World in Brief

James Varnell Cusick Jr., 72, and his son Casey Cusick, 35, both pastors at the Global Outreach Ministries church at Melbourne, Florida have been arrested in connection with the Capitol riots on 6 January.

They face charges including: disorderly or disruptive conduct in a restricted building; and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds. David Lesperance, a 68-year-old congregant of their church, faces similar charges. Bodycam footage and CCTV images showing the three men inside the Capitol have been presented as evidence.

A Muslim couple in Pakistan’s Punjab province have forcibly converted a 13-year-old Christian girl to Islam, so that she could work as a cook and touch utensils and food. Now they are refusing to allow her to return home to her parents unless they pay a ransom.

The Muslim man, a medical doctor named Altaf, told the parents of Neha, the Christian teenager, that she had embraced Islam and she was being kept as their servant. Neha’s parents are poor and had hoped that she would earn some extra money working for Altaf.

Fulani herdsmen have killed a Christian doctor in Niger state, Nigeria, following attacks that killed 17 Christians in Plateau state.

Five men first abducted Dr Precious Emeka Chinedu from the private hospital he operated in Salka village, Magama County. He was later shot dead. Chinedu had moved to Niger state to start the hospital after finishing medical studies at the University of Ibadan. About 1,000 Christians have been displaced in Niger state following herdsmen attacks on their villages and are now in urgent need of shelter, food and health care.

The recently-formed Vietnam Evangelical Alliance (VEA) has received a letter from the head of the Government Committee for Religious Affairs, General Vu Chien Thang, saying it is investigating a church for possible criminal activity in the spread of Covid-19.

The VEA, which comprises 40 house-church organisations, was told that the Revival Ekklesia Mission was being probed for ‘violating the law against “spreading dangerous infectious diseases in humans” ’.

Save the Children, Plan International and World Vision say that conditions in Cabo Delgado, northern Mozambique, have ‘seriously deteriorated’ over the past year, affecting children ‘disproportionately’. Their new report reveals that nearly 3,000 people have been killed and over 800,000 displaced since the violent Islamist insurgency that began in 2017.

Children have suffered especially badly over the last 12 months as the armed conflict has escalated in villages and district capital towns, leading to ‘grave violations’ and many casualties among them.

Brazilian Christians have condemned a bomb attack which seriously damaged the Memorial to the Bible in Campina Grande, Paraiba.

The Memorial to the Bible is a one-room building where the Scriptures may be read in various languages, including Portuguese, Greek and Hebrew, as well as Braille. The Centre for Studies in Politics, Citizenship and Christian Worldview said: ‘It is believable that it was an attack motivated by anti-religious sentiment. Therefore, we would describe the act as religious intolerance, Christophobia, and terrorism’.

The Orthodox Church in Sudan has been refused permission to build a new church building on land it owns in Hay-Elrawda, Omdurman.

The Urban Planning Department claimed the land is zoned only for residential and it needs to change to commercial use. But if as few as two neighbours object they may not proceed. However, mosques are routinely issued with residential registration certificates in Sudan whereas churches face many obstacles in obtaining registration.

A criminal court in Minya, Upper Egypt, has found ten Muslim men guilty of sectarian violence which took place in 2016 in the village of Al-Karm, Abou Qarqas in Minya Governate. Each was sentenced to five years in prison.

The men were part of a mob that attacked local Christians after a Christian man was accused of being in a relationship with a divorced Muslim woman. Subsequently the accused man’s mother, Mrs Suad Thabet, 72, was attacked, beaten and stripped naked in public.

The Revd Nicolas Guerekoyame-Gbangou, a former Association of Evangelicals in Africa Executive Board Member and Regional President of the association’s Central Africa Region, was the victim of an armed attack by militia.

The Elim church convoy of almost 300 people was heading back to Bangui, Central African Republic following a church convention. The assailants torched seven vehicles and ransacked all their valuables. There were however no fatalities in the brazen attack and the entire church team arrived safely in Bangui.

The Audiencia Nacional (the National Audience, the highest court in Spain) has withdrawn a 6,000 euros fine imposed on UK cable TV station Revelation TV.

In 2017, the state-owned National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC) said a Christian minister had attacked the dignity of homosexual and transgender people on a Revelation TV talk show. Upholding the appeal, the National Audience said that both the minister and the broadcaster acted under the protection of the right to freedom of expression.

Iran’s new Article 500 law criminalising ‘deviant education or propaganda’ is already being used to persecute Christians.

Amin Khaki, Milad Goudarzi and Alireza Nourmohammadi, from Karaj, northern Iran, are all from Muslim backgrounds and were charged with ‘sectarian activities’ and ‘engaging in propaganda against the Islamic regime’. They were denied any legal representation. Guilty verdicts carry prison sentences of between two and five years, a voting ban of up to 15 years, and heavy fines.

Christians and other religious minorities in Bangladesh have recently taken part in the annual ‘Black Day’ protest against the 1988 establishment of Islam as the state religion.

It has led to persecution and discrimination against non-Muslims in the Muslim-majority country. Local Christian leader Nirmol Rozario, who was on the march, said: ‘In a country where Hindus, Buddhists and Christians also live, a single religion cannot proclaim itself as the state religion.’ The number of Christians in Bangladesh is estimated at 1.6 million, around 1% of the population.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has condemned a wave of violence that has seen a number of churches attacked. The attacks are believed to be in retaliation for the grim discovery of Indigenous children’s remains at residential schools.

The residential schools were established in the 1800s to forcibly assimilate Indigenous people into Canadian society. More than 150,000 First Nations, Métis and Inuit children attended them until as late as 1997. Trudeau said the discoveries were ‘a shameful reminder of the systemic racism, discrimination, and injustice that Indigenous peoples have faced’.

Two Christian mission workers have died in a crash involving a small plane in Haiti.

The US-based Gospel to Haiti mission said that Americans Trent Hostelter, 35, and John Miller, 43, were killed, as well as four others who were not part of the organisation. Both men were in Haiti to work with a mobile clinic. Miller had gone to Haiti alone to do evangelism alongside the clinic, but Hostelter was there with his pregnant wife Erica and three children, who flew on a different plane.

More than 125 teenagers and adults have tested positive for coronavirus during a summer youth camp for 400 run by Clear Creek Community Church in the US.

Pastor Bruce Wesley, head of the Texas-based congregation, said: ‘Unfortunately more than 125 campers and adults reported to us that they had tested positive. Hundreds more were exposed to Covid-19 at camp. And hundreds of others were likely exposed when infected people returned home from camp. We seek to remain in contact with those impacted.’