World in Brief

A Christian couple launched a legal action after they were banned from becoming foster carers due to their biblical views on LGBT issues, it was reported in February.

Byron and Keira Hordyk said they would love a child who identifies as LGBT as their own, but would help them to overcome their sin. Despite an initially favourable report, their application was refused on the grounds that their views would not ensure ‘a safe living environment’. The Equality Opportunity Commission refused to hear their case, and it has been referred to the State Administrative Tribunal.

At least 22 Rohingya Christian families were attacked, a Christian pastor and his 14-year-old daughter were abducted, and a church and school were vandalised in attacks in January.

A large group of men wielding machetes were responsible, said the group in a statement urging authorities in Bangladesh to provide protection. A police case was filed against 59 alleged assailants. A group of Muslims also filed a separate complaint later, alleging that the violence was the result of Christians assaulting a Rohingya Muslim man.

Prosecutions in Russian-occupied Crimea for ill-defined ‘missionary activity’ in 2019 were at the same rate as in 2018.

Of 24 prosecutions in 2019 for sharing faith or holding worship at unapproved venues, 17 ended in punishment (fines of five days’ average wages). Also, 11 communities were prosecuted for not using their full legal name outside their meeting place or in religious literature.

Eleven Christians were killed in an attack by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) on 18 February.

A local Christian leader confirmed that the ADF deliberately targeted Christians in the attack. Many people, including Christians, have fled the area to Kasindi town, about 30 miles away, and some have taken refuge in neighbouring Uganda. ADF militants repeatedly carry out abductions and target Christian property.

Licences were granted to 82 church and church-affiliated buildings in Egypt on 11 February by the committee that has been overseeing the process since early 2017.

The number of churches licensed now stands at 1,494, out of the original 3,730 that applied for registration. Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouli chaired the licensing committee meeting, which included ministers of justice, local development, housing and parliamentary affairs. Christian leaders also attended.

False charges against eight Christians, acquitted on 19 February of kidnapping and forcible conversion, have traumatised families and left people without jobs.

Before the Christian leaders and Sunday School teachers were arrested as they accompanied children to a Christian summer camp, they had homes and reputable jobs. Making house payments without income has left the Christians in debt. One said: ‘I praise God for His faithfulness and am sure that, like in the Book of Job, God will restore to me what my family and I have lost’.

Released in February, three Christians in northern India spent more than two months in jail suffering abuse from other prisoners, even though police found no evidence of wrongdoing and the complainant retracted his accusation.

Pastor Kumar said: ‘Every night was traumatic. We did not know when a mob would wake us in the middle of the night and torment us.’ In spite of the ordeal, the pastors managed to explain the gospel of eternal salvation to many prisoners in their barracks, with one putting his faith in Christ.

Not finding the evangelist they planned to attack at home, worshippers of village deities beat his mother, wife and 11-month-old son and destroyed a year’s food supply on 20 February.

Jimmey Tati has been in hospital with a broken hand and injuries to her back and legs after being attacked with thick wooden rods. The six assailants left with threats that they would kill her son when he returned.

Nine Christians were beaten by the police on 21 February after being accused of ‘forceful conversion’.

The attacks came after a four-day mission to a town, distributing Christian literature. After being led to the police station, they weren’t questioned, but were assaulted. Local monitoring groups have raised grave concerns regarding police brutality towards religious minorities in India. Police are often unwilling to carry out impartial investigations, which has emboldened Hindu militant groups to make false accusations against Christians.

On 23 February, al-Shabaab released an audio clip, ordering all non-local Christians to leave three counties.

Al-Shabaab’s spokesman, Sheikh Ali Dhere, urged Somali-Kenyans to evict all non-Muslims. He said: ‘Muslim teachers, doctors, engineers, and young graduates from the northeastern province, are unemployed. Isn’t it better to give them a chance? There is no need for the presence of disbelievers.’ A local pastor said it didn’t surprise him as the locals always acted as if they wanted the Christians to leave.

A High Court ruling on 3 February validating the marriage and forced conversion to Islam of a 14-year-old Christian girl heightened fears that it will encourage others to commit such crimes.

The High Court dismissed a petition to have the marriage and forced conversion overturned, ruling that both were valid since a girl under sharia law can marry after her first menstrual cycle. Huma Younus was taken from her home in Karachi’s Zia Colony while her parents were away and was forced to marry the man who abducted her.

Vladimir Putin suggested changes to the Russian Constitution that include defining marriage as being between a man and woman, thus ruling out gay marriage, it was reported in early March.

Some have said the proposed changes are a move by Putin to keep a hold on power after his presidential term ends in 2024. The changes include a proclamation of Russians’ faith in God, and a ban on giving away any Russian territory. The amendments are set to be put to a public vote.

Kaluga’s Word of Life Church and Oryol’s Resurrection Church of God have been in court battling official attempts to destroy their places of worship.

‘The City Administration received an order from the FSB to shut us down by any means,’ Oryol’s Pastor Pavel Abashin insists. Bailiffs closed the building of Nizhny Novgorod’s Jesus Embassy Church. A court rejected a suit to demolish Samara’s Good News Church.

Security forces of the unrecognised Donetsk People’s Republic raided a Protestant church’s Sunday morning worship on 19 January.

They interrogated church leaders at the police station. In December 2018, a Makeyevka court fined another Protestant leader ten days’ average local wages for leading a community denied registration. ‘Each country has its own Religion Law,’ the rebels’ Ombudsperson Darya Morozova claimed, wrongly.

A Wisconsin high school closed its gender-neutral toilet in February after an 18-year-old student was arrested for fourth-degree sexual assault, child enticement, and exposing his genitals to a child inside the facility.

In 2017, the conservative Family Research Council compiled a list of 21 incidents of men assaulting or violating women’s privacy in public toilets. The group warned that non-discrimination laws that allow people to go into toilets based on their gender identity, rather than their birth sex, are giving sexual predators the opportunity to exploit the circumstances.