World

Luke Randall

Date posted: 27 Mar 2025

A preacher in Russia has been banned from leaving his home district and using a phone or the internet, and is being charged with “discrediting” the Russian Armed Forces and state.

Forum 18 says that Eduard Charov, 53, expects to be imprisoned for speaking out against the state and its invasion of Ukraine.

An 18-year-old Christian is still languishing in jail a month after winning bail in all three blasphemy cases against him - a trial court is delaying his release, his father says

Sargodha Additional Sessions Judge Naveed Khaliq initially gave the family of Akash Karamat, who has been jailed for 18 months in three blasphemy cases, the impression that he would accept their March 5 applications to accept bail bond of 100,000 rupees each ($358 USD) as per a high court’s orders, but kept delaying the written order, claimed Karamat’s father, Karamat Masih.

“The high court had granted bail to my son against three personal sureties amounting to 100,000 Pakistani Rupees each or submission of cash bail bonds of the same amount on Dec. 18, February 13 and February 19 respectively,” Masih told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News. “No person in our family and among our relatives owns registered properties as per the court’s requirements, so I had no other option but to raise the bail money from various sources.”

Masih, a tailor who now works as a labourer after his family was forced to leave their hometown due to his son’s arrest on August 27, said that after the initial week’s delay, the judge said he would not accept the cash securities because Akash Karamat’s co-accused, Zimran Asim, had failed to appear in court after obtaining bail.

“He said that Akash would also disappear if there were no guarantors involved in the process,” Masih said. “I personally, as well as our lawyer’s associate, have repeatedly pleaded with the judge to give us his decision in writing so that we can move the high court. We have been going to the trial court every day for the written order but have returned empty-handed.”

On Wednesday (March 19), Masih’s wife accompanied him to the court, and the couple waited for over four hours to plead before the judge, he said.  

“Finally, the judge asked us to come forward and categorically told us that he would not give a written decision on our applications,” he said, saying the judge told them, “The high court has given the bail orders, so you should ask it to accept the cash sureties.”

This is not the first time the judge has delayed a decision in his son’s case, he said.

“Earlier when our attorney submitted an application with the judge for declaring Akash a juvenile, he sat on the decision for six months,” Masih said. “Now he has dragged the matter for 15 days, when he could have simply rejected the applications so that we could go to the next forum, i.e. the Lahore High Court.”

Masih said he believed there was no doubt that the judge was under immense pressure from Islamists because of the sensitivity of the blasphemy cases. But he added: "Isn't it his responsibility to decide the matter as per the law even if it is against us?”

Suffering from a kidney ailment that requires surgery, Masih said he has been delaying treatment because no other family members could pursue his son’s release.

“I have even showed the judge my medical reports and told him that despite severe pain, I’ve been coming to the court every day for my son’s release,” he said.

Akash Karamat’s attorney, Asad Jamal, said that the unjustified delay in releasing him warranted action under Article 199 of the 1973 Constitution of Pakistan. Article 199 grants high courts the power to issue writs, including those for the enforcement of fundamental rights, if no other adequate remedy exists, and to ensure that individuals in custody are not held unlawfully.

“We will now move the Lahore High Court for its intervention under Section 561-A of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC),” he told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News.

Section 561-A of the CrPC grants high courts inherent powers to make orders necessary to give effect to any order under the CrPC, prevent abuse of court process, or secure the ends of justice.

The attorney has successfully defended several people charged with false accusations of blasphemy. He is also representing the National Commission for Human Rights in a petition filed by Islamist group Khatam-e-Nabuwwat Forum seeking to prevent any possible adverse action by the government against a “blasphemy business group” on the basis of two separate investigative reports by the NCHR and the Special Branch of the Punjab Police.

He said he hoped that the high court would take up the petition as an urgent matter next week.

Akash Karamat and Asim, 35, were accused of writing blasphemous posters and desecrating the Quran in areas of Sargodha in Punjab Province, allegedly in retaliation for the Aug. 16, 2023, Muslim attacks on multiple churches and homes of Christians in Jaranwala, Faisalabad District, after two Christian men were accused of committing blasphemy. He was charged under multiple sections of the blasphemy law, including Section 295-C, which carries a mandatory death penalty and life imprisonment.

Pakistan ranked eighth on Open Doors’ 2025 World Watch List of the most difficult places to be a Christian.

Religious freedom advocates are strongly condemning deterioration of human rights in Pakistan, particularly continued abuse of the country’s harsh blasphemy laws and forced conversions of minority girls.

They delivered the scathing rebukes during the 58th Regular Session of the U.N. Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva at a side event hosted by rights organizations Jubilee Campaign USA, Set My People Free and the European Centre for Law and Justice.

Conservative Anglicans say they are in neither schismatic nor sectarian, but are wanting to renew the denomination with the Bible at the centre.

In a statement at the end of G25 - a conference for leaders of the Biblically orthodox GAFCON (Global Anglican Future Conference) movement which had "a special focus on the next generation of global bishop" - they reject accusations that they undermine unity in the denomination globally.

Luke Randall

Date posted: 15 Mar 2025

New legislation allowing girls as young as nine to be married in Iraq is a “grievous violation” of children’s rights and “perpetuates a cycle of oppression” against women in the country, an Open Doors source says.

New amendments to Iraq’s Personal Law, passed by an alliance of Shia Muslim parties, legislate that Islamic courts now have jurisdiction over family matters. This includes marriage, divorce, child custody and inheritance, scrapping safeguards which have protected women and girls in the Middle Eastern country since the original law’s passing in 1959, and making it home to the lowest age of consent in the world.

Luke Randall

Date posted: 14 Mar 2025

Christian charities across Canada could be faced with “devastating” consequences if never-seen-before recommendations to end religious privilege exemptions are implemented. The proposal is the latest in an extensive list of liberal policies adopted by the North American country in recent times.

Each year, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance compiles a report ahead of the annual budget announcement and has this year called for the removal of charitable status from anti-abortion organisations and for national income tax laws to be amended to remove charitable status from organisations which primarily exist to “advance religion,” which could see churches targeted.

A leading figure in Reformed evangelicalism in the USA says he has "sinned grievously" through an inappropriate relationship with another woman.

Dr Steven J Lawson resigned from ministry at Trinity Bible Church of Dallas and also One Passion Ministries - an organisation designed to bring "a new Reformation" - last autumn. Statements from both at the time indicated the nature of his infidelity.

Luke Randall

Date posted: 13 Mar 2025

Christians have been reacting to the recent German elections, which saw the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Christian Social Union (CSU), win the largest vote share. They won ahead of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD), who achieved a record vote share of 20.8 percent, and the Social Democratic Party (SPD).

The result means that CDU leader Friedrich Merz, who leads the CDU-CSU coalition, will likely become Germany’s new chancellor, having never previously held a ministerial role. He has promised to push for greater control over immigration and independence from the USA following recent comments from President Trump’s administration.

Well-known preacher John Piper has name-checked Donald Trump and Elon Musk in a social media post.

The internationally-acclaimed author and speaker addressed them on X – formerly Twitter – with reference to Luke 18:7 in which Jesus speaks about entering the Kingdom of God like a child.