World in Brief

A case that began with police in Algeria stopping a Christian suspected of carrying Bibles in his car ended on 16 May with a large fine for the church leader.

A judge denied Pastor Nouredine Belabed’s appeal against a sentence of a 100,000-dinar (£643) fine and payment of court fees under a controversial law that forbids ‘undermining the faith of a Muslim’. Belabed had received the sentence on 8 March, including a three-month suspended prison term.

A pastor abducted on 3 June with his family was released after a few days.

Local sources said that Pastor Pierre Boena, his son David and his daughter-in-law, Ami Sawadogo, were released unharmed. There has still been no news regarding Basnéré Mathieu Sawadogo and his wife Alizeta, who were abducted in late May.

A married couple rejected as adoptive parents, due to their beliefs about marriage and sexuality, had their application approved in early May.

The Christians had previously been told their beliefs made them unable to help a child who has ‘sexual identity issues’. But in a belated U-turn, Alberta Children’s Services wrote to say that ‘the initial decision is rescinded’ and the couple’s application for adoption ‘is now approved’.

Copts in a village near the city of Alexandria were persuaded to waive the charges against an extremist mob who pelted their church with Molotov cocktails on 26 May, in order to retain the use of the building for worship.

Seven Copts were injured when a mob attacked their church and other Christian-owned properties. After a large group of Muslims had finished their afternoon prayers in front of a half-built mosque next to the church, a message came through the mosque’s loudspeakers inciting worshippers to attack the church.

In May, the bodies of the 20 Egyptian Christians martyred by decapitation by Islamic State (IS) in Libya in 2015 were returned to Egypt.

Twenty of the people were Egyptian and one was Ghanaian. According to a video of the incident posted by IS, the martyred wore orange jumpsuits and were brutally murdered at a beach location in Sirte, an IS stronghold at the time. Their bodies were recovered when the area was recaptured from IS in October 2017 and eventually forensically identified by doctors.

Rights groups called for the mandate of the UN Human Rights Special Rapporteur for Eritrea to be renewed in June.

Human rights have been monitored since 2012, when Sheila B. Keetharuth was appointed by the UN Special Rapporteur. In March she acknowledged that violations in the country have ‘continued unabated’. Evangelicals and Pentecostals in Eritrea have been at particular risk of detention since a 2002 law was passed prohibiting churches other than the Orthodox, Catholic and Evangelical Lutheran churches, as well as Sunni Islam.

An attempt to legalise euthanasia was resoundingly defeated in Finland in May.

The Finnish Parliament voted 128-60 against an initiative on the issue. Lawmakers have agreed to carry out a comprehensive investigation into end-of-life care. The measure would have allowed for euthanasia for people suffering from an ‘incurable fatal disease’, with death ‘likely to occur in the near future’.

In an attack on a church service in northern India during the Spring that left a 55-year-old man unconscious, the wife of a pastor hid her husband after Hindu extremists said they would kill him.

Women and children were not spared in the attack by 25 masked extremists armed with wooden sticks on the Full Gospel Pentecostal Church. ‘They manhandled women, beat them, pulled their clothes, spoke to them in a filthy language and disgraced them,’ witnesses

The Human Rights Commission of Malaysia resumed its inquiry into the disappearance of church leader Raymond Koh, who was kidnapped in broad daylight by masked men in February 2017.

The inquiry was halted in January when Uber driver Lam Chang Nam was charged with Koh’s kidnap. A police whistle-blower came forward alleging that Koh’s abduction, and that of another person missing since 2016, involved Malaysia’s Special Branch and was carried out with the full knowledge and approval of the then-Inspector General of Police, Khalid Abu Bakar.

The launch of SAT-7’s Persian world television channel on a second satellite saw the overall number of viewers contacting the channel double within its first year, to 15 May, including a surge in responses from Afghans.

SAT-7 PARS significantly expanded its audience reach by launching on the Yahsat satellite and, in doing so, became the only Christian broadcaster on a platform watched by 60% of satellite users in the Persian world.

Christians in Nepal were alarmed in May after arson and bomb attacks on four church buildings.

Church leaders suspect authorities are lax in investigating. Neither government officials nor police have issued a formal statement on suspects, though police have attributed the attacks to the Nepal Communist Party, known as the Biplab Group. But Christian leaders in Nepal suspect a coordinated campaign by Hindu extremists.

Six Christians were arrested on 9 May in Tehrathum District, eastern Nepal, under allegations of evangelising.

Two were arrested while singing worship songs on the street and allegedly proclaiming Christ, while four were arrested at their homes. They appeared in court on 17 May when their remand to jail was extended for seven more days. Evangelism has long been illegal in Nepal.

A US missionary kidnapped in October 2016 is alive, according to a 4 June statement by the nation’s President.

Jeff Woodke, who worked for Jeunesse en Mission Entraide et Developpement (JEMED), a branch of the US-based Youth With a Mission, was abducted by unknown assailants. No news had been heard since the kidnap. The belief is that his captors were tracked to Mali.

It was reported in June that the pastor who played a central role in the conversion of a young Muslim woman to Christianity has denounced the response of the country’s security services, from which he alleges he has received death threats.

They were arrested and tortured. She has publicly stated online that her conversion was of ‘free choice’ after having an ‘encounter with Jesus Christ’.

On 2 May a court sentenced a young man, who raped a seven-year-old Christian girl four years ago, to 14 years in prison and imposed a fine of 200,000 Pakistani rupees (c. US $2,000).

The verdict is one of the few examples where prosecutions on behalf of Christians are finally seen through to a conclusion in court. Social stigma and threats meant the family had to leave the village and now live on a roadside in Sialkot. Despite this, the child’s mother said: ‘Our Heavenly Father is with us and we are not afraid of anything’.

Christians in a village in Pakistan’s Punjab province were told in early June to remove every visible sign of Christianity from their church, six months after being forced to sign a form pledging they would no longer hold services.

The 40 Christian families in Nayya Sarabah (Chak 336) village, part of Toba Tek Singh district near Faisalabad, have not held a service since before Christmas 2017.

In late May, Portugal’s Parliament rejected proposals to make euthanasia legal.

In the 230-seat Parliament, the Bill received 110 votes in favour and 115 votes against. There were four abstentions.

Lawyers cautiously welcomed a Con-stitutional Court ruling in March, hoping it will reduce ‘missionary activity’ prosecutions.

However, the first case seeking compensation for an unjustified ‘missionary activity’ prosecution failed in May. Glorification Pentecostal Church’s case against Krasnoyarsk Regional Prosecutor’s Office and Russia’s General Prosecutor was rejected.

A pastor and his daughter were arrested while he preached on 6 May, but were later released with no charges.

Church members had intervened to try to stop the arrest, but when that failed, they returned to church to pray for the people. A church elder said: ‘No one can take away our faith in Jesus Christ – Jesus is always with us and is ready to help us’. Problems appear to be linked to the time the church moved from meeting in a tent to a large church building. The local mosque complained about the noise, despite no loudspeakers being used, unlike at the mosque.