By Harriet Sherwood | The Guardian Pakistan’s supreme court is to consider a petition on Tuesday against the acquittal of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman whose blasphemy conviction was overturned in October. Bibi, who spent eight years on death row, has been held at a secret location since her ... Read More

By The Washington Post More than 600 days have passed since Russian police in Orel, south of Moscow, arrested Dennis Christensen, a Danish national and self-employed carpenter and builder who was active in the local Jehovah’s Witnesses faith. He has been held in a detention center since the ... Read More

By World Watch Monitor Jakarta’s former governor, known widely and simply as “Ahok”, walked out of prison today, 24 January, after serving nearly two years for blasphemy. He was granted early release, four months ahead of schedule, for good behavior. Outside prison in West-Java he was ... Read More

By Felix Corley | Forum 18 Crimea’s Supreme Court jailed 49-year-old Muslim Renat Suleimanov for four years for meeting with others in mosques to discuss their faith. Three others were given suspended sentences. All were accused of membership of the Tabligh Jamaat missionary movement, ... Read More

By Ruth K’lama | Mission Network News Malaysia (MNN) – Last fall, a Member of Parliament in Malaysia issued a public call for religious freedom, the first of its kind, according to the Religious Freedom Institute. Ms. Kasthuri Patto was urging the government to sign the UN Declaration ... Read More

By Stephen Wright and Niniek Karmini | Associated Press JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — A polarizing Christian politician whose campaign comments ignited the largest protests in years in Muslim-majority Indonesia was freed Thursday after serving nearly two years in prison for blasphemy. Basuki ... Read More

By Andrew Osborn | Reuters ORYOL, Russia (Reuters) – The first Jehovah’s Witness detained for extremism in Russia has likened the authorities’ behavior to that of Josef Stalin’s Soviet Union ahead of a verdict in his trial. Armed police scaled the gates of a compound where the ... Read More

By UCA News The president of China’s state-sanctioned bishops’ conference has pledged to work with the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA) to develop the Sinicization of religion in the communist nation. Bishop Joseph Ma Yinglin of Kunming was speaking after Wang Zuoan, ... Read More

By Associated Press HAT YAI, Thailand (AP) — Gunmen presumed to be Muslim insurgents stormed a Buddhist temple in southern Thailand, killing two monks and wounding two others, police said Saturday. The Friday night attack in Narathiwat province was the latest in a recent upsurge of violence ... Read More

By David Kilgour | Convivium About 20 million Muslim and Turkic-speaking Uyghurs, who make up the largest community in China’s far-west province of Xinjiang, are facing brutal repression by police and others acting on behalf of the Beijing government. After Mao Zedong occupied Xinjiang ... Read More

By Kian Sabeti | Iranwire An Iranian Baha’i woman accused of “propaganda against the regime” has been acquitted in a historic verdict that activists hope signals a move away from the discriminatory policies against the country’s largest religious minority community. The verdict in the ... Read More

By Lily Kuo | The Guardian In late October, the pastor of one of China’s best-known underground churches asked this of his congregation: had they successfully spread the gospel throughout their city? “If tomorrow morning the Early Rain Covenant Church suddenly disappeared from the city of ... Read More

By Catholic News Agency Jews and Muslims in Belgium could face difficulty finding food prepared according to their religious rules, as new animal slaughter regulations banning kosher or halal slaughter began to take effect on January 1. Joos Roets, a lawyer who represents a group of Islamic ... Read More

By Ishaan Tharoor | The Washington Post It’s unclear how many people are living in some sort of detention in Xinjiang, the restive region in China’s far west. Last month, a State Department official testified before a Senate committee that Chinese authorities have “indefinitely detained ... Read More

By Christian Solidarity Worldwide Members of Early Rain Church in Sichuan continued to be monitored, harassed and prevented from meeting following a spate of arrests beginning on 9 December. At present approximately 23 people are detained or disappeared, including Pastor Wang Yi and his wife ... Read More

By Mark Martin & Heather Sells | CBN News China is tightening its grip on the country’s Christians through repeated efforts to persecute and silence the Church. Chinese believers are being rounded up, imprisoned and some even tortured for their faith. In addition, government officials ... Read More

In fall 2018, the House of Commons Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development studied the human rights situation facing Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) of China. ... Read More

By Reuters LONDON (Reuters) – Britain has commissioned an independent review into the persecution of Christians to find practical steps to support followers of a religion that it said has been subject to a dramatic rise in violence worldwide. Some 215 million Christians worldwide faced ... Read More

David Anderson, Member of Parliament for Cypress Hills–Grasslands, would like to inform his constituents that Employment and Social Development Canada is now accepting applications for the 2019 Canada Summer Jobs program. A number of changes to the program have been implemented: ... Read More

By World Watch Monitor A Pakistani court last week sentenced two Christian brothers to death for blasphemy. Since their arrest in 2014, Qaisar and Amoon Ayub had been held in District Jail Jhelum, in Punjab province, 200 km north of Lahore, for allegedly posting “disrespectful material” on ... Read More