World in Brief

The number of deaths by euthanasia in the Netherlands rose by 10% last year. The regional euthanasia review committees found that the vast majority of the 9,958 people to have been euthanised in 2024 had advanced physical illnesses, but doctors have been urged to take great care when dealing with psychiatrically unwell patients.

The Guardian reports that the number of people who died by euthanasia increased by nearly 1,000 between 2023 and 2024 and, perhaps most startlingly, the number who were killed due to psychiatric illness rose from just two in 2010 to 219 last year.

A Christian in Pakistan has survived an attack by a Muslim co-worker which saw his throat cut. Waqas Masih managed to fight back against his co-worker despite having blood pouring from his throat after his jugular vein was slashed.

Morning Star News reports that the 22-year-old had been accused by his co-worker of blasphemy for allegedly touching an Islamic textbook with “unclean hands.” In an update from hospital, Masih said the co-worker had pressured him to convert to Islam several times.

Several Christians have fled Indonesia following complaints by Muslims to the local authorities accusing them of blasphemy offences. The complaints focused on YouTube pages run by apologist Edwin Hutabarat, and accused him and his co-host of blaspheming against the teachings of Islam, Morning Star News reports.

Hutabarat is reportedly in the Netherlands, while his co-host Agatha of Palermo has gone to Italy. Other Christian apologists from the country are also believed to operating from foreign countries due to the restrictions on religious freedom in Indonesia.

A Christian has been found dead by fellow locals, Morning Star News reports. Yuda Garba was a leader of Dnako village, which is believed to be predominantly Christian. He and seven other believers, including his two grandchildren, were kidnapped from their village by Fulani Herdsmen.

The kidnappers attacked the eight villagers as they were sleeping, taking them away at gunpoint during the night. The other victims remain missing, but police are believed to be searching for them.

The United Nations (UN) has condemned Pakistan for failing to deal with the erosion of religious freedom in the country. Criticism focused very specifically on the nation’s strict blasphemy laws and the forced conversions of young girls

Morning Star News reports that UN religious freedom advocates attended an event hosted by human rights organisations at the 58th Regular Session of the UN Human Rights Council, in which they heard of how Pakistan provides no means of justice for Christians, and uses blasphemy laws as “weapons of terror against religious minorities.”

The Federation of Evangelical Religious Entities of Spain (FEREDE) has called for regions in Spain to ensure parental views on their children’s education on issues of sex and gender ideology are respected.

According to Evangelical Focus, the recently released report stresses that regulations on these matters can have a big impact on children’s health. The report also expressed concern that many regional educational protocols on such matters seemed to imply that children would benefit from gender transition if they displayed signs of non-conformity with their sexual identity.

A six-year-old girl, who is the daughter of a couple who run a small house church in India, has been brutally assaulted by a 35-year-old man on a nearby farm. She had been playing on the streets of her village but was tempted to go with her attacker when he offered her chocolate.

According to the British Asian and Christian Association, the girl was found crying and bleeding in the streets before being taken to hospital. Her attacker has been arrested but no court hearing has taken place so far.

A Hui Christian pastor has been imprisoned for nine months for “organising illegal gatherings” in China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. He had pleaded guilty to the charge after being accused of organising the gathering of ten or less believers because other charges are punished more harshly, Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) reports.

Ma Yan’s sentence will reportedly last until mid-April due to his time under detention since last August, but CSW President Mervyn Thomas has described the sentence as “completely unacceptable” according to Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

A woman in Somalia has been ostracised by her husband and then her parents, following her conversion to Christianity.

According to Morning Star News, the 30-year-old woman was sent back to her parents by her Muslim husband after she shared her faith with him. She was forced to leave her three children behind. Her father then beat her with a stick and told her to leave after she spoke about the gospel with her sister.

Over 70 Baptist church leaders from across central and eastern Europe recently gathered for the International Acts 1,8 Conference in Warsaw, where they considered a range of subjects including mission and preaching, Evangelical Focus reports.

The conference was organised by the Baptist Church in Poland and the Baptist Union of Hungary and gave the delegates a choice of several themed sessions to attend in addition to the main meetings, such as leadership, communication, church planting, and how to engage with young people.

The World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) and Portuguese Evangelical Alliance (AEP) have called on the Portuguese government to provide more training for officials across “various ministries and government departments” to ensure public officials behave in line with national religious freedom laws.

Evangelical Focus reports that the Alliances also called on the authorities to “integrate evangelical theological schools and seminaries into the national education system” in their joint statement at the Human Rights Council of the United Nations in Geneva.

The first Pentecostal university in Argentina was recently inaugurated in Buenos Aires. The celebratory event saw political, academic and civil representatives gather at the Cathedral of Faith auditorium to celebrate the creation of the Evangelical University of the Southern Cone.

Evangelical Focus say that over 3,000 people attended the service which was led by Osvaldo Carnival, who founded the institution as well as the Cathedral of Faith church. He told those in attendance that the university will “shape leaders with principles and vision.”

Religious freedom is diminishing in many countries around the world, with Burma, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and North Korea among the worst offenders, according to a new study by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), reports Premier Christian News.

The report places the aforementioned nations on a list of 12 “countries of particular concern”, and suggests that other countries where it is dangerous to be a Christian, such as Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Vietnam, have been added to the list because of worsening persecution towards believers.

A father and daughter have been killed in Kyiv following a Russian drone strike on an evangelical church. The mother survived despite being thrown 50 metres away from the scene by the force of the blast. She was subsequently treated in hospital.

According to Premier Christian News, the family had been displaced from their home due to attacks in Orikhiv, before rejoining each other in Ukraine’s capital city. The man and his five-year-old daughter were killed by a bomb dropped by a second drone, which also caused significant damage to the church building.

The Trinitarian Bible Society (TBS) have given 900 Bibles for school children in Ghana, and are distributing 57,000 Scriptures in Ethiopia.

The Bibles for Ghana will be distributed to children in 20 different schools by a local partner. The Scriptures for Ethiopia were printed by Bearing Precious Seed in Ohio, USA and given to the TBS to distribute. Most of these are in Amharic, with just under 1,000 being in Arabic or Chinese.

Luke Randall