

The victims, members of the Independent Christian Pentecostal Church, filed a complaint with the ombudsman’s office after municipal authorities declared the area to be a ‘Protestant-free’ zone and forcibly closed the Pentecostal church with ‘concrete tubes, chains and padlocks’. The municipal president, Pedro Cruz Gonzalez, called for the destruction of the church building and demanded that the Protestants pay a 7000 peso (approximately £335) fine for ‘not being Catholic’. Tensions escalated when Cruz Gonzalez called for the Protestants to be lynched, imprisoned and tortured. Four men associated with the church were arbitrarily detained and tortured and only released after state and federal intervention.

Three Chinese human rights lawyers and an unknown number of other citizens remain in detention after being taken away by police on March 21 while visiting a ‘black jail’ in Jiansanjiang, Heilongjiang Province.

At least one of the lawyers, Tang Jitian, has been given a 15-day administrative sentence for ‘using a cult to disrupt social order’. It is not clear what charges have been brought against the other detainees.

Protestant Pastor Xu Yonghai and 11 members of his church were still in detention in February, weeks after the Holy Love Fellowship house church was raided.

According to reports, 18 or 19 Christians had gathered to study the Bible together in a member’s house in Tongzhou, Beijing, when police arrived and detained 15 members of the group at the local police station. Four, including Pastor Xu Yonghai, were later released. However, Xu was detained again a few days later.

Security forces raided homes of four Christians in Karaj, Iran on December 15.

This included that of Kristina Irani, wife of imprisoned Church of Iran pastor, Behnam Irani. The homes of Silas Rabbani, Amin Khaki and an unnamed Christian were raided by members of the security forces, who confiscated Bibles, even though none of these homes are house churches. The three men were subsequently informed that they would be receiving a summons for a court hearing.

Over 100 relatives, church members and supporters of Pastor Zhang Shaojie, a Protestant pastor, joined in a protest on November 18 in Henan Province, China, to call for his release from prison.

Pastor Zhang Shaojie, 48, belongs to the Nanle County Christian Church under the state-sanctioned Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM). On November 16 police forcibly detained Pastor Zhang without any formal documentation. Some sources suggest that his detention was a result of his work defending the rights of vulnerable groups. In response, a number of relatives and church members gathered in front of the police station and were subsequently beaten.

A document published by the 32nd Front of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia — Army of the People (FARC-EP) in July this year illustrates the degree of repression the guerrilla group exercises over populations under its control, including strict restrictions on religious freedom.

It states that ‘evangelical chapels may only be built in municipal capitals’ and ‘Pastors and priests will only hold their masses in the churches in the municipal capitals’. According to El Colombiano, priests and pastors in the heavily rural Putumayo region who have attempted to conduct ministry outside the municipal capitals have come under threat or been forced to flee.

Chinese human rights lawyer Ni Yulan was released from prison on October 5 after completing a two-and-a-half year sentence.

She is reported to be in ill health as a result of an illness left untreated during her imprisonment. Ni Yulan, a Christian activist and lawyer, was tried in 2011 and sentenced in 2012 to two years and eight months for fraud and creating a disturbance. The fraud conviction was later dropped and her sentence was reduced by two months. Her husband was sentenced to two years.

Laos in May deported nine North Korean refugees to China, from where they were forcibly repatriated to North Korea, where they could face detention, torture and even execution as ‘illegal defectors’.

The nine North Koreans, aged 15-23, arrived in Laos around May 10 and were on their way to South Korea when they were caught by the Lao authorities. According to reports, the South Korean embassy in Vientiane requested that the refugees be transferred into their custody. However, on May 27 the embassy heard that the group had been deported to China. On May 29, a senior South Korean foreign ministry official said that they judged that the refugees were repatriated to North Korea on May 28.