World in Brief

Two Finnish women working for International Assistance Mission (IAM), a Christian aid charity, were killed by gunmen in Herat in late July, both having worked in Afghanistan since March 1997.

Two men, travelling by motorcycle, shot the women while they were in a taxi. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. The IAM has worked continuously in Afghanistan since 1966 and is well known there as an openly Christian aid organisation that works to capacity build in healthcare and socio-economic development.

Pastor Jean Marcel Kesvere (45) of the Lutheran Brethren Church of Cameroon was kidnapped and killed in late July.

About ten members of security forces were killed in a daring attack targeting military positions at Bargaram on July 24. This assault, carried out by heavily armed men, lasted until July 25. An unknown number of people were abducted, including Pastor Kesvere, whose body was found on July 28 near the small town of Kamouna, 7km from Bargaram.

A Canadian pastor and his wife, who have lived in China since 1984, have been detained in China under accusations of theft of intelligence, it was reported in early August.

Specifically, Kevin and Julia Dawn Garratt are suspected of ‘collecting and stealing intelligence materials related to Chinese military targets and important Chinese national defence scientific research programmes, and engaging in activities that endanger China’s national security’. They were arrested in the border city of Dandong. Simeon, their eldest son, said that the allegations are false and their Christian faith and close proximity to the missionary community are likely to be the cause of the arrest.

A magnitude-6.1 earthquake shook China on August 3, causing hundreds of deaths and devastation in the southern Yunnan province.

398 people are known to have died in the natural disaster, while 1,800 sustained injuries. 12,000 homes collapsed in Ludian county, an area 230 miles northeast of the province’s capital, Kunming. Aftershocks continued to rock the region, making relief efforts difficult. Many roads caved in on themselves making travel by car impossible for volunteers.

Bishoy Armia Boulous, previously known as Mohammed Hegazy, was released on bail in mid-July, pending the appeal of his conviction for ‘inciting sectarian violence’.

However, only days later, on July 21, local security officials turned him over to the Ministry of Interior to face blasphemy charges from 2009, made after he filed what became a very public lawsuit to force the Egyptian government’s Ministry of Interior to change the religious affiliation listed on his state-mandated national identification card from Muslim to Christian. Boulous (31) left Islam when he was 16 years old.

A church in Uttar Pradesh was attacked by Hindu extremists on July 16, while in Madhya Pradesh a Christian school and hostel became flooded after the authorities demolished a wall at the site on July 23.

The Church of the Nazarene in Sehkari Nagar, Bulandshahr district, was stormed by a mob headed by the area co-ordinator for militant Hindu organisation Bajrang Dal. The assailants, who struck during a Bible study, attacked the pastor and parishioners with hammers and hockey sticks and demolished the cross on the roof.

On July 14, eight Iranians were jailed for between 11 and 21 years for posts on Facebook that were interpreted as propaganda against the regime, Iran’s leaders or Islamic religious values.

President Rouhani promised greater tolerance on social, cultural and media issues, a vow that helped him defeat hardliners in last year’s election. But his efforts have been opposed by conservatives who hold sway in the establishment. Pray for greater freedom online, not least because the Internet is such a vital space for the Iranian church: an increasing proportion of evangelism and discipleship now happens online.

In The Times of July 10, there was a photo with the caption: ‘Isis rebels attack the tomb of Prophet Jonah in Mosul [the biblical city of Nineveh] with sledgehammers’.

The accompanying article contained no further specific information about this, although it catalogued the terrible atrocities against humans being carried out by the Isis forces.

Proposed punishments, which could have seen people jailed for leading or taking part in unregistered religious activity, were dropped from Kazakhstan’s new criminal code, signed into law on July 3.

The activities, however, remain punishable by fines under the new Kazakh administrative code. Almost all the provisions of the new criminal code come into effect on January 1, 2015.

Eleven of the group of parents grieving over the missing Nigerian girls captured on April 14 have died, many of them after heart attacks and stress-related illnesses.

Some reports said that at least four fathers’ bodies were among those brought into the town of Chibok after a Boko Haram attack in late July, but other reliable local sources said that they have no evidence of this.

Islamist extremist group Boko Haram and others killed 1,631 Christians in Nigeria for their faith in the first six months of 2014, it was reported in July – that is 91% of the total of Christians killed in the country in all of last year, according to advocacy group Jubilee Campaign.

Last year 1,783 Nigerian Christians were killed for their faith. The increase in Christian deaths so far this year accompanies an increase in the total number of people killed during the period, mainly by Boko Haram – 4,099, which is 975 more than the total deaths from attacks by religious extremists for all of last year, 3,124.

Four Christians killed in the north-eastern state of Taraba on July 31 were among at least 76 slain in the state in the past five months, Christian leaders report.

Well-armed Islamist mercenaries from Niger accompanied ethnic Fulani herdsmen in attacks on eight towns and villages across four local government areas in the southern part of state and also destroyed three church buildings.

FEBA’s partners in Pakistan are now using medium wave to reach one particular language group, it was reported in July.

Until recently broadcasts were only transmitted on short wave in a remote rural area of Pakistan. To make programmes widely accessible, FEBA’s partners have begun transmitting on medium wave, reaching many more people.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in early August ruled against Russia in a freedom of religion case, in which a Pentecostal centre in Chuvashia, liquidated for alleged violations of educational, fire and sanitary regulations, won its case.

Liquidation as a registered religious organisation is not a complete ban, but makes it difficult to do much more than privately meet for worship and to study texts.

A Sudanese government soldier on July 12 shot and seriously wounded Akhnouk Jamal (27), a member of the Episcopal Church of Sudan (ECS), as he picked fruit near his land in Losher, west of Al Atmor.

Jamal remained in the area as most of the congregation fled to mountain caves after Sudanese armed forces supported by the Sudanese air force destroyed the ECS church building in Al Atmor in a bombing on July 6.

The Hope for Africa (HfA) branch in Tanzania consists of 191 churches, it was reported in July.

The work is under the leadership of Bishop Samson Mwalengo, who left his job as head of the Evangelical Alliance in Tanzania to become a full-time HfA church planter. The churches have come under great pressure from Muslims. In 2013, 15 churches were destroyed and already this year two churches have been bombed. Christians are harassed and threatened and some have been killed. The Arab World is funding the building of a massive number of mosques and widespread attempts to convert villagers to Islam.

A Christian college in Boston is being threatened with losing its accreditation because it has asked for exemption from President Obama’s executive order which creates special legal rights for homosexuals, it was reported in early August.

Gordon College risks losing its accreditation from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges because it adheres to the biblical definition of marriage as an exclusive union for life of one man and one woman. The Association has stated publicly that it will conduct a review to determine whether to revoke the school’s accreditation.

Igor Kulyada, a Baptist from Tashkent, was jailed for three days from July 3-6.

His offence was to put up in public leaflets with verses from the Bible. Some of his property was ordered to be destroyed and he was also fined.