Sunday, January 29, 2012

Armenian Genocide

"Who still talks nowadays of the extermination of the Armenians?"
-- Adolf Hitler

The Armenian Genocide (Part 1 of 4)

The Armenian Genocide (Part 2 of 4)

The Armenian Genocide (Part 3 of 4)

The Armenian Genocide (Part 4 of 4)

Armenian Genocide - Armenia, November 2008

AGHET - A Genocide

Armenian Genocide - 60 Minutes [CBS]

Bulletin of Christian Persecution - 2012

Bulletin of Christian Persecution December 27, 2011 - January 28, 2012

December 27, 2011
Pakistan
Those who murdered Minority Affairs Minister Shahbaz Bhatti, a Catholic, belong to Sipah-e-Sahaba, a Muslim terrorist organisation, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said during a Christmas event at Islamabad's Fatima Church.
In cooperation with Interpol, Pakistani authorities are making all possible efforts to bring them back to Pakistan after they fled to Dubai. Paul Bhatti, brother of the slain minister and national harmony advisor to the prime minister, praised the Interior minister's statement. "Rehman Malik`s statement will bring an end to the rumours that have been surfacing regarding Shahbaz Bhatti`s murder," he said.
Iran (hat tip to JihadWatch)
Iranian authorities raided a church that was celebrating Christmas and detained everyone in the building, including children attending Sunday school, a U.K.-based Christian charity said. While the majority of the members were "interrogated, threatened and eventually released," the church's senior pastor, identified only as Farhad, remained in detention, along with his wife and some church leaders, at press time.
December 28, 2012
Uganda
Islamic extremists threw acid on a church leader on Christmas Eve shortly after a seven-day revival at his church, leaving him with severe burns that have blinded one eye and threaten sight in the other. Bishop Umar Mulinde, 37, a sheikh (Islamic teacher) before his conversion to Christianity, was attacked on Saturday night (Dec. 24) outside his Gospel Life Church International building in Namasuba, about 10 kilometers (six miles) outside of Kampala.
December 29, 2011
Egypt (hat tip to JihadWatch)
An offshoot of Egypt's top religious institution, Al Azhar, has called on the government to take a Christian television station off the air, allegedly for offending Muslims, the semi-official Al-Ahram newspaper reported Thursday.
Nigeria (hat tip to NewEnglishReview)
Nigeria's Christians are losing faith that the government will protect them from attacks by Islamic extremists and will "respond appropriately" to future killings, the country's leading church group warned Wednesday. In a public message to President Goodluck Jonathan, the Christian Association of Nigeria called the Christmas Day targeting of churches in several cities "a declaration of war on Christians and Nigeria as an entity."
Nigeria
A Christian couple and their one-year-old son have been shot dead by Muslim gunmen in a 'religious attack' in Nigeria, police said today. he family were in a village near the the city of Jos on Tuesday evening when the killers - believed to be Muslim herdsmen - opened fire.

December 30, 2011
Egypt (hat tip to JihadWatch)
Dozens of residents of the village of Baheeg in Assiut, Upper Egypt, burnt three houses owned by a Christian family after a Christian villager allegedly published cartoons mocking Islam on his Facebook account.

A number of Muslim students attacked their Coptic classmate for posting the cartoons, a Muslim student told Al-Masry Al-Youm.
The Muslim students attacked the Coptic student on Thursday at Monqebad Secondary School in Assiut. Eyewitnesses said the military intervened to break up the fight and escorted the Coptic youth and his family away from the village. Later, Muslim villagers set fire to the family's houses.
Iraq/Afghanistan/Egypt (hat tip to AtlasShrugs)
Christianity in Afghanistan and Iraq could be eradicated in our lifetime, partially as a result of the US troop withdrawal, says Leonard Leo, chairman of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.

"The flight of Christians out of the region is unprecedented and it's increasing year by year," Leo said, concluding with a grim prediction that Christians might disappear altogether from Iraq, Afghanistan and Egypt.
Dubai (hat tip to AtlasShrugs)
A principal and his wife have been sacked from a college whose stated aim is to promote multiculturalism because they are white Christians, they claim.

Professor Malory Nye says he was dismissed from the Al-Maktoum College of Higher Education in Dundee, Scotland, because his race and religion were seen by his superiors as a threat to its core Muslim values. He says the college's claims to pursuing multicultural values were a charade and that he was dismissed so he could be replaced by a Muslim.
December 31, 2011
Iran (hat tip to thereligionofpeace)
According to reporters of Iranian Christian News Agency, Mohabat News, concerns are growing over the unknown conditions of four of the people arrested during the attack on the AOG church of Ahwaz which took place almost one week ago.

Germany (translated JLH and published by GatesofVienna blog)
An interview with Christian convert and Islamic apostate Sabatina James from Germany.
January 1, 2012
Nigeria
Nigeria's president has declared a state of emergency in areas of the country hit by a growing Islamist insurgency, amid escalating violence in Africa's most populous nation. The move came in response to dozens of attacks blamed on Boko Haram, an Islamist group that claims ties to al-Qaeda, most recently a wave of bombings over Christmas that killed nearly 50 people.
Egypt (hat tip to thereligionofpeace)
An ultraconservative Egyptian Islamist group says sending Christmas greetings to Christians is "against our beliefs," a position immediately rebuked by other Muslims.
Nadar Bakar, spokesman of the hard-line Al-Nour party, said Wednesday that Muslims should give greetings to Christians only on "personal occasions," not religious ones.
January 2, 2012
Mid-East
Christians face waves of persecution in the Mid-East after the "Arab Spring."
January 3, 2012
Germany
This is a short "must-see" video of a Catholic nun who works with Iraqi Christian girls who have been raped and tortured by Muslim men. The title is "This Is What Islam Does" [to Kafir women].
January 4, 2012
Nigeria
The militant Islamist group Boko Haram issued an ultimatum on Sunday 1st January giving Christians living in northern Nigeria three days to leave the area. This followed a number of attacks by the militants on churches and other targets over Christmas leaving more than 40 people dead. Update HERE.
For information on a talk about Muslim/Christian violence in Nigeria by the Archbishop of Jos Province at the Westminster Institute on January 22, 2012 go HERE.
Indonesia
Acts of violence and intolerance against Christians in Indonesia almost doubled in 2011, with an Islamist campaign to close down churches symbolizing the plight of the religious minority. The Indonesian Protestant Church Union, locally known as PGI, counted 54 acts of violence and other violations against Christians in 2011, up from 30 in 2010
January 5, 2012
Egypt (hat tip to JihadWatch)
An Egyptian cleric talks about Islamic beliefs: "I do not believe that Jesus was crucified. I believe in what the Koran says: 'They killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them.'
Nigeria (hat tip to thereligionofpeace)
Gunmen have attacked a church in north-east Nigeria, killing at least six people, the church's pastor says.
"The attackers started shooting sporadically. They shot through the window of the church, and many people were killed including my wife," Mr Jauro told Reuters news agency. Update HERE.
January 6, 2012
Pakistan (hat tip to JihadWatch)
A Pakistani Christian editor has said he receives hate mails and death threats on a daily basis from Pakistan for carrying reports on the persecution of Christians in the South Asian country.
January 9, 2012
Egypt
A prominent Christian Egyptian media mogul faces trial on a charge of insulting Islam, lawyers said Monday, based on his relaying a cartoon on his Twitter account.
January 10, 2012
Somalia
A Somali convert from Islam was paraded before a cheering crowd last month and publicly flogged as a punishment for embracing a "foreign religion," sources said. Sofia Osman, a 28-year-old Christian from Janale city in Somali'as Lower Shabelle region, had been taken into custody by Islamic extremist al Shabaab militants in November; the public whipping was meant to mark her release. She received 40 lashes on Dec. 22 while jeered by spectators.
January 11, 2012
Nigeria (hat tip to JihadWatch)
Suspected members of Islamist group Boko Haram on Wednesday shot dead four Christians who were believed to be fleeing violence-torn Maiduguri, residents said.

"Their car had just pulled up at a filling station outside the town to refuel when suspected Boko Haram gunmen in another car also pulled up and opened fire on the Igbos, killing them on the spot," said a resident of the city of Potiskum who sells groceries nearby.
Pakistan (hat tip to JihadWatch)
The National Commission of Justice and Peace (NCPJ) has accused the Punjab government of illegally demolishing a welfare centre allegedly without a notice. The centre, Gosha-e-Aman,, was a property of the Catholic Church. Father Emmanuel Yousuf Mani, the NCPJ national director, told a press conference at the Lahore Press Club on Tuesday that the demolished compound was home to three families and worth billions of rupees. He said the property was registered as the Lahore Charitable Association and was managed by CARITAS Pakistan.
January 13, 2012
Sudan (hat tip to CenterForSecurityPolicy)
At least 57 people, most of them women and children, were killed in tribal clashes on Wednesday in South Sudan's vast Jonglei state, the latest deaths in a cycle of ethnic violence displacing 60,000 people, the government said Friday.
Iran (hat tip to thereligionofpeace)
Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani has rejected an offer to be released from prison if he publicly acknowledges Islam's prophet Mohammed as "a messenger sent by God" well-informed Christians and rights activists said. Iranian authorities reportedly summoned lawyers for Pastor Nadarkhani to his home city of Rasht on December 30, to explain the deal. Local officials indicated they would release the pastor if he agreed to make the statement about Mohammed, Christians with close knowledge about the situation explained.
India (hat tip to JihadWatch)
All India Christian Council in New Delhi on Friday feared backlash against Christians in the country due to incrimination of pastors Jim Borst and CM Khanna by Srinagar's self-styled Islamic Shariat court.
The self-proclaimed Supreme Court of Islamic Sharia headed by Mufti Bashir-ud-din on Wednesday indicted Pastor C M Khanna and Dutch national, Jim Borst for their alleged involvement in luring Kashmiri Muslims to convert to Christianity.
Tarzania
Far from the world media's gaze in remote islands off the eastern coast of Africa, church buildings are razed and Christians are ostracized and imprisoned for their faith - leaving one with a skin disease.
Pakistan (hat tip to thereligionofpeace)
A group of people praying in a mosque were so irked by the voices of children singing carols at a nearby church that they decided to silence them-by attacking their house of worship.
The World
Muslim nations make up nine out of the top ten countries where Christians face the "most severe" persecution, and 38 of the top 50, reports U.S.-based Open Doors in its 2012 World Watch List.
January 16, 2012
Israel (Hat tip to AtlasShrugs)
A pro-Israel Christian pastor from Uganda is receiving free medical treatment in Israel after being attacked with acid in Kampala on Christmas Eve. Umar Mulinde, 38, converted to Christianity from Islam when he was in university. Since then, he has openly criticized Islam, and his ministry has included public debates with Muslims. His wife is a popular gospel singer.
"I was attacked by a man who called out to me shouting 'Pastor, Pastor' and I turned to see who he was," said Mulinde. "Then he poured acid which burnt part of my face. As I turned away from the attacker, another man poured liquid on my back and ran away shouting 'Allah Akhbar' (God is great)."
January 17, 2012
Uganda
A 15-year-old Christian girl in western Uganda who lost the use of her legs after her father locked her in a room for six months for leaving Islam has begun to take tentative steps.
January 18, 2012
Syria (hat tip to thereligionofpeace)
The Christian community in Syria has been hit by a series of kidnappings and brutal murders; 100 Christians have now been killed since the anti-government unrest began.
Nigeria
A cleric, Pastor Yahaya Abdu of Baptist Church, Bajoga in Funakaye Local Government Area of Gombe State, has been found dead near his house. It was learnt that the body of the preacher was found on Sunday, with his throat slit open.
Sudan
Sudan's Ministry of Guidance and Religious Endowments has threatened to arrest church leaders if they carry out evangelistic activities and do not comply with an order for churches to provide their names and contact information, Christian sources said.
Egypt
Anger and frustration have risen among Egypt's Coptic Christians after the recent escalation of court cases against Copts charged with of contempt of Islam. Copts accuse the authorities, including the ruling Supreme Council of Armed Forces, of exercising double standards in the application of the "contempt of religion" law.
January 20, 2012
Egypt (Hat tip to AtlasShrugs)
A Muslim mob attacked Copts today in the Upper Egyptian village of Rahmaniya-Kebly, Nag Hammadi, Qena province, destroying and torching their homes, straw huts and shops, while chanting Allahu Akbar. No one was reported killed or injured. According to reports, security forces were present but did not intervene and the fire brigade arrived 90 minutes late.

An eye-witness said that a straw hut belonging to a Copt was torched to clear the area for a mosque. There are more than 300 mosques in the village and one church.
Italy (Hat tip to and translation by IslamInEurope)
A couple from Albenga (Genoa) says their children have been given to a Muslim family by social services against their will. Makhlou Khalid is a Moroccan married to an Italian, Valentina. They say their children (a 3 and 5 year olds) have been baptized and are Christian.
Kuwait (hat tip to JihadWatch)
According to reports, a Kuwaiti royal prince has become a follower of Jesus Christ. . . . As is well known, the problem of conversions from Islam to other religions is a recurring problem in relationships between followers of the Prophet and other faiths and it is a very serious problem in all countries where the majority of the population is Muslim, even those that at first sight would seem socially progressive. [the sharia law penalty for apostasy is death].
January 20, 2012
Sudan
Police this week beat and arrested a church leader in Khartoum, sources told Compass. Evangelist James Kat of the Evangelical Church of Sudan was arrested on Tuesday morning (Jan. 17), with officers beating him as they took him to a North Division police station, the sources said. He was released on bail the same day.

January 21, 2012
Pakistan
The Catholic community of Lahore is up in arms against the illegal demolition of the "Gosha-e-Aman", a "place of peace" that welcomed Christians and Muslims, last January 10 by the provincial government of Punjab. One victim has decided to take the case to court by filing a written complaint against the Development Authority and other officials involved in the affair.
Egypt
Anti-Christian violence continues in Egypt, according to local sources, the episodes are linked to the attempt of fundamentalist Islamic fringe - Salafis - to block the vote of the religious minority in the next election. On 19 January, a mob attacked the Coptic Christian community of the village of Kebly-Rahmaniya, near the town of Nag Hammadi, Qena governorate, Upper Egypt. The assailants, chanting "Allahu Akbar" (God is Great) attacked and burned down houses, huts, shops and businesses.
Nigeria (hat tip to thereligionofpeace)
At least 80 bodies were piled in a morgue in Nigeria's second-largest city of Kano on Saturday after coordinated bomb attacks and shootouts the previous night, an AFP correspondent reported. Coordinated bomb attacks targeting security forces and gun battles on Friday evening spread chaos in Kano, the largest city in Nigeria's mainly Muslim north, with bodies littering the streets on Saturday.
The main newspaper in Nigeria's north said that a purported spokesman for Islamist group Boko Haram had claimed responsibility for the violence, saying it was in response to authorities' refusal to release their members from custody.
Indonesia (Hat tip to thereligionofpeace)
Hundreds of people from various [Muslim] radical groups launched a search on Sunday to find the location of the Yasmin church congregation's service and prevent them from worshiping. The groups even went to the home of one of the worshipers.
Protesters from the Indonesian Muslim Communication Forum (Forkami) and the Islamic Reform Movement (Garis) surrounded the home where the service was held on Jalan Cempaka no. 10, Taman Yasmin complex in Bogor. "It crosses the line now. The protesters now come to the residential area, which is not a public place," politician Lily Wahid, the sister of late president Abdurrahman Wahid, said at the scene.
Pakistan
Opposition members from minorities lashed out against the provincial government over its possession of Christian properties, saying that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) had made the province 'hell' for minorities.
Pakistan Muslim League Quaid (PML-Q) MPA Shahzad Elahi on a point of order raised the issue of Christian's property, Gosha-e-Aman, located in Lahore and said that the Punjab government had made the demolition of churches its mission. He also referred to other properties which had been grabbed by the provincial government, including United Christian Hospital and church property in Garden Town, and added that due to such illegal acts, the province had become a "living hell" for minorities. He strongly condemned the demolition of a 20-kanal portion of a church in Garhi Shahu. Elahi said that the Bible had also been desecrated during the demolition of the church and the windows of the church had been smashed.
January 23, 2012
Norway (translation from IslamInEurope)
Two Iranians who converted from Islam to Christianity were stabbed by masked me in Haugesund last week. The attacker shouted 'Kuffar' (Arabic for non-believer) during the attack.
January 24, 2012
Indonesia (hat tip to InfidelsAreCool)
Violence against religious minorities surged in Indonesia in 2011, with authorities standing aside and failing to uphold the rule of law as Islamist mobs attacked Christians and Ahmadis, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in its annual report on the country.
Nigeria
Early morning attacks in Tafawa Balewa, Bauchi state on Sunday (Jan. 22) left at least seven Christians dead and a church building destroyed. The attack on the Evangelical Church Winning All Church 2, residents of Tafawa Balewa said, was carried out by area Islamic extremists alongside members of the Boko Haram sect, with the church building and surrounding houses bombed.
January 25, 2012
Sudan
Islamic militias loyal to the Sudanese government have kidnapped two Catholic priests in Rabak, Christian sources said.
A large truck smashed through the gates of the St. Josephine Bakhita's Catholic Church compound in Rabak, on Jan. 15 at 10 p.m., and the assailants broke down the rectory door, the sources said. The Rev. Joseph Makwey and the Rev. Sylvester Mogga were kidnapped at gunpoint.
Somalia
A Muslim father is arrested after his son converts to Christianity.
January 27, 2012
Egypt (hat tip to JihadWatch)
Two Copts, father and son, were killed yesterday in a suburb of Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt, shot dead by a Muslim bandit, and his accomplices because they refused to pay the money demanded by the racket.
Uganda
A former member of a Muslim extremist group in Uganda who converted to Christianity is in hiding in Kenya, his movements severely restricted following threats to kill him.
January 28, 2012
Egypt
A mob of over 3000 Muslims attacked Copts in the village of Kobry-el-Sharbat, Alexandria this afternoon. Coptic homes and shops were looted before being set ablaze. Two Copts and a Muslim were injured. The violence started after a rumor was spread that a Coptic man had an allegedly intimate photo of a Muslim woman on his mobile phone.
According to eyewitnesses, the perpetrators were bearded men in white gowns. "They were Salafists, and some of were from the Muslim Brotherhood," according to one witness.

January, 23, 2012
Zanzibar (Tanzania) - Leaders of Christians in Zanzibar, Tanzania's semi-autonomous archipelago, have appealed for more religious freedom in the heavily Islamic region, after Muslim extremists allegedly destroyed at least two church buildings, while elsewhere believers were detained or harassed. "All people should enjoy religious freedom,” including Christians, who comprise less than 3 percent of Zanzibar's mainly Muslim population of roughly 1 million people, said church leader Dickson Maganga of the Tanzania Assemblies of God (TAG) in Zanzibar......

January, 25, 2012
Indonesia - Muslim students attack Catholic schools in Yogyakarta over a Facebook post. Someone going by the name of Rudi Yohanes, who claims to be a student at the Pangudi Lujur 1 school, said on the social network that he was ‘anti-Islamic’. Fundamentalist groups react by attacking three Catholic schools, causing damages and the temporary closure of the facilities. In reality, the name and profile are fakes by an unknown user.

Bulletin of Christian Persecution - 2010 - 2011

Items listed below are from Political Islam.com.

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

November 28 - December 27, 2011
November 28, 2011
Nigeria
Fulani Muslim herdsmen along with Muslim soldiers have killed at least 45 ethnic Berom Christians in Plateau state in the past week, Christians in this northern-central Nigerian town said.

Smaller attacks beginning on Nov. 20, reportedly over allegations by Fulani Muslims of cattle theft, preceded an attack on a Barkin Ladi church on Nov. 23 that killed four Christians, and an assault the next day left 35 Christians dead in Barkin Ladi and nearby Kwok village, according to area Christian leaders.

Church attendance was decimated yesterday as thousands of Christians have left the area. "Christians are fleeing the town because we have no guns to fight back," said one woman in a group of six Christians trying to leave Barkin Ladi. "Muslims have guns, and they have their soldiers fighting for them, so we have no choice but to leave town."
Indonesia (hat tip to JihadWatch)
Hundreds of hard-line Muslims rallied outside the Bogor City Hall on Sunday to decry the "arrogance" of a beleaguered church in the city that remains shuttered by authorities despite a Supreme Court order to open it. The protesters, from Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia and the Indonesian Muslim Communication Forum (Forkami), said they wanted to show that all Muslims were united in opposition to the presence of the GKI Yasmin Church in the city.
"We're here to refute the arrogance of the church, which continues to insist on setting up in the Taman Yasmin [housing complex]," said Achmad Imam, the Forkami head in Bogor. The Bogor administration issued a building permit for the church in 2006, but it revoked it two years later, alleging the church had falsified the signatures required to obtain it.
The Supreme Court ruled in December 2010 that the closure was unlawful and ordered its reopening, but the city administration continues to ignore the ruling. More HERE.
November 29, 2011
Egypt
With Islamist groups expected to do well in Egypt's parliamentary elections, many Coptic Christians are concerned that their limited rights will come under greater threat. Coptic Christians do not have the same rights as other people in the country, and that others look down on them as if they are not human. Now, some Christians say, it can only get worse. The elections that started this week are expected to favor Islamist parties, including the conservative Salafis.
November 30, 2011
India
Chander Mani Khanna, the Anglican clergyman from All Saints Church arrested for baptised seven Muslims, will be released on bail, a court in Sranigar, Kashmir, ruled this morning. The pastor's son, Nathan, said, "We are waiting for his arrival in Jammu. He is in custody but safe, but not outside." Sajan K George, president of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), pleaded with the Kashmir government to guarantee the pastor's safety after his release. Rev Khanna has been in prison since 19 November.
Egypt
Thousands of Muslims attacked and besieged Copts in el Ghorayzat village, population 80,000, killing two Copts and severely wounding others, as well as looting and torching homes and businesses. A quarrel between a Copt, John Hosni, and Mahmoud Abdel-Nazeer, who later died in hospital, turned into collective punishment of all Copts in the majority Christian village of elGhorayzat, in the Maragha district of Sohag province. Muslims vowed not to bury Abdel-Nazeer until John Hosni is punished. Mr. Hosni fled from the village with his family, "fearing a wholesale massacre of Copts," reported activist Mariam Ragy.

The events started on Monday, November 28, when John Hosni, a building supplier, had a quarrel with his neighbor, Mahmoud Abdel-Nazeer (48), over some steel rods and cement Mr. Hosni had left in the street to use for erecting a wall around his house. This was perceived by Mr. Abdel-Nazeer as extending the home into the street, which is public property. "Instead of reporting this building transgression to the police or local authorities, Abdel-Nazeer took the matter in his own hands and brought some Salafists and torched the store and the home of the Copt," said an eyewitness.

In the altercation between the neighbors, Mr. Hosni hit Abdel-Nazeer in the head with a wooden branch, which lead to his death later in hospital.

Angry Muslims murdered two Christian brothers, Kamel Tamer Ibrahim (55) and Kameel Tamer Ibrahim (50), in revenge. The brothers were not a party to the altercation. Kamel Tamer, who was defending his shop from looting, was murdered in front of his wife. His brother was also murdered in front of his wife for defending his home (video of the murdered Copts. WARNING: contains highly graphic content).

Three other Christians, Maher Samir Gota, his wife, and his brother Osama Samir Gota, were severely injured and are in intensive care. They were in their homes when their shop was broken into and looted by Muslims. Maher and his wife were stabbed and Osama received a blow on the head. The ambulance could not go to them to transport them to hospital. He was privately transported by his friends. There were reports of Muslims preventing the fire brigades from reaching the burning homes. After killing the Copts, Muslims went on a rampage, looting and burning Christian owned homes and businesses.
December 2, 2011
Iraq (hat tip to JihadWatch)
Photos of Christian-owned business that were destroyed by Muslims after their Friday prayers. A video of the violence is HERE.
December 5, 2011
Indonesia
An Islamic extremist group in Pracimantoro, a town in the district of Wonogiri, in central Java, has appealed to local government for the demolition of five Protestant churches in the area. The alarm is launched by Theophilus Bela, human rights activist and promoter of interfaith dialogue, according to whom that the fundamentalists complaint claims the Christian communities lack the building permits (IMB) for places of worship. The tension in the area is steadily increasing, and rumors of threats of demolition, circulating since yesterday evening in a series of documents, is not contributing to calming tempers. Previously, adds the Christian activist, extremist threats have focused on nine other churches in Bekasi regency, West Java.
Canada (hat tip to TheReligionOfPeace)
A posh Montreal suburb has decided to remove a nativity scene and menorah from town hall rather than acquiesce to demands from a Muslim group to erect Islamic religious symbols.

The decision by the Town of Mount Royal upsets a Christian resident who says the town is abandoning an established tradition under pressure from a tiny religious minority.
December 6, 2011
Pakistan
A 25 year old Christian builder has been falsely accused of having ripped and burned pages of the Koran by a Muslim known for his hatred toward non-Muslims. The police registered the complaint despite the intervention of religious leaders. Fanatic groups threaten to kill him.
December 7, 2011
Iraq (hat tip to TheReligionOfPeace)
About 500,000 Christians remain in Iraq, down from an estimated 800,000 to 1.4 million in 2003, according to a report by Minority Rights Group International, a research body. Persecution makes the Christian community smaller each year, with churches as well as households being targeted and causing worshippers to flee.
The Christmas holiday season has rarely been a happy one for Christians in the Middle East, where they are often not allowed to raise church buildings and house churches often experience raids and harassment. Experts on the region say the Christmas season is a particularly dangerous period for the Christian minority, when numerous acts of violence and vandalism take place.
The most recent of such attacks in Iraq occured on Dec. 2, when at least 25 people, many of them Christian, were wounded in an attack carried out by a group of Kurds in the Dohuk Governate in the north of the country.
December 9, 2011
Iraq
A rash of attacks on Christian-owned businesses in northern Iraq has raised troubling questions about the future safety of the country's shrinking Christian community, particularly as U.S. forces withdraw completely from the nation they've refereed since 2003.

The attacks, which have received little international attention, raged through northern cities following a sermon last Friday by a local mullah. Video purportedly from the riots posted online shows mobs burning and wrecking businesses, which included liquor stores, hotels and hair salons.

December 11, 2011
Egypt
Coptic Christians are anxiously watching a theological and political battle between Muslim parties expected to win 60% of parliament seats. The struggle will define an emerging political Islam.
"The Islamists have been unleashed," says Nasri, a pharmacist hoping to follow the lead of tens of thousands of Copts who have left Egypt this year. "You're talking about no rights for women. No rights for Coptic Christians. They'll make us more of a minority. It'll be like living centuries ago."

December 12, 201
USA
Raymond Ibrahim testified before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission in the House of Representatives, in a hearing presented by Reps. Frank Wolf and James McDermott, titled "Under Threat: The Worsening Plight of Egypt's Coptic Christians."
December 13, 2011
Ethiopia
More than 500 Muslim students assisted by Muslim police burned down a church in the village of Qoto Baloso, Ethiopia, on Nov. 29. The students screamed "Allahu Akbar" as they set fire to St. Arsema Orthodox Church, which was built on land used by the Christian community for more than 60 years.

According to Inspector Mustefa Bashir of Silte Province, police had already ruined the roof after a court ruled that the church was built without a permit, but as for the razing of the church by students, we are investigating to determine those responsible.
December 14, 2011
Iraq (hat tip to JihadWatch)
A number of gunmen shot and killed a Christian couple as they were walking towards their car on Tuesday night in the restive city of Mosul. Adnan Elia, 34 an owner of jewelry shop, and his wife Raghad, 25 were walking to their car in the Tammuz 17 neighborhood as assailants shot the two who died instantly on the scene. Their two children were hurt but are still alive. On Wednesday morning, the scene was sealed by the security force and the bodies were taken to the forensic department.
The incident comes as the chief of police of the Nineveh province told journalist this week that his department has received information on a plot against the Christian minority in Mosul during the upcoming Christmas and New Year holidays.
December 15, 2011
Indonesia
Vandals decapitated the statue of the Virgin Mary in a small grotto in Sendag Prawito, Tawangmangu, Semarang Archdiocese (Central Java). A cross was stolen and the aspersorium was badly damaged. "This brutal action has strongly affected the Catholic community," Mgr Johannes Pujasumarta, archbishop of Semarang, told AsiaNews.
Egypt (hat tip to AtlasShrugs)
Two weeks after the murder of two Christian brothers by Muslims during the violence that swept the upper Egyptian village of elGhorayzat, the family of the murdered Christians has temporarily come out of hiding to speak of the terror they have been subjected to and decry the impunity enjoyed by the killers, who are walking freely in the village.

On November 28, the two Christian brothers, Kamel Tamer Abraham (55) and Camille Tamer Abraham (50), were killed in revenge for the death of the Muslim Mohamad Abdel-Nazeer, who was injured during an altercation with a village Christian over the building of a fence round the Christian's house, and who later died in hospital. The Christian man fled from the village with his family.

Mahmoud Abdel-Nazeer, the brother of the dead Muslim, and a mob of Muslims, vowed to avenge his death from all village Copts. They went on a rampage, looting and burning Christian owned homes and businesses, and resulted in the murder of the two brothers and injury to several other Christians not involved in the altercation.
December 16, 2011
Nigeria (hat tip to JihadWatch)
Fliers threatening bombings of churches and other areas have been posted in the Nigerian city of Jos, where Christmas Eve 2010 attacks and reprisals killed dozens, authorities said Friday. A number of fliers were found on the ground in the city, which has long been hit by waves of clashes between Christian and Muslim ethnic groups that have left thousands dead.

The pamphlet signed by someone named Idris Musa and written in poor English listed some 21 targets in the planned attacks. "We entire Muslim of Plateau State will never give up until we have our right ... Nothing can stop us from bombing these areas before December 26, 2011," said the flier seen by AFP.
December 17, 2011
Saudi Arabia
Saudi security forces arrested 42 Ethiopian Christians at an evening prayer gathering in Jedda. Those who attended the service were beaten and threatened with death before being arrested and thrown in jail.
Update HERE.
December 18, 2011
Kurdistan (hat tip to JihadWatch)
Fahmi Yusef Mansour is the owner of Iraq's biggest beer supply in the village of Seji near Duhok city in Iraqi Kurdistan. Mansour's beer storage was stormed and torched by an angry mob during the riots in the province earlier this month. Following Friday sermons people in the cit of Zakho attacked liquor stores, massage parlors and hotels.

Mansour, a Christian, said he had received messages threatening to burn down his business. He said he had informed the local mayor and security officials about the threats, but was reassured that nothing would happen. He was in Dohuk the day his store was attacked. He rushed back and tried to protect his business with the help of some relatives carrying guns. According to Mansour around 2,000 people, the majority of them teenagers had attacked his beer storage.
Mansour believes some school teachers are responsible for instigating the young people against Christians. "Many teachers encourage student to oppose Christians and their places of worship," he said, adding that a number of teenage students had thrown stones at the local church. Two students detained by the security forces have allegedly confessed that their teacher had incited them to attack the church.
December 20, 2011
Pakistan
It will be another Christmas in jail, away from her loved ones, for Asia Bibi, the Christian mother of five children, locked in the women's prison Sheikpura (Punjab), sentenced to death by the " black law" pending appeal, still awaiting for the High Court of Lahore to set a date.

Yesterday a delegation of the International Masihi Foundation, an NGO that deals with the legal protection of women, visited her to exchange greetings on the eve of the festive season. And for the first time since the assassination of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, who was killed by his bodyguard in January last year, Asia has found herself before a large group of people so far, in fact, she could only speak with her husband and the lawyer during the weekly interview with relatives.
In her isolation cell, looking tired and aged, beyond her 46 years, fragile and very weak, she can barely stand up. Entering the room reserved for meetings escorted by two guards, she appears confused and her eyes run from right to left for the duration of the meeting, about 2 hours and 20 minutes, with alternating emotions ranging from tears to laughter, as well as long periods of silence."
More HERE. Read an update interview with Asia Bibi by Pam Geller in American Thinker HERE.

December 22, 2011
Pakistan (hat tip to TheReligionOfPeace)
In Kasur City, one more Christian Irfan Masih was falsely accused under the Blasphemy Law. The Muslims caught him and they attacked him with knifes and almost killed him, however due to the intervention of the local police they stopped.
Iraq (hat tip to AtlasShrugs)
Chaldean Catholic officials have canceled traditional Christmas Eve midnight Masses because of security risks.
Chaldean Archbishop Louis Sako of Kirkuk in northern Iraq told the agency Aid to the Church in Need that Christians will spend Christmas in "great fear" because of the risk of new attacks. All services and Masses have been scheduled for daylight hours, he said in an interview with Rome-based AsiaNews.
"Midnight Christmas Mass has been canceled in Baghdad, Mosul and Kirkuk as a consequence of the never-ending assassinations of Christians," he said, citing the Oct. 31, 2010, attack on the Syrian Catholic cathedral that left 57 people dead in the Iraqi capital.
December 23, 2011
Bethlehem (hat tip to AtlasShrugs)
When the Latin patriarch came to Gaza's Holy Family church to celebrate Christmas mass last week, he instructed a full house of Catholic and Orthodox families to pray for reconciliation. As the archbishop, Fouad Twal, stood at the lectern in Gaza City, Fatah and Hamas leaders were meeting in Cairo attempting to mend differences that have divided the Palestinian factions for four years and rendered Gaza a besieged Islamist enclave.

Of the 1.5 million Palestinians now living in the Gaza Strip, fewer than 1,400 are Christian and those who can are leaving. The church hopes reconciliation will bring them back.

There hasn't been a Christmas tree in Gaza City's main square since Hamas pushed the Palestinian Authority out of Gaza in 2007 and Christmas is no longer a public holiday. Imad Jelda is an Orthodox Christian who runs a youth training centre in Gaza City. With unemployment hovering at 23%, he has seen young Christian men leave to study and work abroad in their droves. "People here do not celebrate Christmas anymore because they are nervous," Jelda said. "The youth in particular have a fear inside themselves."

December 24, 2011
Nigeria (hat tip to TheReligionofPeace)
Local Islamists and Muslim Fulani herdsmen attacked a Christian community in Kaduna state on Monday (Dec. 19), killing five people and wounding six, area sources said, just nine days after a deadly attack on a Christian community in Kukum Gida in the same local government area.

The Muslim assailants, brandishing firearms and machetes, attacked Christians in Ungwan Rami village of Kaura Local Government Area at 10 p.m. in a manner consistent with other religiously motivated assaults in the state, which saw Christians killed last month as well, the sources said.
December 25, 2011
Nigeria
Terror attacks targeted at Christians, including two bombs at church services, have killed at least 40 across Nigeria. A radical Muslim sect claimed responsibility for five attacks which struck the nation's north-east today. Most of the victims died on the steps of a Roman Catholic church after celebrating Christmas Mass.

The Christmas Day attacks show the growing national ambition of the sect known as Boko Haram, which is thought to be responsible for 504 killings this year alone. The sect, which aims to impose sharia law across the country, claimed responsibility for the three church bombs, the second Christmas in a row the group has caused mass carnage with deadly bombings of churches.

Read more HERE and HERE. Update HERE and HERE.

Uganda (hat tip to The ReligionofPeace)
As many Ugandans celebrate Christmas, Pastor Umar Mulinde of Gospel Life Church, Namasuba was lying in pain following an acid attack by unknown person last night. The unfortunate incident happened at mid-night, after Pastor Mulinde led his congregation into night prayers that ushered in Christmas.
Witness says that after the attacker poured acid onto the pastor's face he took off before he could be recognized. Mulinde fall down and started shouting calling for help from his followers who rushed him to Mengo hospital.
"The pastor conducted prayers in joyful mood and even asked Christian to repent for their sins. But all of sudden after the prayers when the pastor was leaving the church somebody came and attacked him with acid," a witness said.
Umar is a graduate of Islamic propagation and a sheikh who grew up in a staunch Muslim family where his father was the local Imam. He heard the Gospel clearly explained in relation to his religion at an outdoor meeting when he was a university student.

Iran
A senior evangelical pastor and his wife are spending Christmas behind bars in southern Iran after security forces raided their Assemblies of God-affiliated church, detaining everyone in the building, including children attending Sunday School, a friend of the couple told BosNewsLife.
"Pastor Farhad Sabokrouh and his wife Shahnaz were among those detained in the southern town of Ahwaz Friday morning, [December 23] while they were having Christmas celebrations", explained their friend, Firouz Khandjani, early Sunday, December 25.
He said security forces pushed dozens of worshipers, including children, into two buses and brought them to a local police station. Most were eventually released, "but the pastor and his wife remain in jail," Khandjani explained.

December 26, 2011
Indonesia (hat tip to TheReligionofPeace) )
The congregation of the embattled GKI Yasmin church in Bogor was forced to move its Christmas prayers to a member's house after Islamic groups assembled at the disputed site and threatened to challenge the sermon on Sunday.
The service was slated to start at 9 a.m. in the sealed church on Jalan Abdullah bin Nuh, but the congregants went elsewhere after members of the Indonesian Muslim Communication Forum (Forkami), the Islamic Reform Movement (Garis) and the Bogor Muslim Community (KMB) objected to that plan. The opposition protestors came to the church in the morning and shouted to guarding police officers and members of the public order agency (Satpol PP) to expel the congregation.
"On December 23, they were given a letter stating that they are banned from holding a prayer here. The letter clearly mentioned they can't hold the service," Forkami head Ahmad Iman said.

Garis head Majudien threatened to deploy his members to the location in a mass Muslim gathering known as tabligh akbar should the Yasmin congregation insist on holding the service there.

December 27, 2011
Pakistan
A Christian man who spent more than three years in a Pakistani jail on "false charges of blasphemy against Islam" was hiding with his family in Pakistan's Punjab province Tuesday, December 27, after police briefly detained him again, a friend and human rights official told BosNewsLife.

Pakistan
Those who murdered Minority Affairs Minister Shahbaz Bhatti, a Catholic, belong to Sipah-e-Sahaba, a Muslim terrorist organisation, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said during a Christmas event at Islamabad’s Fatima Church. In cooperation with Interpol, Pakistani authorities are making all possible efforts to bring them back to Pakistan after they fled to Dubai. Paul Bhatti, brother of the slain minister and national harmony advisor to the prime minister, praised the Interior minister’s statement.

"Rehman Malik`s statement will bring an end to the rumours that have been surfacing regarding Shahbaz Bhatti`s murder,” he said.

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

October 2 - October 28, 2011
October 2, 2011
Java, Indonesia
The village chief in Mekargalih, along with members of the Islamic Defender Front, expeled Christians from their place of worship for allegedly engaging in "proselytizing" in a predominantly Muslim area. A Christian woman complains, "Police have no guts against this radical group."
October 6, 2011
Pakistan (Hat tip to AtlasShrugs)
Last night, Safdar Masih was shot to death; others, including children, were injured. The local Church had bought some land to build an orphanage, but the local land mafia laid claim to it. Police refuses to open an investigation into the affair.
October 7, 2011
Pakistan (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
A Christian Pakistani politician accused security forces on Friday, October 7, of refusing to detain Muslim fighters who allegedly shot dead one Christian and injured over 20 others in Pakistan's Punjab province.
The murdered Christian, identified as Sabir Masih, was gunned down and "two dozen Christians including children, men and women were seriously injured" when Muslims attacked Christians "to grab a piece of land bought for a social project."
Maldives
Shijo Kokkattu, an Indian Catholic from Kerala, has been languishing in a Maldives prison for more than a week because he had a Bible and a rosary at his home. Both items are banned on the archipelago.
Islam is state religion in the Maldives. There is no freedom of worship. In 2008, a constitutional amendment denied non-Muslims the right to obtain Maldivian citizenship.
Shijo, 30, has taught at Raafainu School on Raa Atoll for the past two years. Recently, whilst transferring some data from his pen drive to the school laptop, he accidentally copied Marian songs and a picture of Mother Mary into the system. Some teachers reported the matter to the police who raided his home and found a Bible and a rosary in his possession.
October 8, 2011
Egypt (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Christians fear pressure from Muslims to obey Islamic law. On her first day to school, 15-year-old Christian student Ferial Habib was stopped at the doorstep of her new high school with clear instructions: either put on a headscarf or no school this year. Habib refused. While most Muslim women in Egypt wear the headscarf, Christians do not, and the move by administrators to force a Christian student to don it was unprecedented.
Recent attacks on churches in southern Egypt also illustrate the heat Christians are under. Under Mubarak-era rules, the building of a church or repairs for an existing one required permission from local authorities and the state security agency - a rule not applied to mosques. The rules sought to avoid outbursts of violence from Muslim hard-liners. Since permission was rarely given, Christians at times resorted to building churches in secret, often in parish guesthouses.

October 9, 2011
Egypt
Massive clashes that drew in Christians angry over a recent church attack, Muslims, and Egyptian security forces raged over a large section of downtown Cairo Sunday night, leaving at least 19 people dead and more than 150 injured. It was the worst violence since the 18-day uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak in February.

The ongoing clashes lasted late into the night, bringing out a deployment of more than 1,000 security forces and armored vehicles to defend the state television building along the Nile, where the trouble began. The clashes spread to nearby Tahrir Square and the area around it, drawing in thousands of people. They battled each other with rocks and firebombs, some tearing up pavement for ammunition and others collecting stones in boxes.

Christians blame Egypt's ruling military council for being too lenient on those behind a spate of anti-Christian attacks since the ouster of Mubarak. The Coptic Christian minority makes up about 10 percent of the country of more than 80 million people. As Egypt undergoes a chaotic power transition and security vacuum in the wake of this year's uprising, Christians are particularly worried about the increasing show of force by the ultraconservative Islamists. More HERE. Video HERE.
October 10, 2011
Java, Indonesia
Beni Asri, one of the country's best-known Islamic extremists, arrested after the attack on the Christian church of Solo (Java) last September, has admitted strong links with the leading Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Baasyr. (09/25/2011 At least three killed in a suicide attack on church in Indonesia).

Beni Asri has been accused of planning several suicide bombings in Indonesia, and in particular of being the organizer of the attack against the Solo church. Beni Asri was arrested Sept. 30 in his parents' house in Solok, West Sumatra province.

Malaysia (hat tip to the ReligionofPeace)
Islamic authorities will provide counselling to a dozen Malaysian Muslims to "restore their belief and faith" after they attended a community dinner at a church hall, a royal sultan said on Monday.
The case has triggered worries among officials in Muslim-majority Malaysia that some non-Muslims were trying to convert Muslims. Proselytising of Muslims is punishable by prison terms of various lengths in most Malaysian states.
Church officials had repeatedly denied any proselytisation occurred at the dinner, which they described as a multiethnic gathering to celebrate the work of a community organization that worked with women, children and HIV patients. Update HERE.
USA/Egypt
From Raymond Ibrahim: Egypt, destroying churches one at a time. What clearer sign that Egypt is turning rabidly Islamist than the fact that hardly a few weeks go by without a church being destroyed, or without protesting Christians being attacked and slaughtered by the military?
Egypt (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Egypt's state television announced on Monday that there are no deaths among the military forces after previously reporting there were during the bloody Sunday clashes between the military and Coptic protesters, saying that it was the fault of the news presenter.

State TV, also known as Maspero, is under fire from rights activists for falsely reporting that the Coptic protesters attacked the military forces with weapons, which resulted in the death of at least three soldiers and the called on the Egyptian people to take to the street to help protect the armed forces.

The news, when reported on Sunday evening, agitated many Muslims, who took up arms and went to the streets of downtown, clashing with protesters, both Muslims and Coptic Christians, injuring dozens in the worst sectarian violence since the fall of ousted President Hosni Muabrak's regime. State TV also reported that the protesters were armed and initiated the violence that killed the soldiers, which escalated the bloodshed late on Sunday.
October 12, 2011
Sudan
Local authorities have threatened to demolish three church buildings in Omdurman as part of a long-standing bid to rid Sudan of Christianity, Christian sources told Compass.
Officials from the Ministry of Physical Planning and Public Utilities-Khartoum State appeared at the three church sites in Omdurman, on the Nile River opposite Khartoum, the afternoon of Sept. 11, threatening to demolish the structures if the churches continued to conduct worship services, church leaders said.
Church leaders from the three churches in the Madinat al Fath area of Omdurman - the Sudanese Church of Christ, the Episcopal Church of Sudan and the Roman Catholic Church - said they were surprised to see government officials come to their church premises and accuse them of operating churches on government land without permission. The church leaders told Compass the buildings were not located on government land and required no permission.
Afghanistan
There aren't any public churchs left standing in Afghanistan, according to the U.S. State Department. So much for religious freedom one decade after the United States first invaded and then overthrew its Taliban regime, costing taxpayers $440 billion and incurring more than 1,700 U.S. military deaths to date.

The last public Christian church in Afghanistan was razed back in March 2010, according to the State Department's International Religious Freedom Report, which also states that there are no Christian schools left in the country.
October 13, 2011
Pakistan
A 12-year-old Christian girl was kidnapped and repeatedly raped for eight months in Pakistan by a man who then falsified marriage documents with her, it was claimed today.

The girl was lured on a shopping trip in Lahore by a friend, before she was driven 120 miles to Tandianwalla and raped by the friend's uncle in January this year.Two days later, she was forced to sign papers consenting to marriage with the man and beaten for refusing to convert from Christianity to Islam. She was then held against her will for eight months, before managing to escape and contact her family.

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has said the rapists have not been arrested because of their affiliation with a militant Muslim organisation - the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba. It claims the police have refused to order a medical check-up on the girl, and have warned her parents that it would be better for them to hand over the girl to her 'legal' husband or a criminal case would be filed against them. An investigation into the kidnapping found the girl's father reported her disappearance in January and made complaints against her abductors, but police took no action for eight months.
October 15, 2011
Egypt
An army crackdown on a protest that killed more than 20 Christians has not only stunned Egyptians, it has left them with deeply torn feelings toward the force seen as the protector of the nation. Even supporters of the ruling military are grappling with the question of how the bloodshed could have happened.

Many Egyptians view the military as the last bastion of stability - a force "made up of our own sons," as many often say - and tend to trust it to handle the transition toward a democratic system. So images of army troops wildly running over protesters with armored vehicles have jolted them. Some try to find excuses for the ruling junta or nervously defend it. Intertwined in the reaction are the religious tensions between Egypt's Muslim majority and Christian minority. The fact that victims were Christians has made some less sympathetic or more willing to forgive the army's actions.

The violence was the deadliest since the military took over Egypt following the Feb. 11 fall of President Hosni Mubarak - and was a stark contrast to the idealistic sense of Muslim-Christian unity that flourished during the anti-Mubarak uprising.

It began Sunday night when thousands of Christians demonstrated outside the state television building, protesting an attack on a church in southern Egypt. Army troops waded in, and armored personnel carriers barreled through the crowds. The violence killed 26 people, including at least 21 Christians, some crushed by vehicles or shot to death. State media said three soldiers were among the dead.

In the first official press conference after the violence, the military tried to exonerate itself, blaming the Christians and "hidden hands" for starting the violence, denying its troops shot any protesters or intentionally ran them over. Witnesses said soldiers started the melee. Videos showing soldiers beating and shooting into crowds and armored vehicles seeming to chase protesters cast doubt on the military's account.
October 17, 2011
Egypt (hat tip to JihadWatch)
A week after a Maspero protest turned deadly when the army crushed a Coptic demonstration, local papers are taking a tone that suggests the nation's military rulers are not to blame.

Most of Monday's papers accuse various actors for the bloodshed that left at least 27 civilians dead and hundreds injured on 9 October. Surprisingly, Prime Minister Essam Sharaf's cabinet doesn't get the biggest share for blame although he was a primary target for criticism following the events. State-sponsored media was also heavily criticized, but now local media is finding another scapegoat. Coptic religious leaders, clergy and intellectuals are responsible not only for the Maspero violence but also for threatening national unity, according to several papers.

Nigeria
Violence-weary Christians in Borno state have been further upset to learn of the murder of a Nigerian evangelist by Boko Haram less than three months after the Islamic extremist group killed a Maiduguri pastor.
Already shell-shocked from attacks by Boko Haram, which was originally based in Borno state, Christians again took cover after the Aug. 27 shooting of Mark Ojunta, a 36-year-old evangelist from southern Nigeria who was ministering amid the Kotoko people of Nigeria's northeastern state with Calvary Ministries (CAPRO). He was killed in Maiduguri.
October 19, 2011
Somalia
Militants from the Islamic extremist al Shabaab beheaded a 17-year-old Somali Christian near Mogadishu last month, a journalist in the Somali capital told Compass.
The militants, who have vowed to rid Somalia of Christianity, killed Guled Jama Muktar on Sept. 25 in his home near Deynile, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Mogadishu. The Islamic extremist group had been monitoring his family since the Christians arrived in Somalia from Kenya in 2008, said the source in Mogadishu, who requested anonymity.
The Islamic militants, who are fighting the transitional government for control of the country, knew from their observations of the family that they were Christians, the source said.
Pakistan
Update on Asia Bibi. . . A female prison officer assigned to provide security for a Christian mother of five who was sentenced to death on "blasphemy" charges beat her earlier this month, sources said.

Sources in Pakistan's Sheikhupura District Jail said Asia Noreen, also known as Asia Bibi, was beaten on Oct. 5 by a prison officer identified only as Khadeeja, allegedly because of the Muslim officer's anti-Christian bias, while other staff members deployed for her security looked on in silence.

Noreen, mother of two children and stepmother to three others, was sentenced to death last November after her conviction for blaspheming Islam's prophet, Muhammad, after a verbal disagreement with some women in the village of Ittanwali, near Lahore.
October 23, 2011
Malaysia (hat tip to AtlasShrugs)
Right-wing Malaysian activists on Saturday staged a rally against Christians who 'challenge the sovereignty of Islam', amid fears of growing Islamisation in the multicultural nation.
The gathering of about 2,000 people in Selangor state follows allegations of Christian proselytisation in the Muslim-majority country after religious police raided a Methodist church event in August fearing Muslims were being converted.

Newspapers linked to the ruling coalition have also alleged that Christian groups are secretly trying to convert poor Muslims by using welfare such as housing, food and cash.
'Apostasy violates the wishes of Allah, there is no bigger sin,' Yusri Mohamad, the event's chief organiser, told the crowd in Shah Alam, the state capital.

October 24, 2011
Nigeria
Nigerian soldiers summoned to stop inter-religious fighting between Muslim and Christian youths last week shot and killed a Christian mother of five in the Yelwa area of Bauchi city, according to family and church sources.
Soldiers were called in to restore calm following fighting that broke out at a high school soccer match on Thursday (Oct. 20), and later three Muslim soldiers shot and killed Charity Augustine Agbo and a Christian boy. The circumstances leading to the shooting of the boy, who is unrelated to Agbo, were not immediately known, and his name was not disclosed.
Sudan
Emboldened by government calls for a Sudan based on Islamic law since the secession of South Sudan, Muslims long opposed to a church near Khartoum have attacked Christians trying to finish constructing their building, sources said.
The Sudanese Church of Christ (SCOC) congregation in Omdurman West, across the Nile River from Khartoum, has continued to meet for Sunday worship in a building without a roof in spite of opposition from area Muslims and local authorities, the sources told Compass. Claiming that Christianity was no longer an accepted religion in the country, Muslims in the Hay al Sawra, Block 29 area of Omdurman West on Aug. 5 attacked SCOC members who were constructing the church building, the sources said.
October 25, 2011
Sudan
Sudanese leader Omer Hassan Al-Bashir is rewriting his country's constitution in order to implement shar'ia (Islamic) law.

"This new law is going to affect a significant number of Christians who live in places like Khartoum," said Jonathan Rach, International Christian Concern's North Africa specialist. "There are still a significant number of Christians in Sudan … If Al-Bashir introduces this shar'ia law and if he's going to go ahead and adopt an entirely Islamic constitution, Christians and other non-Muslims who live in Sudan will be treated like second-class citizens; they will be dhimmis and they will not have full rights in the freedom of religion."
West Java, Indonesia
Members of a church in Bogor, West Java, are determined to continue meeting outside their sealed building each Sunday until they are granted freedom to worship inside it, despite a ban on street meetings issued by the local mayor.
Egypt
An Egyptian Military Court ordered that an imprisoned Christian activist be admitted to a mental health hospital to determine whether he's responsible for his actions.
Michael Nabil Sanad was sent to Abbasiya Hospital in Cairo, a facility that specializes in treating seriously ill psychiatric patients.

Writer William Weesa said this was very dangerous because "there are many people who were admitted to these hospitals by the security services, who were quite healthy when they went in, but came out as a devastated human beings." Weesa asked that this "farce perpetrated against a prisoner of conscience" be stopped.
October 26, 2011
Egypt
The Egyptian military's intent to investigate its own use of force against unarmed Coptic Christians demonstrating on Oct. 9, 2011, raises concerns of a cover-up, according to Human Rights Watch.
The military arrested at least 28 people, mostly Copts, and brought them all before military prosecutors who ordered their detention for 15 days pending an investigation.

However, Human Rights Watch interviewed 20 demonstrators who all testified that at least two armored personnel carriers drove recklessly through crowds of Christians; autopsies showed that the massive, metal APCs killed at least 10 demonstrators.

"The military cannot investigate itself with any credibility," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "This had been an essentially peaceful protest until the military used excessive force and military vehicles ran over protesters. The only hope for justice for the victims is an independent civilian-led investigation that the army fully cooperates with and cannot control and that leads to the prosecution of those responsible."
October 27, 2011
Pakistan
A petition circling around Canada is calling for Pakistan to drop its blasphemy laws. The Islamic republic's law has grave consequences for the nation's Christians, including some who are facing death for their beliefs.
October 28, 2011
Iran
A Muslim convert to Christianity has gone missing since his arrest last week by plain clothes security officer
According to Mohabat News, on October 17, 2011, a group of four officers engaged in a commando-style raid on the house of Mr. Arazm, arresting him, then transferring him to an unknown location. The raid took place around 7:30 in the morning local time, just before he left for work.
The officers apparently searched the house upside-down and left a mess in their wake. The plainclothes officers confiscated Mr. Arazm's computer hard disk, CDs, pictures, and a number of Bibles. His family was also threatened to remain silent and not to talk about this incident to anyone.

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

August 29 - October 3, 2011
August 29, 2011
The World
Seventy five percent of religious persecution in the world is against Christians, reports a British watchdog group, which says 100 million Christians are facing official oppression.

China, Iran, North Korea and Saudi Arabia are the worst places for Christians to practice their faith, reports Aid to the Church in Need. Also making the list are Egypt, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.
September 1, 2011
Pakistan (Hat tip to AtlasShrugs)
Two Christian men were seriously injured by young Muslim men this month in Karachi when they refused to convert to Islam. see Compass News
September 5, 2011
Zanzibar (Hat tip to InfidelsAreCool)
On Tanzania's semi-autonomous island of Zanzibar, Christians live in a climate of fear. It's a place where a young man flees the island to escape death threats from his Muslim family, and a Christian who accidentally burned pages of the Quran opts for jail by entering a guilty plea rather than face certain death from a furious mob.
September 6, 2011
Iran
On Dec. 26, 2010, authorities had arrested Mehdi Forootan in a wave of persecution against Iran's underground church movement. It is estimated that Iranian authorities arrested over 120 Christians in a two-month period. Most of them were released within days, but Forootan was among a small group who were not. Without explanation, authorities freed him on April 9.

Farshid Fathi was arrested on the same day as Forootan and is still in prison. There has been no news on Noorollah Ghabitizadeh, who was arrested Dec. 24, 2010 in Khuzestan. Abrahim Firouzi, arrested Jan. 8 in in Robat Karim, and Masoud Delijani, arrested March 17 in Kermanshah, were released in recent months. The condition and whereabouts of Mostafa Zangooyee, a university student who was arrested on June 30, are not known.
September 7, 2011
Nigeria
Plateau State chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria(CAN) yesterday joined issues with the Ulama and Elder Council over the recurring violence in the state which has claimed hundreds of lives even as it accused the leadership of the Special Task Force(STF) of complicity in the massacre of Christians.

The body described as blantant lies claims by the Ulamas that 200 vehicles belonging to Muslims were burnt during the Sallah day clash between Christians and Muslims . It insisted that Christians have suffered mores losses both in terms of death casualties and property destroyed since the crises started. It specifically said that over 122 churches have been burnt from 1999 to date, contending that the plot of Moslems in the state was islamise Jos North.
September 8, 2011
Pakistan
A Christian nurse here filed a police report on Saturday (Sept. 3) alleging she was raped by a Muslim colleague who filmed the act in an attempt to blackmail her into renouncing her faith and marrying him.
Shaista Samuel, a 27-year-old nurse at the Services Institute of Medical Sciences (SIMS), filed a First Information Report (FIR) at Shadman police station accusing Ali Adnan, an assistant accounts officer at the hospital, and an armed accomplice of abducting her at gunpoint from the government hospital on Aug. 21 and taking her to a house in Lahore where Adnan's accomplice filmed the rape.
September 9, 2011
Egypt (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Christians in the Upper Egyptian village of Elmarinab in Edfu, Aswan province, have been forbidden to leave their homes or buy food until they remove the dome of St. George's Church, which was rebuilt in its previous location. Village Muslims, backed by Muslim Salafists from neighboring villages, have threatened to demolish the church on Friday September 9 after prayers and use it as a mosque. Despite the presence of security forces, Muslims have blocked the roads to the village, refusing passage of any Christians under any circumstance.
September 12, 2011
Indonesia
The toll from violent clashes yesterday between Christians and Muslims in Ambon, capital of the Moluccas, in the eastern Indonesian archipelago is three dead and about 60 wounded. The violence was triggered after the accidental death of a taxi driver who crashed his motorcycle. However, during the funeral a rumour was spread that Darkin Saimen - who lost control of the vehicle and crashed into a house - was attacked by a group of Christians.
Riot police were called in to quell the reaction of the Islamic community. The officers fired shots, some stray bullets hit Djefry Siahaan (teacher in Ambon) in the stomach and Cliford Belegur (school student) in his left side, causing death.
Somalia
A kidnapped Christian convert from Islam was found decapitated on Sept. 2 on the outskirts of Hudur City in southwestern Somalia. Juma Nuradin Kamil was forced into a car by three suspected Islamic extremists from the al Shabaab terrorist group on Aug. 21, area sources said. After members of his community thoroughly combed the area looking for him, at 2 p.m. on Sept. 2 one of them found Kamil's body dumped on a street.

The kidnapping and subsequent manner of murder suggests that al Shabaab militants had been monitoring him, Christian leaders said. Muslim extremists from al Shabaab, a militant group with ties to al Qaeda, have vowed to rid Somalia of Christianity.
September 13, 2011
Sudan
Muslim extremists have sent text messages to at least 10 church leaders in Khartoum saying they are planning to target Christian leaders, buildings and institutions, Christian sources in Khartoum said.
"We want this country to be purely an Islamic state, so we must kill the infidels and destroy their churches all over Sudan," said one text message circulating in Khartoum last month.
September 15, 2011
Indonesia (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Only the intervention of police saved the lives of an American family that was attacked by an enraged mob spurred by a local religious leader. Muslim fundamentalists were incensed by charges that the head of the family was engaged in proselytising in the predominantly Muslim area.
Pakistan (hat tip to JihadWatch )
Asia Bibi was sentenced to death by a court "influenced by Islamic extremists" and "without a lawyer"
September 16, 2011
Saudi Arabia
A Syrian sheikh who has been exiled to Saudi Arabia and has become one of the voices of the uprising against Assad, urges his followers, in television sermons that have been broadcast in Syria as well, to ''tear apart, chop up and feed'' the meat of all supporters of the current regime ''to the dogs,'' including all Christians.
Many Syrian Christians are terrorised; in some cities, like Homs, they are even afraid to leave their houses. Some churches have already been burned down.

September 17, 2011
Maldives, Indonesia (Hat tip to JihadWatch via TheReligionofPeace)
The President's Office has declared it an offence to preach a religion except Islam in the Maldives.
September 19, 2011
Egypt (Hat tip to JihadWatch )
Abu Shadi, a Salafi jihadi and one of Tahrir Square's preachers during the revolution , says that Christians must choose between the jizya, conversion to Islam or war.
September 21, 2011
Pakistan
A Christian mother of five was allegedly raped by two Muslim men last week, and area Islamists are threatening to harm her family if charges against the suspects are not dropped, the woman and her husband told Compass.

On Thursday (Sept. 15), the 32-year-old woman said, she was returning home to Mustafabad, in Punjab Province's Kasur district, from a garment factory where she works. Two Muslims, identified only as 23-year-old Bhallu and 27-year-old Shera, along with an unidentified accomplice, allegedly abducted her at gunpoint, took her to an abandoned house in the area and raped her, she said. More HERE.

September 22, 2011
Nigeria
A rash of attacks by armed Muslim extremists on villages in Nigeria's Plateau state in the past month have left more than 100 Christians dead, including the elimination of entire families, sources said.
In a guerilla-type "hit and run" attack on the Christian community of Vwang Kogot, Muslim attackers at about 8 p.m. on Sept. 9 killed 14 Christians, including a pregnant woman. Survivors of the attack told Compass that the assailants raided the village with the aid of men in military uniforms of the Nigerian Army. More HERE.
September 25, 2011
Pakistan (Hat tip to InfidelsAreCool )
Faryal Bhatti, a [Christian] student at the Sir Syed Girls High School in Pakistan Ordnance Factories (POF) colony Havelian, erroneously misspelt a word in an Urdu exam while answering a question on a poem written in praise of Mohammed. The word in question was 'laanat' instead of 'naat' - an easy error for a child to make, as the written versions of the words are similar.

According to the school administration and religious leaders who took great exception to the hapless student's mistake, the error is 'serious' enough to fall within the realm of blasphemy. The teacher reportedly summoned the Christian girl, scolded her and beat her.
September 27, 2011
Syria (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Syria plunges deeper into unrest by the day. On Tuesday, government troops attacked the rebellious town of Rastan with tanks and machine guns, wounding at least 20 people. With the chaos growing, Christians visiting Saydnaya on a recent Sunday said they feared that a change of power could usher in a tyranny of the Sunni Muslim majority, depriving them of the semblance of protection the Assad family has provided for four decades.

Syria's Christian minority is sizable, about 10 percent of the population, though some here say the share is actually lower these days. Though their sentiments are by no means monolithic - Christians are represented in the opposition, and loyalty to the government is often driven more by fear than fervor - the group's fear helps explain how President Bashar al-Assad has held on to segments of his constituency, in spite of a brutal crackdown aimed at crushing a popular uprising.
Indonesia
Indonesian police today identified the suicide bomber who detonated eight pipe bombs outside a church building in Solo, Central Java on Sunday (Sept. 25). The bomber, Ahmad Yosepa Hayat, killed himself and wounded at least 20 church members.
"The church never expected anything like this to happen; this [suicide bombing] is indeed the first in church history in Indonesia," a local source, who preferred to go unnamed, told Compass.
Police had been searching for Pino Damayanto, who used the alias of Ahmad Yosepa Hayat, in connection with a previous suicide bombing at a Cirebon, West Java mosque inside a police station in April, local news agency Antara reported. In that incident, the bomber died and 30 were injured. Update HERE.

September 28, 2011
Iran
Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani refused to recant his Christian faith today at the fourth and final court hearing in Iran to appeal his death sentence for apostasy (leaving Islam).
The court house in Rasht, 243 kilometers (151 miles) northwest of Tehran, has swarmed with security forces for four consecutive days since Sunday (Sept. 25), the first day of his four appeal hearings. Applying sharia (Islamic law), the court on Monday, Tuesday and today gave Nadarkhani, 35, three chances to recant Christianity and return to Islam in order for his life to be spared. In all instances, Nadarkhani refused to recant.

UPDATE (Hat tip to JihadWatch ) Christian Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani will be put to death for several charges of rape and extortion, charges that differ greatly from his original sentence of apostasy, Iran's semi-official Fars News agency reported Friday.
Gholomali Rezvani, the deputy governor of Gilan province, where Nadarkhani was tried and convicted, accused Western media of twisting the real story, referring to him as a "rapist." A previous report from the news agency claimed he had committed several violent crimes, including repeated rape and extortion.
"His crime is not, as some claim, converting others to Christianity," Rezvani told Fars. "He is guilty of security-related crimes." See more HERE. In a translated Iranian Supreme Court brief from 2010, however, the charge of apostasy is the only charge leveled against Nadarkhani. "Mr. Youcef Nadarkhani, son of Byrom, 32-years old, married, born in Rasht in the state of Gilan is convicted of turning his back on Islam, the greatest religion the prophesy of Mohammad at the age of 19," reads the brief. More HERE.
Egypt (Hat tip to InfidelsAreCool)
A Christian girl was prevented for over a week from entering her school in Beni Mazar, Minya province, because she refused to wear a veil. "The school management described her as 'flaunt' for not covering her hair," said Coptic activist Nader Shoukry, who uncovered the story.
"Coptic students were forced to obey for fear of the school management's threats," said Mr. Wagdy Halfa, the attorney for the girl, "except for 14-year-old Ferial Sorial Habib, whose family refused this decision because it is inconsistent with religious freedom and a blatant Islamization of education."
Ferial was prevented from entering her school by the social worker, Ms. Ola Abdel Fattah, for eight consecutive days. Her father went to school on September 17 to protest this decision, but the school filed a police complaint against him on charges of libel and defamation.
Mr. Wagdy Halfa, the student's attorney, said the school administration of Shaikh Fadl Secondary School, a public school in Bani Mazar, had sent a warning to Christian students compelling them to wear a head dress, similar to the Hijab, and not to reveal their hair, otherwise they would be refused entry to school.
September 29, 2011
Sudan
Failure by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and allied Islamic militia to distinguish between combatants and civilians in territorial battles in South Kordofan state is due in part to a desire to rid the area of Christianity, local Christians say.
A Christian in the Leri East area of Kadugli who escaped SAF Intelligence agents 18 days after his June 20 arrest from his home said he saw six other Christian detainees taken away, one by one, to be executed over the course of two weeks.
"They were insulting us, saying that this land is an Islamic land and that we were not allowed to be in this land," he told Compass. "I saw them take my fellow Christians brothers and shoot them in the forest near the place where we were detained."
October 1, 2011
Egypt
After Friday prayers today, a mob of several thousand Muslims from the village of Elmarinab in Edfu, Aswan province, demolished and torched St. George's church, which was being renovated. The mob demolished the dome, walls and columns, then went to the church depot where the lumber to be used for construction was stored and torched it. The fire lasted 2 hours but the attack continued until 7 PM.
In an interview on Coptic TV channel, Father Salib of St. George's Church said "the Imam of one of the village mosques called on the people to take matter in their own hands, he added. Other witnesses named the Imam as Sheikh Sabry.
According to eyewitnesses the Muslims also torched a large depot of electrical goods owned by a Copt, a supermarket and four Coptic homes. Muslims prevented the fire brigade from entering the village. Security forces, which were present, "stood there watching," said Mr.Michael Ramzy, a social worker at the church.
October 2, 2011
Iran (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Militants with suspected ties to Iranian security forces have threatened to kill nearly a dozen evangelical Christians who fled Iran unless they "repent" and return to Islam, well-informed sources told BosNewsLife early Sunday, October 2.
At least 11 Iranian Christians received electronic mail messages from 'The Unknown Soldiers Of The Hidden Imam' calling on them to either repent or face extra-judicial execution, said an Iranian church group and religious rights organization Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW).
The email threats came as in Iran Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani was awaiting a possible death sentence as early as Sunday, October 2, on charges of "apostasy", or abandoning Islam, although an Iranian official and government-linked media included "offenses" ranging from "rape and extortion" to "security crimes" to the long list of alleged wrongdoings.
October 3, 2011
Indonesia
The suicide bombing of a church in Central Java on Sept. 25 pointed not only to a new level of attacks on religious minorities in the world's largest Muslim-majority country but to a political bent that accommodates Islamist extremism.
"Radicalization of Islamic teachings and understanding is a problem in Indonesia," admitted Dr. H. Nasaruddin Umar, director general of Islamic Community Guidance under the Ministry of Religious Affairs. "There's a need to re-explain the concept of jihad."
Pino Damayanto, aka Ahmad Yosepa Hayat, who blew himself up wounding over 20 members of the Sepenuh Injil Bethel Church (Bethel Full Gospel Church) in Solo on Sept. 25, apparently believed it was his religious duty to kill "the enemies of Islam," according to his understanding of "jihad."

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

July 27 - August 29, 2011
July 27, 2011
Lebanon (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
or over two week the Maronite Church has been involved in strenuous efforts to reclaim large areas of land which has been taken over by part of the Shiite population of Lassa, a village in the district of Jbeil Mount Lebanon.
The affair erupted when official land surveyors tried survey land on which stands a chapel dedicated to Our Lady. Since 2011 the building has been used, against the advice of the Church as a place of worship for women. In spite of all the past efforts to regulate this sensitive and highly symbolic issue the chapel key was never returned to the Church. For several days the population has prevented the team, with the threat of arms, from carrying out the survey.

July 28, 2011
Egypt
An exchange of harsh words on July 25 between Ruth, a Christian woman, and Gassem Fouad, a Muslim man who had parked his tricycle in front of her home, escalated into assault by the man on Ruth and other Christian villagers, and the arrest of one Copt. After Ruth, who is 5 months pregnant, was assaulted, a Muslim mob waited for Coptic farmers to return from the fields, where they were intercepted and beaten with iron rods and pipes. Update HERE.
Tanzania
Influential Muslims on this East African island have begun building what appears to be a hotel on a 100-year-old burial site owned by an Anglican church, Christian leaders said.
Church leaders with ownership papers for the land told Compass they are disturbed that authorities have taken no action since they filed a police complaint in December about the seizure of the burial site three kilometers (nearly two miles) from Zanzibar city's airport.
July 29, 2011
Nigeria
Christians throughout Nigeria are fasting to invoke divine intervention and protection from the Islamic cult, Boko Haram, that has threatened to attack Nigerian Christians on the anniversary of their founder's death.

Due to heightened insecurity, church attendance has dropped significantly in recent weeks. Less than half of those that attended church regularly can be found in attendance due to safety concerns. Bombs have been going off on a daily basis in the northeastern city of Maiduguri, while the Nigerian capital of Abuja faced a bomb attack on a car park last month. Update HERE.
Iraq
While the story of Islamist violence against Christians, particularly in Egypt, has continued to get a fair degree of attention in the U.S. media, one story that has been lost in the shuffle is the effort to establish a safe haven -- The Nineveh Plain Province -- for indigenous minorities in Iraq.
The plan is to declare the Nineveh Plane Province as the gathering point for indigenous minorities in Iraq and then provide the security and infrastructure necessary for them to live in safety. The province would not be restricted to Assyrian Christians, but to all indigenous minorities living in Iraq. The proponents of the province in the U.S. are asking Congress for $128 million to implement their proposal.

The Assyrian American Coalition, one of the major advocates of the Nineveh Plain Province Solution, asserts that establishing such a province would allow "indigenous people [In Iraq] to gain a stable foothold within the country from which they could sustain, develop, and grow a base population in a secure and stable environment." This initiative has gotten very little coverage in the United States.
July 30, 2011
Indonesia
Tensions have heightened against religious minority communities after Thursday's sentencing of three men for their part in a brutal attack on the Ahmadiyya Muslim community in Cikeusik, West Java, in February. The men were handed three to six month sentences by the court over the attack, which killed three people.
Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) has voiced concern over continuing violations of religious freedom in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-majority nation. It said the sentences were "astonishingly lenient".
The sentences were passed on the same day as the World Evangelical Alliance's Religious Liberty Commission warned that the GKI Yasmin Church in Bogor, West Java, could face mass violence if continuing tensions are not addressed. The church has been forced to hold open air worship on Sundays after it was closed by authorities, violating a Supreme Court ruling permitting the church to operate.
August 2, 2011
Iraq (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
A priest and at least 19 others were injured Tuesday by an autobomb that detonated outside a church in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk. More than 40 homes were damaged by the blast. Terrorists in Iraq have stepped up attacks against the country's minority Christian population.
August 3, 2011
Indonesia (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Two homes used as churches were burned to the ground in Riau on Tuesday night. The incidents are the latest in a series of attacks on minority religious groups in Indonesia that have prompted international condemnation, including from the United States and European Union. Update HERE. More HERE.
USA (Hat tip to CreepingSharia)
A computer hacker took control of more than a dozen church Web sites hosted by a Perrysburg, Ohio designer this week, replacing their regular content with an appeal that Christians convert to Islam.
August 4, 2011
Malaysia (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Selangor state exco member Datuk Hasan Ali of PAS has defended Wednesday night's raid by the State Religious Department (JAIS) on the Damansara Utama Methodist Church. "We found evidence of proselytisation towards Muslims," he said in a statement Thursday. "We carried out the raid after receiving information that there were Muslims who attended a breaking-of-fast event at the church. Update HERE.
UK (Hat tip to FamilySecurityMatters)
A family of albino Muslims in Coventry are being terrorised by bigots because their daughter married a man from another religion and converted to Christianity. The so-called "honour" retribution has included smashed windows at their Edgwick home, vandalised cars and death threats.

August 6, 2011
Pakistan
Another young Christian woman in Pakistan has been abducted and forced to convert to Islam and marry her kidnapper. Despite a formal complaint, police did not intervene because the author of the crime is a "respectable businessman."
India
Four months after a recent convert to Christianity from Islam in eastern India's West Bengal state was stripped and beaten, about 50 Muslim extremists yesterday disrupted a prayer meeting held in her home, threatening to burn it down if she did not return to Islam, area Christians said.
August 10, 2011
Nigeria
Authorities say a clash between soldiers and youths in northeastern Nigeria over the arrest of suspected members of a radical Muslim sect has killed one person and wounded two.

Army Lt. Olumide Olukoya says fighting started Tuesday. He says a woman died from gunshot wounds in the clash after authorities arrested clerics and suspected members of the Boko Haram sect. He says about 150 rioting youths later torched a government building and a Catholic church.

Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is sacrilege" in the local Hausa language, is responsible for a rash of killings targeting security officers, local leaders and clerics in the area over the last year.
Update HERE.
Egypt
Egypt's government on Wednesday proposed an anti-discrimination amendment to its criminal code, mostly aimed at the troubled Christian minority which has been the target of sectarian attacks.
Women and minorities in Egypt complain of discrimination, but it is enshrined in the law regarding Coptic Christians, who are not allowed to build houses of worship without presidential permission.

August 11, 2011
Uganda
A 14-year-old girl in western Uganda is still unable to walk 10 months after her father tortured her for leaving Islam and putting her faith in Christ, according to area Christians.
August 12, 2011
Pakistan (Hat tip to BigHollywood)
A group of Christians have been attacked by a mob of Muslims in a park near where Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan. The Christian group was gathered to watch a 1979 movie called "Jesus," depicting the life of Christ when they were set upon by the extremists. The assault on the church workers included a beating as well as a smashed projector before the police intervened.
August 15, 2011
Iraq (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
A bomb exploded last night near the St Ephraim Syrian Orthodox Church in Kirkuk, which is just a few hundreds of metres from the Chaldean cathedral, in central part of the city. The device blew up at 1.30 am and there were no victims. The damages to the church were however huge (pictured).
Today's incident is the latest in a string of attacks against Christians and their places of worship. On 2 August, a car bomb exploded in front of the Holy Family Syrian Catholic Church, wounding 15 people. The bomb had been placed inside a car, parked near the building. On the same day, another bomb also placed in a car parked near a Presbyterian church was defused before it went off.
August 16, 2011
Malaysia (Hat tip to JihadWatch via thereligionofpeace)
Muslims in Malaysia have demanded that action be taken against those who proselytize Muslims to Christianity as 22 Islamic non-governmental organizations called for laws banning apostasy.

The NGOs issued a statement stressing their commitment to "defending the faith of Muslims held in this country from … encroachment," according to the Malaysian Insider and Malaysiakini. The NGOs sought to uphold existing legislation against proselytizing Muslims.
August 17, 2011
Iran
Iran has seized 6,500 copies of the Bible in northwest Iran in what appears to be the latest crackdown by Iranian authorities against Christianity in the country. Few details are known about the seizure, however, Christian news agency, Mohabat News, reports that Dr. Majid Abhari, adviser to the social issues committee of the parliament in Iran stated, "These missionaries with reliance on huge money and propaganda are trying to deviate our youth."

According to persecution advocacy group, Voice of the Martyrs, missionary work is banned in Iran, though Christian conversion has been growing in the majority Islamic country in recent years. Conversion from Islam to another religion, known as apostasy, is also a crime in Iran, and offenders are often arrested and tried in court. Recent legislation is aiming to have the crime of apostasy punishable by death.
August 19, 2011
Pakistan (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
A Pakistani Christian woman who was abducted in 2009 has escaped from her captor. After Arifa Alfred, 27, was drugged and kidnapped in central Pakistan, she awoke and was shown papers stating that she had converted to Islam and married her captor. After two years of torture, she escaped on August 1.

Indonesia (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Bogor's controversial mayor says he has a new reason not to allow the GKI Yasmin church to open - the name of the street on which it is built has an Islamic name.
August 21, 2011
Pakistan (Hat tip to FamilySecurityMatters)
A Christian family consisting of 26 persons, including women and children, lived in slavery for over 30 years. Forced to work on a farm belonging to a wealthy Muslim landowner Rahim Yar Khan, they only recently managed to regain freedom. Reduced to servitude for three decades, the family members escaped their captor through the intervention of the leaders of the Catholic Diocese of Bahawalpur.

August 23, 2011
Sudan
More than seven months after Muslim extremists burned its church building, a Presbyterian Church of the Sudan (PCOS) congregation is still afraid to meet for worship, according to Christian sources. The Rev. Maubark Hamad said his church in Wad Madani, 138 kilometers (85 miles) southeast of Khartoum, has not been able to rebuild since the Jan. 15 devastation due to the congregation’s meager resources.

Christian sources said they are increasingly fearful as Muslim extremists pose more threats against Christians in an attempt to rid what they call Dar al Islam, the “Land of Islam,” of Christianity.

August 25, 2011
Pakistan (Hat tip to Grendel)
A group of Muslims have kidnapped a 14 year old Christian girl from her home under the threat of a gun and in front of witnesses. Mohammad Tayeb Butt along with four other Muslims raided the house of Rashid Masih in broad daylight, pointed the gun to the head of his daughter Mehek forcing her to climb aboard a white car .
Two young Christians, Imran Masih and Mehboob Masih, tried to rescue the girl, but Mohammad Tayeb pointed the gun at them and threatened to shoot. "She is a Choori" the Muslim shouted, at Mehek, using the derogatory and insulting slur used for the Christians. He also added that the Choori Mehek will be purified "convert to Islam and become my mistress."
August 26, 2011
Malaysia (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
A committee was formed by the Selangor Government to investigate the dispute on the check conducted by Jais on the Damansara Utama Methodist Church. Jais had on Aug 3 entered the premises of DUMC, where a thanksgiving dinner was being held after being tipped off on an alleged attempt to proselytise Muslims. The dinner, attended by about 100 people, included 12 Muslims.
"This issue should be explained to the non-Muslims so that they understand better why proselytisation is such a sensitive issue for the Muslims," he said at the Poh Toh Festival Dinner 2011 here last night.
Norway (Hat tip to IslamInEurope for translation via Jihadwatch)
"Ali" had boiling water poured on him at the Hå asylum center in Jæren, after he converted to Christianity and did not fast on the Ramadan. Now he and other converts fear for their lives.
'If you don't return to Islam, we'll kill you' "Ali" was told by fellow residents at the center. He doesn't want his name or picture published for fear of the other residents. If the Afghan authorities hear of his conversion, he risks being sentenced to death by stoning he he'll be deported back home.

Bangladesh
A tortured Christian activist, a former Muslim who fled rough police and Islamic extremists in his native Bangladesh. is in hiding in Hong Kong.

August 29, 2011
Iran
The whereabouts of an evangelical pastor in Iran remained unknown Saturday, August 27, some 10 days after he was detained by Iranian security forces as part of a reported government crackdown on Christian converts.
Abdolreza ‘Matthias’ Haghnejad, of the evangelical Church of Iran denomination, "was re-arrested August 17" by Iranian authorities in the northern city of Rasht while making a pastoral visit, according to Iranian Christians and human rights investigators.

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

June 22, 2011-July 21, 2011
June 22, 2011
Sudan
The Bishop of Kadugli is calling upon Christians worldwide to pray and fast ahead of South Sudan's secession next month. He has warned of a possible "genocide" in the Nuba Mountains region, where violence has broken out in recent weeks. The region, home to many Christians, will remain under the control of Khartoum and the Muslim North when South Sudan gains its independence on July 9.
As Sudanese tanks and artillery move in, hundreds of thousands of Nuba are fleeing their homes and development agencies have withdrawn their staff. UN officials and eyewitnesses escaping the bloodshed tell of elders being executed by the Sudanese Army and bombing campaigns that have destroyed churches and homes.
More HERE.
June 24, 2011
Egypt
Hundreds of Muslims surrounded the church of St George today in the village of Beni Ahmed West, 7 KM south of Minya, vowing to kill its priest Father George Thabet, who was serving the morning mass and was locked in the church with a number of parishioners. Security forces arrived five hours later and escorted Father George in a police car to the Coptic Diocese in Minya. "Father George looked as if he was the criminal, leaving his church in a police car." said one of the eye-witnesses.

The Coptic youth who were attending mass remained inside church to defend it from Muslim attacks. Eyewitnesses reported the Muslim mob, in their white dresses and long beards, chanted "We will kill the priest, we will kill him and no one will prevent us." One of their leaders said that they will "…cut him to pieces."
June 26, 2011
Egypt
A mob of nearly 200 Muslims torched eight Christian homes on Saturday morning in the Upper Egyptian village of Awlad Khalaf. The attack was initiated by a rumor that a house which is being built by Wahib Halim Attia will be turned into a church. Two Christians and one Muslim were injured, no fatalities were reported.
June 27, 2011
Senegal
Hundreds of Muslim protesters descended on a Jehovah's Witness temple and a bar in a conservative Muslim neighbourhood of the Senegalese capital on Sunday, setting the buildings on fire in a rare instance of religious extremism in the predominantly Muslim nation.
Thierno Mbeugne, spokesman for the local imam association, said the head imam in the conservative Yoff district of Dakar had asked the youths to march on Sunday against what they considered "acts of aggression against their faith." They were targeting the temple because they claim its members were proselytizing, and the bar because it was selling alcohol.
June 28, 2011
Egypt
Egypt's school curriculum, laden with anti-Semitic and anti-Christian sentiment, must undergo drastic reform to comply with international standards, according to a new report to be presented this week at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
"Egypt has to conduct fundamental reforms in its curricula, which present a national identity based solely on the Islamic religion," said Yohanan Manor, chairman and co-founder of the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education the Jerusalembased think-tank that compiled the report.
July 1, 2011
Iran (hat tip to JihadWatch )
An Iranian pastor, convicted of apostasy and sentenced to death, may have only hours or days to live, according to a US-based Christian ministry acquainted with the facts of his case. Jason DeMars, of www.presenttruthmn.com, told ANS: "We have been notified that the conviction of brother Youcef Nadarkhani for apostasy, as well as the sentence of death, has been upheld and confirmed by the Iranian Supreme Court. "The way that this situation is typically handled is that at any time, and without advance notice, they will carry out the death sentence. First, they will ask him to recant, and if he does not, then he will be executed." His death sentence was reportedly overturned, update HERE. But the preacher is under pressure to recant his Christian faith, update HERE. An unofficial translation of the pastor's death sentence HERE.

Egypt (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Eyewitnesses said fighting began in the village of Qolosna in Upper Egypt's Minya Governorate after several Muslim taxi drivers reportedly bothered a group of Christian girls. Shots were fired in the air and the injured - four Christians and three Muslims, according to security sources - were taken to hospital in the nearby town of Samalout. Security sources said 10 people were arrested over the clashes and are being investigated. Eyewitnesses said the military had imposed a local curfew starting after Friday afternoon prayers.

Ethopia (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
An Ethiopian court has sentenced 558 people to jail terms ranging from six months to 25 years for attacks on Christians that displaced thousands and led 69 churches to be burned to the ground. More than 4,000 members of local Protestant denominations were forced to flee near the town of Asendabo, some 300 kilometres (186 miles) west of the capital, in March during a rare bout of religious violence.
Mobs of Muslim youths carried out week-long attacks on Protestants after rumours that desecrated pages from the Koran had been found at a church construction site. Authorities reported a single death from the attacks.

Egypt
On Thursday evening, June 30, Muslims looted and torched Christian homes and businesses in the village of western Kolosna in Samalut, Minya province. It was reported that some 10 Christians were injured, but none went to hospital and first aid was administered at home. Muslim violence broke out when a Coptic couple was returning to Kolosna by bus when the wife was severely sexually harassed by Muslims at the bus terminal. The husband tried to defend his wife but was severely beaten.

Coptic witnesses said that shortly after the altercation thousands of Muslims from the predominantly Muslim east side of Kolosna roamed the western side of Kolosna, which is about 75% Coptic, and started looting and torching Christian property. Christians hid in their homes for fear of attacks by the Muslim mob.

Several calls were made to CTV, Coptic TV Channel, asking for help and besieged resident reported on live television the horror of the mob attacks, saying Muslims surrounded Christian homes and chanted "Allahu Akbar" and shouted "Get their weapons." "They were cursing the cross and taunting us that we will stay inside and never be allowed in the streets again," said one caller to the television program. Copts reported that Muslims were armed with swords, batons and guns and they shot into the air.
July 5, 2011
Pakistan (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
A group of Muslims tries to seize forcibly a Christian hospital near Islamabad by making false claims with police. The intervention of Christian leaders and Bishop Rufin Anthony stops the threat.
Nigeria (Hat tip to Tony Collins)
Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), has described the proposal by the Central Bank of Nigeria to introduce Islamic Banking as part of the hidden agenda by Muslims to Islamise Nigeria, warning that the implementation of such divisive policy will break the country along religious lines.
Pakistan (Hat tip to FrontPage Mag)
Pakistan's Christian Sex-Slaves: A Case Study.

July 6, 2011
Egypt (Hat tip to Frontpage Mag)
If growing numbers of Muslims in Egypt have an intrinsic hatred for all things Christian- demonstrated days ago by the torching of eight Christian homes on the rumor that a church was being built-let us not forget that this hate has instrumental, that is, economic benefits: the extortion of money from the non-believer-tribute from the conquered infidels to their Islamic overlords-otherwise known as jizya.
July 11, 2011
Nigeria
The post-presidential election violence which took place in most part of the North and which resulted in the death of many innocent Nigerians, including 10 youth corps members has been said to be premeditated. This was disclosed to journalists by the Ndigbo community leader in Kano, Chief Tobias Michael Idika, during the conferment of distinguished leadership merit award on him by the Christian Democratic Journalists, in Lagos, on Saturday. In his address on the occasion, Chief Idika, who had lived in Kano for the past 30 years, said "I stand here to affirm that the violence which trailed President Goodluck Jonathan's victory was premeditated and a calculated attempt to debase and smear the southerners living in the North.
Indonesia [Java] (hat tip to JihadWatch)
The faithful still have to pray by the roadside after their church was shut down. Radical Muslim groups continue to disrupt their activities and issue threats against them. The mayor of Bogor still refuses to accept a ruling by the country's Supreme Court upholding the Church's right to build its own places of worship. More HERE.
Bangladesh
Police claim a foreign doctor's Christian literature offended Muslims. Police in Bangladesh have charged two Christians "hurting religious sensibility" just three days after they were cleared of any wrongdoing. The accused will appear in court tomorrow to face the charges, which were filed against them three days after they were exonerated on April 10. They had been arrested on March 24, under Section 54 of the penal code, which provides a special power to police to arrest anyone on any suspicion. They were released on bail three days later.
Kazakhstan
Pastor Yerzhan Ushanov of New Life Protestant Church is looking at two years' imprisonment if criminal charges for injuring an individual's health ever come to court, Christian rights investigators said.
Ushanov is facing prosecution under Criminal Code Article 111 - "causing severe damage to health due to negligence" - for allegedly hurting the health of Aleksandr Kereyev by praying for him. Article 111 carries a very large fine, or community service of up to 200 hours, or up to two years' imprisonment.
July 12, 2011
Nigeria (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Thousands have fled the Nigerian city of Maiduguri over the past two days fearing more Islamist attacks and after soldiers were accused of shooting civilians, residents said Tuesday. Residents piled into the backs of trucks with personal belongings stuffed in sacks or packed up cars to leave the northeastern city, which has seen the brunt of the violence blamed on the Islamist sect known as Boko Haram.
Another blast targeted at a patrol team hit the city Tuesday, the military said, wounding two soldiers and killing three alleged attackers. A hospital nurse said four people were killed from what appeared to be stray bullets.

Hundreds of troops have been deployed in a bid to stop the sect, blamed for a raft of deadly bomb attacks and shootings, and last weekend a shootout between soldiers and suspected sect members left at least 11 dead. More HERE.
Canada (Hat tip to InfidelsAreCool)
A majority-Muslim public school in Toronto is defending its policy of allowing an imam to lead Friday prayers in the cafeteria, saying students who leave school for prayers at a mosque typically don't return to school. Christian and other prayers are disallowed in the public school system.
July 15, 2011
Iraq (Hat tip to AtlasShrugs)
The year 2010 was the worst year to date for the Christian community in Iraq, it has been revealed by the organization for human rights in Iraq, Hammurabi. Many Christians were forced to leave the country in fear of killings and violence of all kinds. The death toll among Christians over the past seven years, according to Hammurabi exceeds 822 people.
July 16, 2011
Iraq
Here's a short film that documents the near-genocide of Iraq's ancient Assyrian Christian civilization "Defying Deletion: The Fight Over Iraq's Nineveh Plains."
July 20, 2011
Egypt (Hat tip to Grendel and his mom)
The incidences of Muslim men using violence and sex to convert Christian girls has gone up since the January revolution.
Turkey
A group of Protestants in Van have finally succeeded in opening a house church in the eastern province after seven years of grappling with local governments, yet many in the congregation remain concerned by hostile rhetoric from officials.
July 21, 2011
USA/Egypt
Raymond Ibrahim reports on the 2nd Annual Coptic Solidarity Conference titled, "Will Religious and Ethnic Minorities Pay the Price of the 'Arab Spring'?"
Pakistan
The religious intolerance that is destroying Pakistan continues unabated. The latest case in point is that of a couple comprising a Christian and a Muslim, who married without the consent of the families of origin and are now forced to live on the run from one place to another for fear of violence.
Saudi Arabia
Facing a possible death sentence, Eyob Mussie, a Christian refugee living in Saudi Arabia, was instead informed that he will be returned to Eritrea, a nation where returnees often face imprisonment, torture and even death. Mussie was arrested in Saudi Arabia last February for proselytizing, a crime that carries the death penalty, but though he will be spared that sentence in Saudi, he will certainly suffer mistreatment or worse should he be returned to Eritrea.
July 22 2011
Pakistan
Three Muslims convicted of killing a Christian in Pakistan's Punjab Province for refusing to convert to Islam last year have been given life sentences, according to attorneys for the European Centre for Law and Justice in Pakistan.

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

May 26, 2011 - June 20, 2011

May 26, 2011
Pakistan
Muslim landowners use tractors to plough over a Christian cemetery in order to seize the land illegally. A 29-year-old mother is drugged and raped by six men. In both cases, police covers up for the culprits. Government must act, Faisalabad priest says.
May 27, 2011
Egypt
A Military court in Egypt has sentenced three Christian Copts to 5-years imprisonment on charges of possession of firearms and pocket knives. The Court released all other Muslims and Copts arrested following clashes on May 19 over the re-opening of St. Mary and St. Abraham churches in Ain Shams West.
Defense lawyer Abraham Edward said "This is a very unjust, severe and cruel verdict." He said that as lawyers they are unable to fathom what is going on. "Today's case is very strange, a case where there is not one shred of evidence to indict them. If this case went in front of the International Court of Justice they would all be set free." He criticized the five-year prison sentence handed down to Ayad Emad Ayad for carrying a pocket knife.
Pakistan (Hat tip to Jihadwatch)
A powerful Muslim businessman, with the help of a group of accomplices, kidnapped two Christian sisters, forced them to convert to Islam and marry him. The girl's father reported the kidnapping to the police but the police blocked investigations by reversing the facts: the daughters fled because of their father's violence. A priest from Faisalabad points out that the kidnapping of young women has become "common practice", because the authorities and police are "puppets in the hands of extremists." Update HERE. More HERE.
Algeria
An Algerian Christian was sentenced to five years imprisonment for blasphemy on Wednesday after sharing his Christian faith with a neighbor. The verdict came days after authorities forced the permanent closure of seven Protestant churches in Algeria's Béjaia province. More HERE.
May 29, 2011
Egypt (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
An Egyptian military court on Sunday sentenced two Coptic Christians to five years in jail for violence and trying to turn a factory into an unlicensed church, judicial sources said. The two men, also convicted of possessing weapons, were arrested on May 18 after clashes between Christians and Muslims in Cairo's Ain Shams district as the Copts planned to hold prayers in the building. A Coptic-led group that took part in a reconciliation meeting between the two sides says the two men are innocent and their lawyers will try to appeal the ruling.
May 30, 2011
Iraq
Iraq's Christian community has been the victim of another targeted killing. This morning, an Orthodox Christian was killed in Mosul, northern Iraq. The dead man had been the victim of two attempted ransom abductions in the past, but in both cases, he was able to escape from his attackers. This time, the murderers waited for him as he went to work, firing at him several times in cold blood.

May 31, 2011
Pakistan/Iraq/Egypt
Raped and Ransacked in the Muslim World by Raymond Ibrahim. "Plundering the possessions, lives, and dignity of Christians in the Islamic world: is this a random affair, a product of the West's favorite offenders-poverty, ignorance, grievance-or is it systematic, complete with ideological backing?"
June 1, 2011
Nazareth (Hat tipt to JihadWatch)
A senior Roman Catholic cleric in the Holy Land says the Christian community is in danger of dying out in Nazareth, an Israeli Arab city where Christians believe Jesus spent his youth. Bishop Giacinto-Boulos Marcuzzo says many of Nazareth's minority Christians began emigrating more than a decade ago largely because of tensions with local Islamists.
Pakistan
Armed Muslims disrupted the worship service of a church outside Lahore on Sunday (May 29), cursing the congregation, smashing a glass altar and desecrating Bibles and a cross, Christian leaders said.
June 6, 2011
Pakistan (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
The Islamic party of Pakistan, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, has filed an appeal to the Supreme Court of Pakistan and launched a campaign asking to ban the circulation of the Bible, described as a "pornographic " and "blasphemous book". This is a new attack against the Christian community in Pakistan, frightened by the attacks and threats suffered after the death of Bin Laden, already under attack due to the damaging effects of the blasphemy law, with the consequence of death penalty to those who insult the Koran or the Prophet Muhammad.
June 7, 2011
Pakistan (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Several provincial legislators in Punjab belonging to the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) have objected to Punjab cabinet member Kamran Michael presenting the budget on grounds that he is Christian.
Pakistan (Hat tip to AtlasShrugs)
An Islamist politcal party in Pakistan has called on the country's Supreme Court to investigate "blasphemous" and "pornographic" passages of the Bible, appealing to Pakistan's controversial blasphemy law. In response, the Catholic bishop of Lahore has appealed to the faithful to resist this provocation and asked for prayer and patience.
June 8, 2011
Egypt (Hat tip to Translating Jihad)
This video shows Shaykh Ashraf Yusuf Hassan in the middle of a mob of Muslims, calling on them to burn down churches in the Cairo district of Imbaba. The original Arabic-language video was posted on YouTube on 9 May, just two days after the church was burned down. Twelve were killed and 52 wounded in just the latest round of violence against Egypt's Coptic Christian minority. Apparently 48 Muslims and Christians have been arrested in connection with this incident, yet reportedly the man in this video continues to go free.
June 8, 2011
Indonesia
Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) has expressed "grave concerns" about increased violence against Christians and other religious minorities in Indonesia and urged the government to tackle Islamic extremism.

The Christian group visited survivors of clashes that killed several people, and spoke with officials of churches in cities Bekasi and Bandung, which "were forced to close". CSW stressed several pastors complained that they "faced increasing harassment, threats and attacks." Pastor Palti Panjetan of the HKBP Filadelfia church in Bekasi said despite winning a court ruling granting permission to use their building, the local mayor has forbidden the congregation to use the church.
June 9, 2011
Nigeria
Police in northern Nigeria said on Thursday they have arrested 14 suspected Islamists thought to be linked to bomb attacks on a church and police stations that killed 14 people this week. The arrests were made in the troubled city of Maiduguri, where attacks blamed on an extremist sect have killed dozens in recent months. More HERE. Update HERE.

June 10, 2011
Egypt (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Eritrean Christians fleeing persecution in their homeland are facing imprisonment, torture, beatings and sexual assault in Egypt, reports Barnabas Fund. The charity, which supports the persecuted church worldwide, estimates that hundreds of Eritrean Christian refugees have been subjected to terrible abuse after arriving in Egypt.

Egypt is the most popular destination for Christians escaping from Eritrea, one of the most hostile countries in the world for followers of the faith.
June 11, 2011
Pakistan
Pakistani anti-terrorism court acquitted 70 people who, in various roles, were involved in the Gojra massacre of August 2009 (see Fareed Khan, "Eight Christians burned alive in Punjab," in AsiaNews, 2 August 2009). The anti-Christian violence broke out following blasphemy allegations. During a wedding, a group of Christians supposedly burnt pages of the Qur'an, a pretext used to strike at the religious minority.

During the attack by hundreds of extremists (brought in by bus and trucks), ten people died, eight burnt alive. Four churches and various homes were also set on fire.
Egypt (Hat tip to NewEnglishReview)
Five weeks after the fall of the Egyptian regime, Ayman Anwar Mitri's apartment was torched. When he showed up to investigate, he was bundled inside by bearded Islamists.
Mr. Mitri is a member of the Christian Coptic minority that accounts for one-tenth of the country's 83 million people. The Islamists accused him of having rented the apartment-by then unoccupied-to loose Muslim women.

Inside the burnt apartment, they beat him with the charred remains of his furniture. Then, one of them produced a box cutter and performed what he considered an appropriate punishment under Islam: He amputated Mr. Mitri's right ear. "When they were beating me, they kept saying: 'We won't leave any Christians in this country,'" Mr. Mitri recalled in a recent interview, two months after the March attack. "Here, there is a war against the Copts," he said. His attackers, who were never arrested or prosecuted, follow the ultrafundamentalist Salafi strain of Islam that promotes an austere, Saudi-inspired worldview.
June 12, 2011
Nigeria (Hat tip to AtlasShrugs)
An extremist Islamic group is being held responsible for a series of recent attacks in Nigeria, which have left 16 dead and destroyed the Catholic Cathedral of St. Patrick in the northern capital city of Maiduguri. St. Patrick's Cathedral was seriously damaged, windows and doors destroyed, the whole building was shaken to its foundations by the violence of the explosion.

Kosovo (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
The Kosmet Strategic Network NGO, which gathers 70 Serb organizations of that type, has communicated that few days ago the church was broken into and turned into a public toilet and waste dump. The attacks on this church have been going on constantly even after the arrival of international forces in 1999, when the sanctity was burned from inside.
Egypt (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
On the night of March 8, Yasser Makram was on his way home from work, his pickup truck full of garbage, as he turned up the winding dirt road on the edge of Egypt's capital to approach his home in the crowded Cairo slum known popularly as Garbage City. As he inched around a curve, he saw in his rearview mirror a swarm of people running toward the truck. "I didn't know what was happening," he says. Before he could consider the possibilities, the mob pulled him from the truck. "They demanded to know if I was Christian."

Makram's hospital report says the 27-year-old suffered "nerve damage" and "multiple deep wounds and fractures" that night. A long, sinister scar - a knife wound - now cuts across his face, ear to ear. And it will be at least a year before he can drive his garbage truck again. The mob stabbed him in the chest and beat him with pipes, breaking an arm and one of his ribs, before stripping him naked and dragging him, semiconscious, up a dark and dusty road to the foot of the Citadel, a medieval Islamic fort.
Three months later, no one has been charged with the crime, the police apparently having shown no interest in filing a report while Makram was hospitalized. And Makram has no idea who his attackers were. But he remembers their response to the strangers who finally intervened to help him: "This is a Christian son of a bitch," they said. "We're going to kill him."

Egypt
Five weeks after the fall of the Egyptian regime, Ayman Anwar Mitri's apartment was torched. When he showed up to investigate, he was bundled inside by bearded Islamists. Mr. Mitri is a member of the Christian Coptic minority that accounts for one-tenth of the country's 83 million people. The Islamists accused him of having rented the apartment--by then unoccupied--to loose Muslim women.

Inside the burnt apartment, they beat him with the charred remains of his furniture. Then, one of them produced a box cutter and performed what he considered an appropriate punishment under Islam: He amputated Mr. Mitri's right ear.

"When they were beating me, they kept saying: 'We won't leave any Christians in this country,'" Mr. Mitri recalled in a recent interview, two months after the March attack. Blood dripped through a plastic tube from his unhealed wound to a plastic container. "Here, there is a war against the Copts," he said.
June 13, 2011
Algeria
The High Commissioner of police in Bejaia ordered all Christian churches closed, including places of worship still under construction; if not, the commissioner threatened "severe consequences and punishments" would result.
Pakistan
Sheikhupura police this month tortured a young Christian woman into revealing the whereabouts of the legal team helping her family after an influential Muslim family kidnapped her and her sister, sources said.
Police also helped the Muslim family beat relatives of the Christian woman on court premises and attacked the offices of the organization trying to help her family, they said.

June 14, 2011
Pakistan
Pakistan's Islamist party, Jamiat-Ulema-e-Islami (JUI), has petitioned to have the Bible banned from Pakistan because it violates the nation's notorious blasphemy laws. The move by the JUI is just the latest episode in the ongoing and increasingly deadly persecution of Christians in that Islamic nation.

According to JUI leader Maulana Abdul Rauf Farooqi, the Bible contains passages that show biblical figures whom Muslims regard as prophets (such as Abraham and Solomon) to be engaging in "a variety of moral crimes." As such, the JUI has called on Pakistan's supreme court to have the entire Book banned from the country if the offending passages are not removed.
June 15, 2011
Pakistan
At least 10 Christian families in a village in Pakistan's Punjab Province have fled their homes after a throng of area Muslims accused a Christian of blaspheming Islam on Friday, June 10th.
Britain (Hat tip to GatesofVienna)
A debate on the treatment of Christians took place on May 24th in the oldest building on the Parliamentary estate, Westminster Hall. While much was said about the appalling way in which Christians are systematically persecuted throughout the world today, attention was also paid to the way in which citizens of the United Kingdom are maltreated due to their Christian faith.
June 17, 2011
USA - Dearborn, MI (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Pastor Terry Jones led a rally against radical Islam at city hall before trying to continue his protest at the nearby Arab International Festival, but he never made it there. Protesters got physical with Jones as he tried to head for the festival. He barely made it off the corner of Michigan and Schaefer. Dearborn police made several arrests after urging the pastor to take a car instead of trying to walk the two miles to the festival. More HERE.
Pakistan
The students of a madrassa tried to force a Christian child to convert to Islam. His uncle was attacked for defending him, and accused of blasphemy. A priest said, "This is a common practice in the region. Many cases of forced conversions are not made known". The authorities turn a blind eye to the problem.
Pakistan
Christians in Pakistan remained fearful Thursday, June 16, after a court in Pakistan acquitted 70 Muslims who were suspected of killing Christians in one of the country's worst sectarian clashes in recent memory. At least eight Christians burned to death in August 2009, in what became known as the "Gojra Massacre" named after the town where the killings took place, some 160 kilometers (100 miles) outside Punjab province's capital, Lahore. Two others also died in separate attacks on Gojra's Christian colony by Muslim extremists, and churches and homes were reportedly set on fire.

However a Pakistani anti-terrorism court acquitted the 70 suspects, citing an absence of Christian witnesses in the courtroom and a lack of evidence against the accused, trial observers said.
June 20, 2011
Uzbekistan
Recently a Christian in eastern Uzbekistan was beaten by police, another was threatened with death by an axe while a Baptist congregation was promised prison for failure to co-operate in a pre-trial investigation of their pastor.
Poland
Poland has granted asylum to 16 Christian refugees who accompanied Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski on a flight back from Tunisia.The Foreign Ministry said Friday, June 17, that the six adults and 10 children were "political refugees" from Eritrea and Nigeria, whose lives have been upturned by recent turmoil in North Africa.

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

May 2 - May 25, 2011

May 2, 2011
Pakistan
Hundreds of Muslims in Gujranwala attacked Christians' homes, a school and a Presbyterian church building after learning that police had released two Christians accused of "blasphemy" - amid reports of another alleged desecration of the Quran.
May 3, 2011
Pakistan
In the aftermath of the April 30th Muslim attacks on a Presbyterian seminary after a false accusation that Christians desecrated the Koran, at least 3,000 Christians have fled for their lives.
May 6, 2011
Nigeria
Muslim attackers killed seventeen Christians and burned down several Christian homes in the village of Karum. Since the introduction of Sharia law in northern Nigeria in 1999, thousands of Christians have been killed by Muslims, and local officials have failed to bring the perpetrators to justice. Update HERE on the killing of Christian Nigerians.
May 7, 2011
Pakistan
Police have charged a mentally ill Christian with "injuring religious feelings" under Pakistan's widely condemned blasphemy laws.
Syria
Christian communities across Syria have been attacked by anti-government protesters in recent weeks who are being led by hard-line Islamists. Also Christians have come under pressure to either join in protests demanding the resignation of President Bashir Assad, or else leave the country. Eye witnesses report seeing around 20 masked men on motorcycles open fire on a home in a Christian village outside Dara'a, in southern Syria. Another source said that churches had received threatening letters over Easter, telling them either to join the protests or leave. In Karak, Muslim Salafists forced villagers to join the protests and remove pictures of the president from their home. One man who refused was reportedly found hanged on his front porch the next morning.
Egypt
Update of this story: Thousands of Christians flocked to Saint Mark's Cathedral in Cairo Friday in response to a protest organized by Salafi Muslims last week in front of the church. The conservative Islamist group had gathered its members to protest for the release of the wives of two Coptic priests, who some believe have been detained by the church after allegedly converting to Islam. There was a strong military presence at the cathedral Friday ahead of the protest. Mina Salib, one of the protesters, said that "Christians all over Egypt were deeply disturbed by last Friday's protest and came to express their anger and assert their defense of the Cathedral against any attacks." Mina added that people immediately responded to the call to protect the church as result of the attack directed against Pope Shenouda.
May 8, 2011
Egypt
Christians Copts in the area of Embaba were attacked Saturday evening by Muslim Salafis. The attacks lasted for 14 hours. The Muslims fired guns and rifles and hurled Molotov cocktails at Coptic churches, houses and businesses. 12 Copts were killed and 232 injured.
The church of Saint Mina was the first to be attacked. According to its pastor Fr. Abanoub the attack started at 5.30 PM on Saturday May 7, when church parishioners noticed a large number of Salafis, estimated at 3000 men, congregating near the church. Anticipating trouble, the army was called. The Salafis went to the church and asked to search it because they believed a Christian girl named who had converted to Islam, married a Salafi and wanted to revert back to Christianity, was hiding inside the church.
The second church attacked by Salafis was St. Mary and St Abanob, also in Embaba. Muslims prevented the fire brigade from reaching it. The third church attacked was St. Mary Church in Wehda Street in Embaba, the ground floor of which was completely torched. More HERE.
May 9, 2011
Malaysia (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Islam is under siege in Malaysia because aggressive Christians are determined to convert Muslims who are nonchalant about their faith, several Islamist groups alleged. The Muslim Organisations in Defence of Islam accused Christians of strategising an elaborate plan to ensure that more and more Muslims leave the faith, which is illegal in Malaysia. The National Evangelical Christian Fellowship, together with partners Global Day of Prayer, Marketplace Penang and Penang Pastors Fellowship, said the claims against their community were lies.

May 12, 2011
Pakistan (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Once more, Pakistan's 'black law' strikes again. A Muslim businessman has used the infamous blasphemy law against a rival and former associate, who happens to be Christian. More and more, the law is being used to persecute the country's Christian minority or settle personal scores. The victim is Gulzar Masih, from Sialkot, who owns a bookstore. Yesterday, he and his son had to flee town, fearing reprisals by local Muslims who tried to set fire to his shop. Only the intervention of police stopped the attackers.

May 15, 2011
Egypt (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Violence erupted in a Cairo neighborhood when pro-Coptic protesters clashed with unidentified men, leaving at least two people dead and 60 injured. The demonstrators initially staged a sit-in in front of the state TV building to demand greater rights for the religious minority. Problems between Egypt's Muslim majority and its Coptic Christian minority have been on the rise in recent months, with a number of violent clashes reported between the two groups. More HERE.
May 16, 2011
Iraq (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
An Iraqi Chaldean Christian man was abducted, tortured and then beheaded by Al Qaeda jihadis. The victim was from Kirkuk, northern Iraq. He had been kidnapped three days ago and the family had received a ransom request. However, negotiations for his release did not work out and so he was brutally murdered. A pastor in Kirkuk said that kidnappers had pressured his employer to fire him because he was a Christian. More HERE.
Nigeria
Christians from a local Evangelical Church congregation in this Plateau state town have been displaced after Muslim extremists set their church building and some homes on fire last month. The Rev. Ishaku Danyok of the church said that the April 29 incident occurred after Muslims approached Christian music shop owner Gabriel Kiwase and told him that his music was disturbing them as they said their prayers.
The young Christian man "quietly switched off the music set, and then the Muslims left, only to return about 20 minutes later to burn down the music shop and then go on rampage, burning down houses belonging to some Christians in the town," Danyok said. Update HERE.
May 17, 2011
EU (Hat tip to Persecutin.org)
A religious liberty campaigner has been heckled at an EU meeting for saying Christians should not be sent to prison for peacefully expressing their opinions. A room full of feminist and homosexual activists jeered at Dr Gudrun Kugler when she spoke about the intolerance faced by Christians in Europe. Some of the crowd said that Christians ought to be thrown in jail if they make a "negative comment" against a "minority group".

May 18, 2011
Pakistan
Two more shocking cases have surfaced in Pakistan where Christians were badly treated by Muslims. The first concerned two Christian women working at a Lahore, Pakistan, hospital, who were allegedly "manhandled" by a leader at the Fatima Memorial Hospital on Tuesday, April 19, 2011. A source close to the situation said that Nusrat Bibi and Muneeran Bibi, who are both married female sanitary workers at the hospital were "brutally thrashed" and "unlawfully detained for several hours," after being assaulted by a Muslim officer at the medical facility.
In another disturbing case, this one in a town located in the Punjab, the Christian Communication Network Pakistan (CCNP) told ANS that "a gang of Muslim men, on the behest of a former member of the Punjab Provincial Assembly, "invaded two Christian houses" in the city. Adnan Sher, an activist of CCNP, said that a Christian man, Sharif Gull, was abducted at gunpoint by the Muslim "hoodlums."

Adnan Sher then alleged that the Muslim mob also attacked at the house of another Christian man, Idrees Asif. He added that the alleged culprits, armed with clubs, thrashed the men and women of Asif's family and ripped off the cloths of the Christian women and made publicly nude.
Azerbaijan (Hat tip to Persecution.org)
Within the space of three days in mid-May, three Protestant communities in the town of Sumgait (Sumqayit) north of the Azerbaijani capital Baku were raided by police and officials of the State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations.
Syria
Syria's minority Christians are watching the protests sweeping their country with trepidation, fearing their religious freedom could be threatened if President Bashar Assad's autocratic but secular rule is overthrown. For many Syrian Christians, the flight of their brethren from sectarian conflict in neighboring Iraq and recent attacks on Christians in Egypt have highlighted the dangers they fear they will face if Assad succumbs to the wave of uprisings sweeping the Arab world.
Iraq
The body of Chaldean Christian Ashur Issa Yaqub was found on Monday (May 16) with marks of severe torture and mutilation. He had worked as a construction worker from the northeastern city of Kirkuk, and al Qaeda members had demanded $100,000 for his release, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP). Sources close to a Christian reportedly kidnapped, tortured and murdered by al Qaeda over the weekend said the kidnappers had pressured his employer to fire him because he was a Christian.

May 19, 2011
Pakistan
An influential Muslim family in a village near Sheikhupura is holding a 17-year-old Christian girl hostage because one of her brothers allegedly eloped with a woman from the Muslim family. The Muslim parents have threatened further retaliation against the Christian family if they do not produce their daughter, whom they have also threatened to publicly shoot dead as an "honor killing."
An area clergyman identified only as Father Emmanuel called the situation "critical," saying it has pitted the area's 1,800 Muslim families against its 70-to-100 Christian families and could lead to violence. More HERE.
Indonesia
Islamic extremist groups disrupted two post-Easter services in Cirebon as police failed to stop the violence, this according to Hendardi, chairman of the Setara Institute, an NGO fighting for human rights and religious freedom in Indonesia. The activist slammed police for its "powerlessness" vis-à-vis "hostile" acts perpetrated by radical movements, which interrupted religious services.
Pakistan
The situation in Abbotabad is "critical" for religious minorities, who are "fasting and praying for peace in the region", Fr Javed Akram Gill, a parish priest in the town where Osama Bin Laden was killed tells AsiaNews. The priest confirms that the death of the Al Qaeda "has raised fears within the Christian community" because "every time the Americans say or do something, Christians [in Pakistan] become the number one target." Together with the Catholics, the faithful of other Christian denominations "prefer to stay inside" and their leaders refrain from making pastoral visits.
Egypt
On the morning of May 19 two Coptic priests went to St. Mary and St. Abraham Church and opened it together with some of the Coptic residents, but later in the day thousands of Muslims surrounded the church to protest its opening, hurled stones at the church building and the Copts, who responded by throwing stones. The army and the police stood there watching and did not intervene.
Unable to secure the church, the army and police closed it and arranged for a "reconciliation" meeting between the Coptic priest and the Salafi sheikhs. "The atmosphere of the meeting was belligerent," said attorney Ashraf Edward, "and one of the sheikhs threatened us by saying that should the church be opened without their permission it would end up like the church in Soul which was demolished by Muslims."
May 20, 2011
Pakistan
Two nurses at the Fatima Memorial Hospital, Lahore, were attacked and abducted for several hours by a fellow Muslim. The man also charged them with theft after stealing their mobile phone and a sum of money. In a second incident, a group of Muslims - at the behest of a former MP of the area - attacked the houses of two Christians, to force the owners to abandon them and transfer the land ownership over to him.
Turkey
Turkey's Christians are under siege.
May 23, 2011
Germany
A Coptic Christian bishop warns the native Germans about the threat of Islamic dhimmitude and where it leads.
Pakistan (Hat tip to Persecution.org)
Pakistani Christians have expressed concerns about renewed kidnappings and abuse of women and girls by Muslims in a country still reeling from the recent assassination of a Christian government minister.
Among those targeted was Sehar Naz, a 24-year-old employee with Pakistan's State Life Insurance Corporation in Punjab province, who was recovering of her injuries Monday, May 23, after she was allegedly kidnapped and raped by a Pakistan Army officer.
May 24, 2011
Sudan
Sudanese National Security Intelligence and Security Service agents have arrested a Christian woman in a Darfur camp for displaced people, accusing her of converting Muslims to Christianity, said sources who fear she is being tortured.
At the same time, in Khartoum a Christian mother of a 2-month-old baby is wounded and destitute because she and her husband left Islam for Christianity. More HERE.
Pakistan
Christians in Pakistan remained concerned Monday, May 23, over the situation of Pastor Paul Ashraf and his family after they reportedly narrowly survived a drive by shooting by suspected Islamic militants in Punjab province, seriously injuring their eldest son. "Pastor Ashraf was in a van with his wife, Rubina Ashraf, and eldest son Sarfraz Ashraf, on April 27 when two unidentified men on a motorbike opened fire" on their car, said the Centre for Legal Aid, Assistance and Settlement. . . . Pastor Ashraf and Rubina were unharmed but Sarfraz" who drove the vechicle, "was shot in the side and face. The masked gunmen fled from the scene when they saw that Sarfraz had been seriously injured," CLAAS explained.
May 25, 2011
Algeria
Algerian authorities have ordered the immediate closure of seven Protestant churches and demanded that the Algerian Protestant Church Association close all churches under their authority.

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

April 15, 2011 - April 30, 2011

April 15, 2011
Malaysia (Hat tip JihadWatch)
An umbrella coalition of Muslim groups held a protest today and declared bloodshed against 'extremist' Christians that insult and ridicule the position of Islam in the country.

April 18, 2011
Somalia
Two Muslim extremists in Somalia murdered a member of a secret Christian community in Lower Shabele region as part of a campaign to rid the country of Christianity, sources said. "Two al Shabaab members dragged him out of his house, and after 10 minutes they fired several shots on him,” said an area source who requested anonymity. “He then died immediately.” The militants then shouted “Allahu Akbar [God is greater]” before fleeing, he said.
April 19, 2011
Nigeria (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Deadly rioting erupted across Nigeria's largely Muslim north on Monday as youths torched churches and homes in anger at President Goodluck Jonathan's election victory. Jonathan, the first president from the oil producing Niger Delta, was declared the winner with around 57 percent of votes. He defeated Muhammadu Buhari, a former military ruler from the north, who got around 31 percent. More HERE. And HERE. And HERE. Video HERE
April 20, 2011
Egypt (Hat tip to AtlasShrugs)
Muslims burn St.George Coptic Orthodox Church in Rafah,Sinai-Egypt & cracking crosses
April 21, 2011
Egypt (Hat tip to AtlasShrugs)
Muslims in Abu Qurqas have marked their homes with the statement "There is no God but Allah" and pictures of Ka'ba. This is in preparation for tomorrow's planned attacks on the homes of all Coptic homes in Abu Qurqas, a day they deemed as "Bloody Friday" This also coincides with Holy Friday for the Coptic Christians.
Egypt/Syria/France
A father and daughter who fled Egypt to Syria after spending two and a half years in hiding for becoming Christians have arrived in France and yesterday applied for asylum there, human rights advocates said. Maher Ahmad El-Mo'otahssem Bellah El-Gohary, 58, had become the target of Islamic ill will in Egypt after he tried to change the religious affiliation on his national identification card from Muslim to Christian.
Syria
The country's Christian population has been forced to abandon its usually colourful and exuberant commemorations because of the number of "martyrs" who have died and the "bad situation." The whole country is braced for a wave of protests on Friday, despite an announcement that President Bashir al-Assad had signed a decree lifting the 48-year state of emergency, a key demand. Government promises of reform combined with violence by armed plain-clothes security forces have only served to bolster the opposition, who are planning more demonstrations after regular Muslim Friday prayers.
April 22, 2011
Indonesia (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Islamic militants involved in a plot to bomb an Indonesian church ahead of Easter celebrations wanted to film and broadcast the inferno, which would have occurred as thousands of people were arriving for services, police said Friday. The plot, uncovered Thursday, has put the nation in a state of high alert with hundreds of thousands of police deployed at churches, 20,000 in the capital alone. Update HERE. (Hat tip to InfidelsAreCool)
Pakistan (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
A church bell, not a mosque loudspeaker, calls people to prayer along the dung-lined streets and inside the crumbling houses of this village. The body of Pakistan's most recent Christian martyr is buried in its graveyard. Khushpur is almost entirely Catholic, and for decades it has been an oasis for Christians in a nation where 95 per cent of people are Muslim and Islamist extremism is spreading. The village has produced so many priests and nuns that some call it the "Rome of Pakistan." But Islamist militants' recent murder of federal minister Shahbaz Bhatti, a Christian son of the village targeted for opposing Pakistan's harsh blasphemy laws, has rattled the peace.
April 23, 2011
Pakistan (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Christians in the small Pakistani town of Gojra are making low-key preparations for Easter this year. Residents of the neighbourhood, known as Christian Colony, in the town in Punjab province, are haunted by memories of a 2009 attack by a Muslim mob in which seven members of a family were killed and dozens of houses torched. The only sign of the approach of Easter was a few young men rehearsing hymns in St. Mary's Catholic Church. "Fear is there but we cannot give up our religion," said Wilson Rafiq.

Egypt
In a square in Nazareth, right below the Basilica of the Annunciation, a Koranic verse warns that "whoever seeks a religion other than Islam, it will never be accepted of him, and in the Hereafter he will be one of the losers". Yet it is the spectre of losing in the here-and-now that most haunts the dwindling number of adherents to Christianity in the land of its birthplace. In the hometown of Jesus, where it all began two millennia ago, Christians feel under siege. This fear is not limited to Nazareth or the Holy Land. Across the Arab world, Christians ask whether they are an endangered species: threatened by Islamist radicals; forced by limited opportunities at home to seek new lives abroad; accused of complicity in the schemes of foreign predators; and now menaced by the wave of revolution ripping through the region -- which some fear could uncover the submerged hard-wiring of sectarianism.

April 24, 2011
Iraq
At least seven people were injured when a bomb outside the entrance of a Baghdad church exploded on Easter Sunday, an Iraqi police official said. Slide show HERE (Hat tip to Salon.com)
April 25, 2011
Egypt (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Egypt's premier suspended a Christian governor linked to the ousted Mubarak regime after his appointment sparked protests from Muslims in restive Qena province.
April 27, 2011
Ethiopia
International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that on April 21 four Muslims beat an evangelist to death and assaulted his pregnant wife in Worabe, Ethiopia, an area that is 97% Muslim. The Muslims lured Evangelist Abraham Abera from Kale Hiwot Church, his home and place of ministry, at 9:30 p.m. They told him that his friend was sick and needed his immediate attention. Abraham left with the men; they turned on him and began to beat him with rods. The minister's wife, Birtukan, saw the men attack her husband and ran to intervene, but the Muslims beat her as well. Abraham died on the spot and his wife, who sustained a severe head injury, was left unconscious in the street.

Pakistan
Two Christians from Punjab are in protective custody after blasphemy accusations against them sparked violent riots. A furious mob began attacking Christian homes in Aziz Colony, Gujranwala, after a father and son accused of burning the Koran were released by police. Police said they had no option but to re-arrest Pastor Mushtaq Gill and his son, Farrukh, to avert further violence.
April 28, 2011
Pakistan
Two members of an extremist group open fire at the car of Rev Ashraf Paul in Lahore. His 24-year-old son is critically wounded but is now out of danger. And in Faisalabad, a police officer rapes a 24-year-old woman over four days.
April 29, 2011
Indonesia
Amid the massive police crackdown on terrorism, a Pentecostal church in Sleman, Yogyakarta, was targetted in a firebomb attack early on Friday morning. Two molotov cocktails were hurled at the church on the island of Java by assailants riding a motorcycle.
Egypt (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
ABOUT 2,000 hardline Islamists protested on Friday outside the Coptic Church's headquarters in Cairo to demand the release of two women they allege are being held after converting to Islam. The protesters, who belonged to the puritanical Salafi sect, marched on St Mark's Cathedral from a mosque after Friday prayers to demand the release of Wafa Constantine and Camellia Shehata, the wives of two priests. The church denies the women converted to Islam. More HERE.
April 30, 2011
Pakistan
Police broke up a mob of people armed with sticks that was threatening to attack a church Saturday after word spread that two copies of the Qur'an had been burned in eastern Pakistan, officials said. The tiny Christian minority in predominantly Muslim Pakistan is often intimidated and subjected to mob violence.

Indonesia (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
An emerging Islamic terrorist group recruits followers among university students and, through brainwashing, prepares them for suicide bombings or bomb attacks against sensitive targets, including Christian churches.

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

March 22 - April 14, 2011

March 22, 2011
Pakistan
Two Christians were gunned down and two others are in a serious condition with bullet wounds after Muslim youths attacked them outside a church building in Hyderabad.

March 24, 2011
Ethopia (Hat tip to InfidelsAreCool)
Where there was once religious tolerance between Christians and Muslims, now there are attacks against Christians by Muslims chanting "Allahu Akbar."
March 26, 2011
Egypt
A group of Muslims attacked Ayman Anwar Mitri, a 45 year old Christian Coptic man, cutting off his ear. The Muslims claimed they were applying Sharia law because Mr. Mitri allegedly had an illicit affair with a Muslim woman.
March 27, 2011
Lebanon (Hat tip to InfidelBloggersAlliance)
A bomb exploded overnight at the entrance of a church in the eastern Lebanese city of Zahle, causing no injuries, a church official said Sunday. The bomb, which consisted of about 4.4 pounds of TNT, was placed at the side entrance of St. Mary's Church, a Syriac Orthodox church.
March 28, 2011
Pakistan (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
In Hyderabad and Lahore, a mob of Islamic fundamentalists targeted Christian places of worship. Two Christians were killed and churches were burned. They desecrated several copies of the Bible and promised more violence if Washington [U.S. government] does not condemn pastor Jones to death for burning a Koran. Update HERE.
March 28, 2011
Saudi Arabia
Friends and family of two Indian Christians arrested after a prayer meeting in Saudi Arabia in January have tried in vain to secure their release. The two Christians were incarcerated for attending the prayer meeting with other Indian nationals and accused of converting Muslims to Christianity, though the government has not produced formal charges, sources said.
March 31, 2011
Malaysia
Malay language Bibles still under lock and key, because the government wants to limit to Muslims the use of the word "Allah" for God. A ruling rejects their decision, but in Kuala Lumpur pushes ahead with a policy of progressive restriction of religious freedom. The Malaysian Christians argue that there should be no "restrictions, prohibitions and proscriptions" in the use of the sacred books. The government wants to impose an inscription on the Bible, printed in Indonesia, to reduce the risk of Muslims converting. Update HERE.

Bangladesh
A judge this week exonerated a Christian sentenced to one year in prison for selling and distributing Christian literature near a major Muslim gathering north of this capital city, his lawyer said. After reviewing an appeal of the case of 25-year-old Biplob Marandi, the magistrate in Gazipur district court cleared the tribal Christian of the charge against him and ordered him to be released
April 1, 2011
Indonesia
A month that saw the Bogor city mayor defying a Supreme Court decision granting a building permit for a church in Bogor, West Java culminated in police turning away those seeking to worship - and church leaders today filing a police complaint on the mayor with National Police.
April 2, 2011
Ivory Coast (Hat tip to AtlasShrugs)
Troops loyal to Alassane Ouattara, the Muslim opposition leader, slaughtered 1,000 civilians in Duekoue last week. The victims were mostly men who were shot as they fled the city. More HERE and HERE.
Iran
Iranian security forces have stormed a house church and arrested 10 members. Mohabat News said while there has been no explanation offered by the Iranian Government's security sources, it is likely that these 10 house church members were arrested because of their Christian beliefs and participation in church gatherings. That, the news agency commented, is in line with the recent wave of repressive actions taken by the government against Iranian Christians.
April 3, 2011
Nigeria (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Youths in Iraqi area of Sokoto metropolis yesterday sparked a violent protest over an alleged defilement on the Holy Qur'an. It was not immediately clear whether the attacks early Saturday were linked to elections or who was behind the violence in an area of the state repeatedly hit by clashes between Christian and Muslim ethnic groups.
Italy (Hat tip to InfidelsAreCool)
Muslim refugees from Tunisia have set on fire a church at Lampedusa Island, Italy. No details of this incident have yet been revealed. For some days, the situation on the island has been very tense. The church was set on fire after the priest had accommodated 36 teenage refugees in the parish.
April 4, 2011
Egypt
Liberals and minorities are worried as the Muslim Brotherhood advocates a "modesty" police force. Nagib Gibrail, a Coptic attorney and head of the Egyptian Union of Human Rights, said the Egyptian revolution had been kidnapped by Islamist radicals. "There are areas in Egypt where Christian girls can't walk outside after eight o'clock in the evening for fear of being kidnapped."
Saudi Arabia (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
An Eritrean Christian is facing the death penalty in Saudi Arabia after being arrested for sharing his faith with Muslims.
April 5, 2011
Pakistan (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
"Convert or die". Masih Gill, a Christian from the city of Mardan (Northern Pakistan) was threatened with these words by a group of Muslims with whom he had been speaking, after the recent episode of the burning of the Koran in the US. This event caused violent reactions in Pakistan (three churches attacked in a week) by Muslim extremists. Nearly one dozen UN guards were killed on April 1, while two were beheaded.
April 7, 2011
Pakistan
Asia Bibi is sick, in solitary confinement, and there are growing concerns for her life. The Christian sentenced to death for blasphemy on false evidence is sick with chicken pox, because of the appallingly unhygienic conditions she is being kept in.

April 8, 2011
Pakistan
The United States said Friday that Pakistan's security forces enjoyed a "culture of impunity" on human rights and voiced concern at religious intolerance in the frontline US war partner. An annual State Department survey on human rights reported widespread concerns in Pakistan, including violence against women, child labor, corruption, prison abuses and discrimination against religious minorities. Presenting the global report, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton voiced concern about Pakistan's blasphemy law which allows for the death penalty. Critics say it has been frequently abused against minorities.

April 9, 2011
Egypt
In the last two weeks three attacks on churches were undertaken by Salafis or Islamic Fundamentalists in Egypt. The Salafis demanded churches move to locations outside communities and be forbidden from making repairs, "even if they are so dilapidated that the roofs will collapse over the heads of the congregation," says Father Estephanos Shehata of Samalut Coptic Diocese. The latest of these incidents took place in the village of Kamadeer, in Samalout, Minya province on April 5, which escalated to the point where it was feared the church would be torched and demolished, as was done in the case of St. George and St. Mina Church in village of Soul, Atfif, on March 5.

Turkey
Non-Muslim intellectual in Turkey, including Christians, support government plans to replace the current Constitution with a new and civilian one, saying they would like to be protected under a new constitution, rather than relying on the Treaty of Lausanne. Erol Dora, a lawyer representing the Syriac Christian community of Turkey, said that Turkey’s political will should settle the problems of non-Muslim minorities in order to restore social peace and allow a democratic mindset to dominate the country, but not simply because Europe requires such conditions for full membership in the European Union.

April 10, 2011
Iran
Some detainees from the recent wave of persecution on Christians have been released on bail, and they are waiting for their next trial. The Iranian authorities are charging 60 Christian detainees with apostasy.

April 11, 2011
Egypt (Hat tip to InfidelsAreCool)
A Coptic mother was kidnapped taking her daughter to school. The Police have been reluctant to take action and the family is devastated. There are hundreds of cases of Coptic Christian women being coerced into Islam and in some cases actually forcibly being taken away. The State Security apparatus usually collaborate with local extremists groups and rarely do they undertake their investigations appropriately.
April 12, 2011
Nigeria (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Armed with machetes and guns, 1,000 militants attacked the village of Bar Arewa in north Nigeria. Almost every home in the village was destroyed, and some elderly people were reported to have been burnt to death in their homes. The group is part of a larger band of 2,000 militants that has been attacking non-Muslim villages.

April 13, 2011
Iran
The blasphemy trial of members of the Church of Iran, which was adjourned on 5 April to give the prosecution more time to gather evidence, has been adjourned once more, in order to allow prosecutors to seek the assistance of Iran’s traditional churches in determining their guilt.
April 14, 2011
Egypt
A growing number of Egypt's 8-10 million Coptic Christians are looking for a way to get out of the country as Islamists increasingly take advantage of the nationalist revolution that toppled long-standing dictator Hosni Mubarak in February.

Pakistan
In Pakistan forced conversions to Islam, rapes and forced marriages are on the rise. The victims are mostly Hindu and Christian girls, belonging to religious minorities.

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

March 2 - March 22, 2011

March 2, 2011
Egypt
Christian Copts staged a massive demonstration on Monday, February 28, against the Governor of Minya Ahmed Dia-el-Din, calling for his resignation. The demonstration was prompted by the governor's decision to demolish a church community center for the care of the handicapped.
Pakistan
Shahbaz Bhatti, minister for Minorities Affairs and a Christian was gunned down in the back seat of his car while leaving his mother's home. He was the only Christian in the Pakistani cabinet and was murdered for criticizing the blasphemy law that prescribes the death penalty for those insulting Islam by leaving the religion. More HERE.
March 3, 2011
Pakistan
A Christian community is facing more wrongdoings by local landlords who grabbed Christian-owned fields and shops with the complicity of local police and officials. Also Christian symbols are desecrated but the blasphemy law is not applied in this case. Local authorities say accusations are all made up but fail to provide legal backing for grabbing Christian property. More HERE.

Ethiopia (Hat tip to AtlasShrugs)
Thousands of Muslims shouting "Allah Akbar" razed five churches and the homes of two evangelists. The Muslims started the attacks after falsely accusing the Christians of desecrating the Koran.
March 4, 2011
Pakistan (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
The Islamic terrorists responsible for Christian Minister Bhatti's murder--Tanseem Al Qaeda and Tehrik-e-Taliban threaten to send all of those like Shabaz Bhatti "one by one to hell." A translation of the jihadi letter.
March 5, 2011
Turkey
Istanbul police's anti-terror unit apprehended two suspects accused of plotting to assassinate a Christian priest in the city's Fatih district.
March 7, 2011
Ethiopia (Hat tip to InfidelsAreCool)
A mob of Muslim extremists overpowered police to get to Christians handing out Bibles.
Egypt
Egyptian Christians protested on Monday after a church was set on fire on the outskirts of Cairo, the first sectarian flare-up since the January 25th revolution.
Egypt (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Documents seized from State Security offices reveal the government's involvement in the bombing of a Coptic Church on New Year's Day in Alexandria that killed 21 people and injured 80.

March 9, 2011
Egypt (Hat tip to InfidelsAreCool)
According to Father Abram Fahmy, pastor of St. Simon the Tanner Monastery in Mokatam Hills, on the outskirts of Cairo, Copts were killed and injured today in an attack by Muslims. It was reported the Egyptian army fired live ammunition on Copts. The attack has claimed until now the lives of 9 Copts and injured 150, 45 seriously. Muslims threw fire balls at the Monastery from the top of the hills. Coptic youth have arrested five of them, who are now being held within the Monastery grounds, waiting to be handed over to the authorities. Eight homes and 20 garbage recycling factories owned by Copts have been torched, as well as 30 garbage collection vehicles.
March 11, 2011
Malaysia
Christian leaders report that the Malaysian government is holding in detension 30,000 imported bibles written in the Malaysian language. Update HERE.
March 12, 2011
USA (Hat tip to GatesofVienna)
With the only Christian in Pakistan's government murdered outside his mother's home, Coptic Christian churches being burnt in Egypt, and Iraq's Christian population reduced by about half of its 1.4 million total of 25 years ago, the future for many Christians in the Muslim world looks at best uncertain.

Dr. Walid Phares wants the Chicago area to be aware of the ongoing persecution and Saturday stressed the unknowns of the political situation in many countries in the region. He is particularly anxious about what type of government might replace any overturned regimes.
March 15, 2011
Pakistan
A Christian convicted for blasphemy was found dead in his jail cell. The official word is he died from a heart attack but many suspect that he might have fallen prey to active hate campaign going on in the country on this issue by extremist groups. More HERE.
Turkey
Discrimination, slander and attacks against churches were among the examples of ongoing harassment that the Turkish Association of Protestant Churches (TEK) recorded in 2010. In an eight-page report published earlier this year, TEK's Committee for Religious Freedom and Legal Affairs outlined problems Protestants face. Turkish laws and "negative attitudes of civil servants" continue to make it nearly impossible for non-Muslims to establish places of worship, the committee reported.
Iran
Five Iranian house church Christians were behind bars Wednesday, March 15, after being sentenced to one year imprisonment on charges of "crimes against the Islamic order" and there were reports that Iranian authorities have been burning Bibles.
March 16, 2011
Pakistan (Hat tip to Persecution.org)
Pakisti Christians are converting to Islam due to threats and intimidation at the rate of 60 per month. In one madrassa in Lahore alone, 678 Christians embraced Islam in 2009. Last year they were almost 700. These are "dangerous days" minorities, activists say as the blasphemy law is used to force them to change religion.

March 17, 2011
Malaysia
A Christian lawyer in Malaysia has failed in her attempt to be allowed to practice in the Muslim Shariah courts.
March 18, 2011
Malaysia
The Christian community said today that it is appalled by what it says is the government's desecration of 5,100 holy books shipped in from Indonesia that were detained and has flat out refused to collect the Port Klang shipment.
March 19, 2011
Iraq
Archbishop Bashar Warda made his alarming prediction at a press conference for the launch of the Aid to the Church in Need report on oppressed Christians abroad, Persecuted and Forgotten? Speaking alongside Archbishop Vincent Nichols, Archbishop Warda said that there were fewer than 200,000 Christians left in Iraq and "the time for waiting" was running out. He cited Mosul, one of the most dangerous cities in the world to be a Christian, where hundreds were driven out in October 2009, saying: "In 2003 there were 4,000 Chaldean families, 1,000 Christians from other churches, and 11 active Chaldean churches. Now six churches have been closed, and if it goes this way, it won't be this long before certain areas of Iraq are evacuated.

Libya
Libya's minority Christians were among those facing danger Saturday, March 19, as the international community began enforcing a no fly zone over the predominantly Sunni Muslim nation to halt attacks by forces loyal to embattled Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.
Heavily Islamic Libya currently ranks number 25 on the annual Open Doors' World Watch List of 50 nations known for their reported persecution of Christians. North Korea tops the list at number 1. While there are no laws that explicitly provide for religious freedom, the country adheres to Islamic law and all citizens are Sunni Muslims 'by definition', according to rights activists. It is prohibited to evangelize to Muslims or distribute Arabic scriptures, according to Open Doors investigators.
March 20, 2011
Egypt
Many Egyptian Christians say they voted to reject proposed constitutional amendments because they fear hasty elections to follow may pave the way for Islamist groups to rise to power and further religious persecution. More HERE.

Ethopia (Hat tip to InfidelsAreCool)
Evangelical churches and homes have been burnt down by mobs of Muslims in the southwestern Jimma region of Ethiopia. The attacks have left at least one person dead and 7,000 displaced. "This is a strategically planned attack by an extremist Islamic group.
Nigeria (Hat tip to InfidelsAreCool)
Two men were killed in the Nigerian city of Jos when explosives they were carrying on a motorbike went off, preventing what local residents said was an attempted attack on a Christian community. More than 200 people have been killed since late last year in and around Jos, which lies in Nigeria's "Middle Belt" between the mostly-Muslim north and predominantly Christian south. More HERE.
March 21, 2011
Indonesia
Some 100 members of a Christian congregation conducted services on the sidewalk in Bogor Sunday after police prevented them from using a contested church site that has been sealed off by city officials in defiance of a Supreme Court order.
Turkey
A Turkish court ordered five military officers and two civilians jailed Monday in a probe into the 2007 killing of three Christians, including a German national, over allegations that the attack was part of an alleged plot to topple the government. The Christians -- a German and two Turks -- were tied up and had their throats slit at a Bible-publishing house in the southern city of Malatya. More HERE.
March 22, 2011
Saudi Arabia
Two Indian Christians working in Saudi Arabia have been arrested in Riyadh, and sentenced to 45 days in prison. On March 11, 2011, Vasantha Sekhar and Nese Yohan were arrested and beaten. They were accused of proselytizing. ICC contacts in Saudi Arabia believe they were arrested to keep them from practicing Christianity privately in their home.

SPECIAL REPORT:
The World
Seventy five percent of religious persecution in the world is against Christians, claims a new report by a U.K. Catholic organization. Examining 33 countries, the British branch of Aid to the Church in Need reported that most of the persecution was occurring in the Middle East, Africa and Asia in its 2011 "Persecuted and Forgotten? A Report on Christians oppressed for their faith."

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

February 11 - February 28, 2011

February 11, 2011
Indonesia
Christian leaders faulted Indonesian authorities for security breaches that allowed Islamic extremist mobs this week to attack a defendant convicted of defaming Islam, the judge that sentenced him, two churches and a Christian school.
February 16, 2011
Indonesia (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
In a fiery speech in court, a suspended Islamic Defenders Front leader on trial for inciting attacks against a Christian group in Bekasi continued to issue threats against church leaders on Monday. A former chapter leader of the hard-line group, FPI, warned the Batak Christian Protestant Church (HKBP) against holding prayers in Bekasi, a predominantly Muslim district in West Java.
Nigeria

Police blame Muslim radical sect for attempted church attack in troubled northern Nigeria.

Pakistan
A Pakistani Christian was killed by his employer says his parents.
February 18, 2011
Tunisia
A Polish priest was found dead with his throat cut at the School of Our Lady in Manouba where he worked.

Takjikistan
Authorities ban sales of a Jesus cartoon, claiming that the cartoon advocated a foreign religion.
Under a new version of the Law on Religion and Religious Associations adopted in Tajikistan in 2009, sharia is the law of the land and proselytising is against the law.

Turkey (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
The Syro-Orthodox monastery, Mor Gabriel, which dates from 397 A.D., has lost its land to the Turkish government. The upkeep of the monks and the monastery is dependent on the income from this land.
February 19, 2011
Egypt (Hat tip to Mary Abdelmassih)
Muslims broke into the home of a Coptic family and abducted their 18-year-old daughter Nesma Sarwat. The home belongs to the building contractor who built the controversial St. Mary and St. Michael church in Talbiya, within the Omraniya neighborhood of Giza. The abductors wrote messages on the home's wall, the messages said "Islam is the solution" and "The Church has to be demolished."

February 22, 2011
Sudan
A Christian widow in north Sudan is agonizing over the kidnapping of her daughter eight months ago by suspected Islamic extremists in Khartoum.

February 23, 2011
Egypt (Hat tip to Mary Abdelmassih)
Egyptian armed forces demolished fences surrounding ancient Coptic monasteries, leaving them vulnerable to attacks by armed Arabs, robbers and escaped prisoners, who have seized the opportunity of the state of diminished protection by the authorities in Egypt to carry out assaults and thefts. See update for February 24, 2011

Egypt
Thousands of Coptic Christians demonstrated in the city of Assiut in Upper Egypt for the second day after a priest was found stabbed to death inside his home. Protesters demanded the arrest of the murderers chanting, 'With our souls and blood we sacrifice our lives to the cross." More HERE.
February 24, 2011
Indonesia (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
The head of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) was convicted in an attack on a priest and a Christian elder last September. The cleric was sentenced to five-and-a-half months in prison for urging protesters to disrupt the church's worship activities. Two hundred radical Muslims shouted "Allahu Akbar" (God is Greater) and "Free Murhali" outside the court as 350 police officers guarded the trial.
India
Suspected Islamic militants set fire on Feb. 19 to the School of the Convent of St. Luke, a Protestant educational institution that began its activities about 17 years ago in Srinagar, Kashmir.
Somalia
A Christian convert from Islam was killed by members of the terrorist group Al-Shabbab. They accused Roble of spying and 'fitna,' or causing religious discord among Muslims.
Afghanistan
Two Afghan Christians who were arrested for their conversion to Christianity remain behind bars despite diplomatic efforts by the United States to secure their release. In a letter smuggled out of their prison in Mazar-e-Sharif, one Christian wrote that he may receive the death penalty for apostasy.
Egypt
For the second time in as many days, Egyptian armed force stormed the 5th century old St. Bishoy monastery in Wadi el-Natroun. Live ammunition was fired, wounding two monks and six Coptic monastery workers. Several sources confirmed the army's use of RPG ammunition. Four people have been arrested including three monks and a Coptic lawyer who was at the monastery investigating yesterday's army attack. Video HERE.
February 25, 2011
Egypt (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
The deputy to Osama bin Laden issued al-Qaida's second message since the Egyptian uprising, accusing the nation's Christian leadership of inciting interfaith tensions and denying that the terror network was behind last month's bombing of a Coptic church in Alexandria that killed 21 and sparked protests.

February 27, 2011
Gaza
A prominent Christian surgeon in the Gaza Strip said assailants threw a bomb at his vehicle and sent him threatening messages. He said Sunday that after the blast that he received text messages to halt evangelical work or face harsh punishment. Ayyad says he does not preach his faith.

February 28, 2011
Nigeria (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
A Christian mother and her four children were killed in a jihad attack by Muslims.

Special Report from Iraq
Iraq (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
The secular western world is incapable of fully understanding the threat of a "reawakening of Islam" in the Middle East, according to an Iraqi bishop beset by radical movements in his own archdiocese.

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

January 20 - February 10, 2011

January 20, 2011
USA
Some Christians in Pakistan are converting to Islam because they fear for their lives.
January 23, 2011
Egypt (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Egypt's interior minister said on Sunday the government had proof that the Army of Islam, a Palestinian group linked to Al-Qaida, was behind the New Year's Day bombing of a church that killed 23 people.
Nigeria
Suspected members of an Islamist sect blamed for a series of attacks in Nigeria's north shot dead a soldier guarding a church on Sunday and stole his rifle.
January 30, 2011
The World
Journalist Michael Mannheimer's article "The Hidden Reality: Global Persecution of Christians by Islam"
January 31, 2011
Nigeria
Nigerian police foil a bomb attempt in a crowded Christian church.
February 1, 2011
Iran
Iranian political leaders and Islamic clerics condemned Christian converts and led to the arrest of at least 70 of the Christians.

Egypt
Coptic Christians worry about their future without Murbarak in power.
February 2, 2011
UK (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Muslim councilor receives death threats for supporting a Christian woman in Pakistan who was convicted for blasphemy.

Egypt (Hat tip to persecution.org)
Christian persecution continues amid the turmoil in Egypt. More HERE.
February, 3, 2011
USA (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
The New York Times equates Islam with Catholicism. A response is HERE.

Egypt (Hat tip to AtlasShrugs)
Two Islamist groups, aided by the Muslim neighbors, descended on the roof of houses owned by Copts, killing eleven Copts, including children, and seriously injuring four others. More HERE.

Indonesia
Violations of Christians' religious freedom in Indonesia jumped from 12 incidents in 2009 to 75 last year, according to a report from the Setara Institute for Democracy and Peace.

Somalia
Members of al Shabaab, an Islamist militant group, have confiscated Christian farms.
February 4, 2011
Nigeria
Scores of Christians have been killed in the past month by Muslim jihadists.

February, 5, 2011
Egypt
A bomb was detonated in an empty Coptic Christian church in northern Egypt.

Egypt
Egypt's Christians say they are being excluded from opposition negotiations with the Murbarak government.
Afghanistan (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Because of sharia law, Afghani Christian converts can be can be prosecuted for blasphemy and hung.
Iraq
Iraqi politicians are in Europe to sound the alarm on the critical situation of Assyrian Christian persecution in their country. Background information HERE.
Egypt
Copt leaders in the United States said they are terrified that a new Egyptian government with a strong Islamic fundamentalist bent would persecute Christians. They are quietly lobbying the Obama administration to do more to protect Christians in Muslim countries and are holding prayer vigils and fasts.

Egypt (Hat tip to AmericanThinker)
News of an Islamist massacre of two Christian Coptic families has emerged from Upper Egypt with the return of Internet connections to the country.
February 6, 2011
Iraq
An exodus of Christians to the autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq's north has accelerated after a spate of attacks against the minority group, according to the International Organization for Migration.
February 7, 2011
Afghanistan (Hat tip to FamilySecurityMatters)
An Afghan man working for the Red Cross said he will be executed unless he converts back to Islam. Said Musa was detained eight months ago and has been held since then in a Kabul prison, where he said he has been tortured and sexually abused.
Egpyt
Christians in Egypt increasingly live in fear of discrimination and persecution, and political change may not be a change for the better. More HERE from AINA.
February 8, 2011
Indonesia (Hat tip to J.P. Maher)
Hundreds of protesters burned churches and attacked a courthouse in central Indonesia Tuesday after a Christian convicted of blasphemy against Islam was given what they considered a lenient sentence.
India (Hat tip to AtlasShrugs)
Suspected Islamic militants have killed two Christian teenagers who were reading the Bible in the disputed Kashmir valley, divided between India and Muslim Pakistan.
Pakistan (Hat tip to InfidelsAreCool)
Protestors demand registration of a murder case against Muslim landlords who hanged to death their Christian employee for taking a sick day.
February 9, 2011
Iran
Iranian Muslims crack down on Christian Churches and other religious minorities.
February 10, 2011
Somalia (Hat tip to InfidelsAreCool)
Members of the Jihadist group Al Shabaab killed a boy who refused to go to a mosque.
Iraq
An Australian MP calls attention to the harassment and the violence perpetrated against the Assyrian Christians of Iraq due to their ethnic and religious differences from main stream Iraqi Moslem groups.

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

January 4 - January 22, 2011
January 4, 2011
Lebanon (Hat tip to GatesofVienna)
Have Christians "ceased to count" as Pierre Valognes' "Vie et mort des chrétiens d'Orient" (Life and death of Eastern Christians) suggests? Are they a "race on their way to extinction" as a diplomat said privately?
January 5, 2011
The World
Despite Communist North Korea topping the annual Open Doors World Watch List for the ninth consecutive year, the most dangerous countries in which to practice Christianity are overwhelmingly Islamic ones.

January 11, 2011
Nigeria (Hat tip to NewEnglishReview)
A policeman was shot to death and another was seriously wounded while they were guarding a Christian church. Watch a video HERE (from Kitman TV via CreepingSharia) on the Islamisation of Nigeria.
Jan 11, 2011
Egypt (Hat tip to JihadWatch )
Egypt is recalling its Vatican envoy for consultations over remarks by Pope Benedict XVI on Coptic Christians seen as an "interference" in its affairs, the foreign ministry said on Tuesday.

Egypt
An off-duty policeman boarded a train and opened fire on Tuesday, killing a 71-year-old Christian man and wounding his wife and four others, the Interior Ministry said. More HERE.

Iran (Hat tip to FamilySecurityMatters)
Iran has arrested about 70 Christians since Christmas in a crackdown that demonstrates the limits of religious tolerance by Islamic leaders who often boast they provide room for other faiths.

Denmark (Translated by and hat tip to IslaminEurope)
The Iranian-born head of the Church of Love, Massoud Fouroozandeh, fled with his family from the Odense district of Vollsmose to a little a secret location in a small town, after the two of the family's cars were smashed since they had a cross hanging inside.
January 13, 2011
Iran (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Ethnic Armenian and Assyrian Orthodox Churches in Iran may exist in peace as long as they do not proselytise (i.e. seek converts). It is illegal to preach Christianity in Farsi (the Persian language) just as it is illegal for Muslims to reject Islam (apostasy). The penalty for apostasy is death.
January 15, 2011
Pakistan (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Two Christian women were beaten and publically humiliated by an angry mob over apparently frivolous blasphemy allegations and they and their family are now in hiding for fear of being killed. More on Christians in Pakistan HERE.

Iraq
Eight men carrying handguns and steel pipes raided a Christian nongovernmental organization, grabbing computers, cellphones and documents, and threatening the people inside, saying that this was not the Christian's country but an Islamic state. More than half of Iraq's Christians have left since the American-led invasion in 2003, when there were believed to be 800,000 to 1.4 million Christians in the country.
January 16, 2011
Iraq (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Rising violence in parts of Iraq that Christians previously regarded as safe havens lead an increasing number to flee to neighboring Turkey.
January 17, 2011
Somalia
A mother of four was killed for her Christian faith on Jan. 7 on the outskirts of Mogadishu, Somalia by Islamic extremists from al Shabaab militia.

The Vatican (Hat tip to GatesofVienna)
Jews, known for centuries as the most persecuted minority, have been replaced in this role by Christians, according to Pope Benedict XVI, who hinted that he was referring to the Islamic tidal wave that is sweeping the world.
January 18, 2011
Pakistan
Pakistani police are threatening the father of an 18-year-old Christian man whom officers raped, killed and threw into a sewer last week, according to area Christians.

Pakistan
Pakistan's prime minister on reiterated that the government does not intend to amend the country's controversial blasphemy law, under which a Christian woman has been sentenced to death. More HERE.
January 19, 2011
Czech Republic (Hat tip to GatesofVienna)
Czech citizens protested the recent Christian persecutions in the Mid-East.

Pakistan
An update on the Christian mother of five who was sentenced to death on blasphemy charges.
January 20, 2011
The Vatican (Hat tip to JihadwWatch)
Al-Azhar, one of Sunni Islam's oldest universities and mosques has indefinitely suspended inter-faith talks with the Vatican in response to recent remarks by Pope Benedict XVI on attacks against Christians in the Middle East.
January 22, 2011
Egypt (Hat tip to JihadWatch and thanks to Mary Abdelmassih)
Unusually bad winter weather in Upper Egypt all last week focused attention once again on the controversial restrictions on church building. The rainy weather caused roofs of dilapidated churches -- which have been waiting for years to receive construction permits -- to collapse.

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

December 22, 2010-January 10, 2011
December 22, 2010
Kosovo (Hat tip to JihadWatch via Julia Gorin)
Protestant pastor says his community has faced hardship and intolerance from Muslims.
December 26, 2010
Iran
In the early morning hours after Christmas day, the Iranian government arrested 25 Christians in Tehran and other locations. They also planned to detain sixteen others, but were unable to locate them. There are also unconfirmed reports that the authorities have arrested over 50 other Christians. According to BBC Persian, the Governor of Tehran has vowed to arrest more evangelical Christians. More HERE.
December 28, 2010
Pakistan
A strike will be held to protest against the "conspiracies" of present rulers to repeal the blasphemy law.

Nigeria
A pastor and the five other Christians were killed in the Dec. 24 attacks on Victory Baptist Church in Alemderi and a Church of Christ in Nigeria (COCIN) congregation in Sinimari by the outlawed Islamic Boko Haram sect opposed to Western education. More HERE. Update HERE.

December 29, 2010
Malaysia
Catholic church officials were told to remove crucifixes and to avoid hymns being sung when Prime Minister Najib Razak attended the Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur's Christmas tea party last Saturday

The World Roundup of Major Christian Persecution in 2010
December 30, 2010
Iraq (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
At least two Christians were killed and 12 people wounded in a series of attacks on Christian homes in Baghdad. More HERE (Hat tip to AtlasShrugs) .
January 1, 2011
Egypt (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
A bomb killed at least 21 people outside a church in the Egyptian city of Alexandria early on New Year's Day and the Interior Ministry said a foreign-backed suicide bomber may have been responsible. Dozens of people were wounded by the blast, which scattered body parts, destroyed cars and smashed windows. More HERE. And HERE.

The police investigation into a New Year's church bombing that killed 21 people is focusing on a local group of Islamic hard-liners inspired by al-Qaida, Egyptian security officials said Sunday. Update HERE. And HERE.
Egyptian security guards withdrew an hour before the car explosion that went off in front of Saints Coptic Orthodox Church in Alexandria that killed 21 and injured 96 parishioners. According to church officials and eyewitnesses, there are many more victims that are still unidentified and whose body parts were strewn all over the street outside the church. The body parts were covered with newspapers until they were brought inside the church after some Muslims started stepping on them and chanting Jihadi chants. Video Here (Hat tip to GatesofVienna)
January 3, 2011
Egypt
A religious edict signed by a Mauritanian cleric linked to Al-Qaeda' s late leader in Iraq and posted to jihadist websites appears to legitimise the deadly New Year's Eve attack on a church in northern Egypt. Update. (Hat tip to JihadWatch) Pope Shenouda ended his spiritual mediation at St. Bishoy Monastery in Wadi Notroun to go back to the Cathedral's headquarters in Abbasiya on Sunday, meanwhile mulling whether or not to cancel Coptic Christmas celebrations. Some church leaders requested that the Jan. 7 Coptic Christmas celebrations be cancelled after the bombing of a church in Alexandria that left 21 dead and 97 injured.

Italy/European Union
European Union aid should be tied to respect for human rights in countries where Christian minorities are under attack, an Italian Foreign minister said Monday after a New Year's Day church bombing in the Egyptian city of Alexandria that killed 21 Coptic Christians. More HERE.

Russia (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Unidentified attackers set a church ablaze with a grenade in Russia's mainly Muslim North Caucasus late on Sunday, media reported, in the latest act of violence in a region where Moscow is struggling to contain an Islamist insurgency.
Germany (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Bishop Anba Damian, head of the Coptic Church in Germany, told a German newspaper that he had asked the government for special protection out of fear his church's followers would be targeted. "Before Christmas, the internet was full of threats against us," he said. "The police have warned us several times of the danger of attacks by radical Muslims. . . ."

Afghanistan
A judge told Shoaib Assadullah that if he did not renounce Christ within one week he would face up to 20 years in prison or even be sentenced to death. Shoaib was arrested on Oct. 21, 2010, when he gave a man a Bible.
January 4, 2011
Pakistan (Hat tip to AtlasShrugs)
A Pakistani politician, who had become a leading opponent in recent weeks of a court decision in November to sentence a 45-year-old Christian farm laborer, Asia Bibi to death for blasphemy against the Prophet Muhammad, was assassinated. More HERE. (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Update HERE. And HERE.
January 5, 2011
Egypt
A recent message posted on the al-Shumukh website and others considered close to Al-Qaeda addressed themselves directly to Coptic pope Shenuda III who was warned of "imminent new strikes" against Egyptian Copts. One message on a forum promised that "we will strike you all in a new attack. We have warned you as Allah is my witness." Update HERE.
January 6, 2011
Egypt l
A bomb was found under stair way of Saint Antonius Church in Il Minya (Upper Egypt).

USA/MidEast (Hat tip to persecution.org)
As the 21st Century enters its second decade, two millennia of Christian presence in the Middle East might be eclipsed by the end of the century.
January 7, 2011
France/MidEast
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Friday that Christian minorities in the Middle East are victims of "religious cleansing", following deadly attacks on churches in the region.

USA
Anti-Christian crimes are being downplayed by the media while Islamaphobia gets prominent news coverage even though the FBI hate crime statistics, for 2009, found that 8.4 percent of the 1,575 victims of anti-religious crimes were attacked because of anti-Islamic bias. In contrast, 71.9 percent of the victims were Jews.

Indonesia
An Islamic radical group is threatening to disrupt a Catholic gathering on religious freedom.

Europe (Hat tip to persecution.org)
Four EU countries, Hungary, Italy, France, and Poland, urge European action against anti-Christian violence.
January 8, 2011
Australia
The Weekend Australian says it understands the four churches were among a list of more than 60 Coptic Orthodox churches worldwide that were targeted by the unnamed Islamic extremist group.

Sudan (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Christians in North Sudan have fear of persecution if South Sudan votes to secede.
January 10, 2011
Indonesia
Government officials in West Java Province blocked one church from worshipping, and Islamic groups pressured authorities to seize the property of another during the Christmas season.

Italy/World-wide
Christians in Iraq, Egypt and Nigeria have been killed in churches, in Pakistan a blasphemy law has become an "excuse to cause injustice and violence" . . . The list of violations and attacks on religious freedom delivered today by Benedict XI to the representatives of 180 countries and international organizations that have diplomatic relations with the Holy See, touches hundreds of millions of people around the world.

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

Nov. 29, 2010 - December 27, 2010
November 29, 2010
Afghanistan
Two Afghans accused of converting to Christianity could face the death penalty, a prosecuting lawyer said on Sunday.
December 1, 2010
Pakistan (Hat tip to Atlas Shrugs)
Muslim extremists are blamed for the murders of five Christians in Pakistan in less than a week.
December 2, 2010
Indonesia
After closing churches in West Java, South Sulawesi, Sumatra, and other provinces, hard-line Islamic organizations are now attempting to stop Christian worship in or near shopping malls.

December 3, 2010
Egypt
Coptic teenagers were arrested by security authorities because they were working on building a new church which is in violation of Sharia law.
Pakistan (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
A pro-Taliban Pakistani Muslim cleric Friday offered a reward for anyone who kills a Christian woman who was sentenced to death on charges of insulting Islam, in violation of Sharia law.
Somalia
A Somali teenage girl was shot to death for becoming a Christian.
December 4, 2010
Pakistan
The Islamic terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Toiba and other Taliban groups have launched a fatwa (an official proclamation) against the Pakistani Minister for Religious Minorities, Shabhaz Bhatti, who happens to be a Catholic. Reliable sources in Pakistan confirmed that the minister is now being targeted by militants and has become a "legitimate objective" and "may be killed for being an accomplice to the blasphemy."
December 6, 2010
Iraq (Hat tip to AtlasShrugs)
Iraq's Christian minority took another hit Sunday evening when gunmen shot and killed an elderly Christian couple in their home.
Indonesia (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
US-backed elite Indonesian forces target church members and civilians.

December 7, 2010
NYC - USA (Hat tip to AtlasShrugs)
Historic St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, destroyed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, plans a multimillion-dollar suit against the Port Authority and other agencies for blocking its reconstruction.
December 8, 2010
Palestine (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
A video on official Hamas TV calls for Allah to kill Jews, Christians, Communists and their supporters. The video asks Allah to "count them and kill them to the last one, and don't leave even one."
December 9, 2010
Java (Hat tip to Jihadwatch)
The Archbishop of Semarang, has called the Catholic community "to remain calm" after the explosion of two bombs in the church of Christ the King in Central Java on 7 December. The attack is the latest in a series of attacks on Christian places of worship.

Australia
The leader of the Australian Anglican Communion, Archbishop Phillip Aspinall condemned attacks on Christians and Muslims in Pakistan in the December issue of FOCUS, the newspaper of the Anglican Diocese of Brisbane.
December 11, 2010
Bangladesh (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Police in Bangladesh said they believe at least two Islamic extremists are responsible for a bomb blast in a Catholic church building that killed 10 young Christians and maimed dozens of others in 2001.
Palestine (Hat tip to AtlasShrugs)
Music video from Hamas: "Kill the Christians and Jews to the last one."
December 13, 2010
Algeria
A Protestant clergyman and three of his parishioners were convicted on the basis of a controversial 2006 law that requires a permit to set up a place of worship. . . According to some observers, this trial against Algeria's Christian minority reflects a crackdown undertaken by Algerian government since February 2006 against non-Muslim religions. Since the 1990s, the country has been targeted by Islamic extremists.

Pakistan
An evangelist is still recovering from burns after six young Muslim men beat him with clubs and belts and set him on fire.
December 14, 2010
Afghanistan (Hat tip to Atlas Shrugs)
The International Red Cross neglects an Afghani man who converted to Christianity.
December 15, 2010
Iraq
One month ago, Muslim terrorists in Iraq massacred Christians at a church in Bagdad. A three year old boy who witnessed this horror, including the death of his parents, followed the terrorists, saying "Enough, enough," until he himself was murdered.

Kosovo (Hat tip to IslamInEurope)
Christian civilians detained by the Kosovo Liberation Army were allegedly shot to death in northern Albania so their kidneys could be extracted and sold on the black market after the war in Kosovo ended in 1999, according to a report prepared for Europe's premier human rights watchdog.
Background info: HERE and from James Jatras HERE (Hat tip to GatesofVienna) and from a documentary on a jihadi martyr in Bosnia HERE.
December 16, 2010
Pakistan (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
It promises to be a difficult Christmas for the Christian community in Pakistan. An alliance of radical Islamic groups has called for a large mass national demonstration on 24 December, after Friday prayers, to say "no" to the release of Asia Bibi and any changes to the blasphemy law.
December 17, 2010
Egypt (Hat tip to InfidelsAreCool)
A Muslim convert to Christianity has lost his family and job and has now been arrested and charged with 'defamation of religion.'
December 18, 2010
Iran
A group of nine Christians arrested in Hamadan are in prison, after being held in isolation without specific charges.

Indonesia
About 200 demonstrators from hard-line Islamic organizations in West Java on Sunday (Dec. 12) disrupted the worship of a church in Bandung, driving more than 100 worshippers from the building.
December 20, 2010
Egypt
An Egyptian priest has explained that radical Muslims are trying to rid the Middle East entirely of Christians, who once comprised the largest religious group in the region.

Somalia (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
The jihadi group Al Shabab destroyed a Christian library. They brought Bibles, books, and a/v material to the city center and burned them after Islamic noon prayers.

Middle East (Hat tip to Investigative Project on Terrorism)
Threats and attacks against Christians in the Holiday Season.

Indonesia
Authorities have banned all public activities or celebrations associated with Christmas, including Christmas Mass, at Saint John the Baptist Catholic Church. More HERE.

Turkey
Attorneys prosecuting the murder of three Christians in southeastern Turkey are making progress linking the knifemen who slayed them to the masterminds who put them up to it.
December 21, 2010
Canada (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
More than 100 Canadian-Arab Christians are listed on an al-Qaeda affiliated website, apparently targeted because of their alleged role in attempting to convert Muslims.

December 22, 2010
England
Muslims from a banned Islamic hate group have launched a nationwide poster campaign denouncing Christmas as evil.

Iraq
Iraq's Christian leaders called off Christmas celebrations amid new al-Qaida threats on the tiny community still terrified from a bloody siege on a Baghdad church. Update, December 24th HERE.

Bethlehem
This Christmas in Bethlehem, the cross has been banned from souvenirs for tourists and pilgrims in the Holy Land due to fear of retaliation from Islamic militants.

December 23, 2010
Pakistan
Update on the case of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman sentenced for death for blasphemy who is requesting a pardon.
December 25, 2010
Philippines/Nigeria (Hat tip to JihadWatch and Atlas Shrugs)
A bomb in a church during Christmas mass in the southern Philippines wounded six people, including the priest, even as Christian leaders highlighted the plight of believers facing the threat of attacks around the world. Update HERE.

In the northern Nigerian city of Kano on Friday, there were bombings during various Christmas Eve services. More on the Nigerian attack that killed thirty one people HERE.

December 26, 2010
Sweden (Hat tip to and translated by IslamInEurope from GP)
The Coptic Christian church in Gothenburg was closed down after receiving an internet threat.
December 27, 2010
Cyprus (Hat tip to AtlasShrugs)
The Cyprus government has protested to the United Nations and the European Union over an illegal act by the breakaway regime in the areas of the Republic occupied by Turkish troops to stop a religious service on Christmas day at a Turkish-occupied village, where Christian Orthodox Cypriot live as enclaved.
West Java
Hundreds of members of Saint John the Baptist Catholic Church celebrated Mass under the sun and in a tent set up in the parking lot of an elementary school due to the hostilities of local Muslims.

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

November 19, 2010 - November 30, 2010
November 19, 2010
Egypt (Hat tip to Kitman TV via GatesofVienna)
A brilliant new documentary from Swiss television detailing the harsh persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt. Related update HERE on the November 15th firebombing attack over the rumors of a romance between a Christian and Muslim.
Indonesia
More than 50 people from Islamic groups demonstrated against a church, chanting for it to stop worshipping during its Sunday service

November 22, 2010
Iraq (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Iraq's Christian community comes under attack, again. Gunmen shoot and kill two shop owners in cold blood.
Iraq (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Terrorist attacks against Christians have caused those living in Mosul to consider leaving the city according to Emil Shamoun Noona, the Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Mosul.
Russia (Hat tip to Weasel Zippers via JihadWatch)
The Moscow Patriarchate has condemned the attack on an Orthodox church in Ingushetia. He said that the church bombing was an attempt to spark an interreligious feud between Christians and Muslims.
November 23, 2010
Pakistan
Around 250 hard-line Muslims staged a demonstration in the central Pakistani city of Lahore on Wednesday, warning the president not to pardon a Christian woman sentenced to death for insulting Islam. More HERE.

Afghanistan
The the trial of a disabled man who faces the death penalty for allegedly converting from Islam to Christianity has been postoned. Said Musa, 45, was to appear without a lawyer in front of a court where a judge was expected to use 'sharia', the word for Islamic law, to reach a verdict.

November 24, 2010
Bangladesh
Selim Panni refers to Jews and Christians as true evils and preaches killing them or raping female members of Jewish and Christian societies as "divine task".

Egypt (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Muslims burn crosses and throw stones at Coptic Christians. Update HERE.
November 25, 2010
Egypt
One person died and 68 others were injured when Egyptian security forces halted construction on a Coptic church which according to the Sharia is against Islamic law. Update HERE.

Tanzania
Radical Islamists are suspected in the demolition of two church buildings on the island of Zanzibar as members of the congregations have since received death threats from Muslims.
November 26, 2010
Iran
A detained pastor of a major network of Christian house churches in Iran will be executed by hanging for "apostasy", or abandoning Islam.
Pakistan
Pakistan's president Asif Ali Zardari will not immediately pardon a Christian woman who has been sentenced to death for allegedly insulting Islam.
More HERE.
Egypt (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Al-Azhar attempted to persuade Egypt's Coptic Church to rebuff a US report claiming that Christians in Egypt were discriminated against. The Coptic Church had for the first time welcomed an annual US report on religious freedoms, saying there was indeed discrimination against Christians in Egypt.
Iraq
New death threats against Christians are terrorizing families and causing them to flee. Al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility for seven hand written messages found in various locations throughout Baghad.
November 27, 2010
Iraq
Iraqi security forces have detained a dozen militants suspected of helping take Christians hostage in a church siege that killed scores of worshipers and two priests last month.
Pakistan
A court in Pakistan has freed a Christian man who was wrongly jailed for 25 years for blasphemy after he allegedly defiled the Koran, the Muslim holy book, by touching it with unwashed hands.
Algiers (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Algeria will put on trial four converts to Christianity from Sunday for "illegally opening a place of worship." Under a 2006 Algerian law Muslims or non-Muslims can only practise their religion after authorities agree to a place of worship.
November 28, 2010
Pakistan
A Christian teenager "wrongly" convicted of "blasphemy" against Islam was still recovering Sunday, November 28, after Muslim inmates nearly stoned him to death in a prison in Pakistan's northwest Punjab province.
Pakistan
The father of a Christian executive kidnapped in Pakistan's Punjab province said he fears his son will be killed on orders of senior Muslim managers.
November 29, 2010
Ethopia
A Christian in Ethiopia's southern town of Moyale who languished in jail for more than three months after he was accused of desecrating the Quran has been sentenced to three years of prison.
November 30, 2010
Egypt
Christian Copts worldwide were shocked and enraged at the use of live ammunition by Egyptian state security forces against unarmed Coptic protesters, causing the death of three Coptic young men while a four-year old child suffocated from tear gas thrown inside the chapel.

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

November 1 - November 18, 2010
November 1, 2010
Iraq
Jihadis kill 58 Catholic Christians in church in Iraq. Update HERE. See photos HERE (Hat tip to AtlasShrugs Warning: graphic images). UPDATE: Exiled Archbishop calls on Iraqi Christians to leave the country. UPDATE: Christian refugees head for France.

Russia
Two Russian Orthodox churches and one Baptist church were targeted by arsonists on Monday night. One of them was almost burnt to the ground. More HERE.
November 2, 2010
Turkey
On the night between 28 and 29 October, unknown assailants entered, in the cemetery of the island of Panagia Imvros and seriously vandalised 78 graves.

Bangladesh
Muslim villagers last month beat a 63-year-old Christian convert and his youngest son because they refused to return to Islam.
November 3, 2010
Iraq
Al qaeda group says Christians are legitimate targets for 'terrorism."

November 5, 2010
Azerbaijan
Police burst into a private home and arrested 4 of Baptist Christians "guilty" of praying together.

Kuwait
Islamic fundamentalists preventing the construction of a church in Kuwait.(Sharia law that says that Christians cannot build new churches or fix old ones).
November 7, 2010
Israel (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Israeli authorities have charged the imam of a mosque in Nazareth with inciting violence against Pope Benedict and supporting al Qaeda and "global jihad."

Malaysia (Hat tip to InfidelsAreCool )
Muslim converts to Christianity in Malaysia have been taken to Islamic camps to try to force them back to Islam.
November 8, 2010
Iraq (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
In another attack against Christians in Iraq, a week after the massacre in the Syrian Catholic Church of Our Lady of Salvation in Baghdad, two worshipers were killed.

November 9, 2010
Pakistan
A Christian woman is sentenced to death for committing blasphemy against Islam by speaking of how Jesus had died on the cross for the sins of humanity and asking Muslim women what Muhammad had done for them. More HERE.

November 10, 2010
Iraq
A string of anti-Christian bombings has cost six more lives in the wake of the Baghdad church bloodbath, sowing panic in Iraq's 2,000-year-old minority on Wednesday, many of whom now want to flee. More HERE.
November 11, 2010
Iran
Senior Islamic cleric calls on the Pope to "react to U.S. crimes and to… consider the Qur'an as holy as the Gospels and Torah and condemn the disgraceful act of torching the Qur'an.

November 13, 2010
Egypt
Muslim/Christian tensions boiling up in Egypt.

Iran
An Iranian Christian pastor was sentenced to be hung for apostasy.

Europe
An article on Christian refugees who are fleeing from Iraq to Europe and there is no mention of the cause. Why?

Afghanistan
Afghan convert to Christianity goes on trial for aspostasy. Background on this story HERE.
November 15, 2010
Canada
A Roman Catholic bishop speaks out about the persecution of the massacre of Iraqi Christians.

Egypt
Muslim attackers in upper Egypt started fires in Coptic Christian houses while Copts were still inside. Update HERE.
November 16, 2010
Nigeria
Muslim gunmen raided Ranwianku, attacking villagers with rifle fire and machetes; homes were burned and cattle killed.

November 17, 2010
Mid-East (Hat tip to InfidelsAreCool)
The Arab Christians of the Mid-East are being driven to extinction.
November 18, 2010
Pakistan
A man accused of blasphemy was shot and killed near his home in Lahore shortly after being granted bail by a court.

November, 2010
Special Report from France Translated (Hat tip to derville, via AtlasShrugs)
derville said...
. . . As you probably know, Christian cemeteries in France are profaned about every two days:
"In 2008, 275 Christian places of worship have been vandalized (146 cemeteries and 129 churches, chapels and shrines). The following year, the figures rose from 42% to 180 and 209. And for the first half of 2010, we are already at 288 acts listed, all Christian places of worship included. "(...) This increasingly aggressive climate against Christians now lead to church attacks.

Christians stoned during mass in the Church of Viguier (5th November)
Tuesday, November 2, around 18:30, when he celebrated Mass for the deceased in the presence of about sixty followers, two teenagers of North African origin have entered the church whose doors were obviously open. "They started throwing stones at people, and hard pine cones. They must have been 13 or 14 years old. A woman was slightly injured. [...] "With previous generations, we have the best possible relations. We even received last year the wishes of the Muslim community for Christmas. But there is a young generation with a more and more aggressive behavior, "says Bruno Garrouste. More HERE (Hat tip to IslamInEurope).

Insulting tags and feces thrown on St. John Church in Avignon (12th November)
For several months, Father Gabriel's church St. John's, has been the target of obscene and offensive tags and excrements. Last week, the fire was set at Cypress adjacent to the religious building, threatening to spread flames to the church. For this priest, "these acts have a direct link with what is happening in Iraq where Christians were attacked."
At the outset, Father Gabriel talks about inter-community tensions and denounces "an increasingly aggressive climate and violence maintained by a small group of young people 12/13 years up to 16 years old." A few days before the burning of Cypress, a youth entered the church during mass, urinating on the porch saying, "We'll toast you all, you and your church."

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

October 5-29, 2010

October 5, 2010
Maldives
Muslims force a Christian teacher to flee the Maldives. Mistaking a compass she drew for a cross, parents of students threatened to expel her.
October 6, 2010
Somalia
An underground Christian family from central Somalia is agonizing over the kidnapping of their daughter nearly eight months ago by Islamic militants bent on punishing those who leave Islam.
October 7, 2010
Ethiopia
A Christian in Ethiopia's southern town of Moyale has been languishing in jail for two months after his Muslim business partner accused him of writing "Jesus is Lord" in a copy of the Quran, local church leaders said.
October 8, 2010
Middle East
Pope Benedict has called bishops to a two-week Vatican synod from Oct. 10 to discuss the fate of Christian minorities in the Middle East, where some face conflict, discrimination, economic woes or sectarian tensions.
October 10, 2010
Egypt
The recent attack by Muslim fundamentalists on the Coptic Church and its head Pope Shenouda III, accusing him of causing sectarian tensions and calling for his "disposal," is seen by some as a sign that matters "got out of hand" and that Egypt is heading towards a catastrophe . . .
October 13, 2010
Indonesia
Islamic organizations have mounted a campaign against the planned construction of Mother Teresa Catholic Church in West Java Province, where Christian leaders report 20 other churches have faced Muslim hostility since 2009. More HERE.
October 15, 2010
Malawi
Malawi Muslims burn Christian Bibles.

Indonesia
A church in Banten Province that has been in conflict with Muslim groups for more than two years was compelled to cease meeting in the pastor's home last week in a bid to put an end to harassment and threats.
October 18, 2010
Egypt
Egypt continues persecution of Coptic Christians.

Iran
The wife of a prominent evangelical pastor in Iran was free Monday, October 18, after four months of detention, but her husband still faced the death penalty for abandoning Islam, the Church of Iran said.
October 19, 2010
Norway/Saudi Arabia (Translated at IslaminEurope)
Norwegian government says a Saudi-funded mosque will not be allowed to be built in Norway until churches are allowed to be built in Saudi Arabia.

October 20, 2010
Holland
Christian asylum seekers living temporarily in Dutch refugee centres are often threatened or physically abused by fellow refugees who are Muslims, according to a Dutch support group.

USA/Egypt
On October 20, 2010, Dr. Monir Dawoud, president of the American Coptic Association, led a rally in front of the United Nations' New York headquarters to "demonstrate [against] the impending massacre and ethnic cleansing of our people - the Coptic-Christians of Egypt - by the jihadist Muslim Brotherhood groups helped by the Egyptian government of Hosni Mubarak."
October 21, 2010
Pakistan
80-year-old Christian in southern Punjab Province said Muslims beat him and his 75-year-old wife, breaking his arms and legs and her skull, because he refused a prostitute they had offered him.
October 23, 2010
Italy
The Koran is a text that encourages Islam to impose itself with force and permits the killing of Christians, said Lebanon's Catholic Patriarch of Antioch Archbishop Raboula Beylouni, addressing a Vatican meeting of Middle East bishops.
October 24, 2010
Iran
An Iranian Christian dies after being beaten by a Muslim relative.

October 25, 2010
Sudan
Police in Sudan evicted the staff of a Presbyterian church from its events and office site in Khartoum earlier this month, aiding a Muslim businessman's effort to seize the property.

Pakistan
Local authorities apply law 144 / c, which bans any gathering of more than two individuals. The Christians had organized the mass to protest against the illegal occupation of the Protestant chapel since October 19 by a group of Islamic extremists .

Indonesia
The violence and attacks, against Christian churches of all denominations, has grown in recent years and now in the past several days, especially in Jakarta and in the western part of Java island.
October 26, 2010
Pakistan
Two young Pakistani Christians have been accused of blasphemy, resulting in threats by local Muslims to burn them alive.

Egypt
Al-Jazeera TV repeated accusations that Egypt's Christians are stockpiling weapons, as well as kidnapping and torturing women.
October 27, 2010
Bangladesh (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Muslim neighbors of a Christian family in Bangladesh scheduled to be baptized last month beat them and filed a false charge of attempted murder against them and other Christians, the head of the family said.

Iran
A Christian pastor was convicted of apostasy, a crime that carries the death sentence in the Islamic state of Iran, while his wife was sentenced to life in prison. A message from him to his congregation HERE.
October 28, 2010
Malawi (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Muslim students attending a Catholic primary school in Malawi tore up New Testaments that were being distributed by the Gideons International organization, which promotes the distribution of Bibles.

October 29, 2010
Pakistan
A Muslim land owner in Pakistan this month subjected a 25-year-old Christian to burns and a series of humiliations, including falsely charging him with having sex with his own niece, because the Christian refused to work for him without pay.

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

August 26-September 14, 2010

August 26, 2010
Pakistan
Christians affected by the devastating floods in Pakistan face "systematic discrimination" in the distribution of aid. Update HERE. (hat tip to JihadWatch)
August 28, 2010
Pakistan (Hat tip to InfidelsAreCool)
Suspected Islamic militants have killed three American Christian aid workers who were helping victims of Pakistan's worst floods in recent memory.
August 31, 2010
Iraq
The Christian minority in Iraq has little faith in the peace-keeping abilities of the police force when the U.S. armed forces leave.
September 1, 2010
Pakistan
Muslims resumed building on a Christian cemetery desecrating more graves in spite of a local government order to halt construction.
September 6, 2010
Israel
Jerusalem's Garden Tomb is in endangered by a Muslim construction project.
September 12, 2010
Indonesia
Assailants stabbed a Christian worshipper in the stomach and pounded a minister in the head with a wooden plank as they headed to morning prayers Sunday outside Indonesia's capital. Update HERE.
September 13, 2010
Kashmir
Indian police shot dead 13 people in Kashmir on Monday as stone-throwing rioters defied curfews and torched a Christian school in a surge of anger stoked by the desecration of the Koran.

Punjab, India
Muslims in India reportedly attacked a church late Sunday night after they heard reports that a Quran had been burned in Michigan, according to Indian media outlets.
September 13, 2010
Italy (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Italy will present a resolution to the United Nations that protects the rights of Pakistan's religious minorities, Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini said in Rome on Monday. He made the announcement following a meeting with Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan's minister of minority rights, who is a Catholic.

September 14, 2010
Iran (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
14, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, delivered a fiery address on Monday accusing the United States government of orchestrating desecrations of the Koran by right-wing American Christian groups last weekend.

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

July 29, 2010-August 19, 2010
July 29, 2010
Pakistan
A dozen masked men shot five Christians to death as they came out of their church building.

Morocco (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
The Morocco king says that Evangelical Christians must stop preaching or get out of the country.

August 2, 2010
Bangladesh
Two Christian families suffer extortion and beatings.
August 6, 2010
Zanzibar
Officials stop a church from being built and build a mosque instead.
August 7, 2010
Afghanistan
Eight foreigners and two Afghans of the International Assistance Mission (IAM), a Christian charitable organization providing aid and medical assistance to the Afghan people were killed by the Taliban. Details HERE.
August 8, 2010
Indonesia
In the latest jihad attacks on religious minorities in West Java, 300 Islamic hard-liners intimidated, bullied and assaulted a priest and 20 Christian churchgoers praying in a field on Sunday morning.
August 9, 2010
Somalia (hat tip to JihadWatch)
A Somali militant group with links to al-Qaida on Monday announced it had banned three Christian aid agencies.
August 10, 2010
Maldives
Christians can't have Bibles or religious literature in this Muslim country.
August 11, 2010
Saudi Arabia
Al Qaeda says kill the Christians and Jews.

Malaysia
More closures of non-Muslim religious clubs in Malaysian schools, including Christian fellowships, have surfaced.
August 12 2010
Pakistan
Christians observed a 'Black Day' of protest yesterday to mark the many discriminations they endure, above all the blasphemy law, which continues to inflict suffering on its victims.
August 13, 2010
Indonesia (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Mob threats lead to church closure. Update HERE.

Algeria (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
A group of Christian and Muslims from Algeria, Morocco and Italy are planning a pilgrimage in the footsteps of St. Augustine. One of their intentions is that "Muslims who have heard the call of the Lord Jesus should not be prohibited from entering the Church." This refers to some episodes in France and Algeria, where many Muslims who wanted to be baptized, have been impeded by priests and bishops, fearful of the consequences and overly precautious.
Malaysia
Two Muslim youths are sentenced to five years in prison for an arson attack on a Christian church.
August 14, 2010
Egypt
An imam called for jihad against the Copts, and over the next two days, many Copts were assaulted.
August 16, 2010
Pakistan
Rapes of Christian girls reflect a hidden trend as they are commonplace but rarely reported.
Lebanon
Shia-controlled Al-Manar and NBN networks pull Iranian series based on an apocryphal story about Jesus in which Judas dies in his place.

Nigeria (Hat tip to Jihad Watch)
Muslim students of the University of Ibadan this morning paralysed activities during a protest against the institution's refusal to expel a part four law student who preached gospel in the school mosque.

August 17, 2010
Somalia
The tiny Christian population is regularly persecuted by Islamic extremists so they are asking Christians worldwide to pray for their safety during Islam's holy month of Ramadan.

Indonesia
The country that is home to the world's largest Muslim population celebrated its 65th Independence Day today amid a widespread sense of distrust in the government's ability to check attacks on churches by Islamist groups.
August 19, 2010
Egypt
The head of the Coptic Church in Egypt has warned followers that the police in the country are wiretapping their calls and said they should not confess sins over the phone.

Zanzibar
Christian university students have been denied the right to worship, while on another part of the island, a Christian leader has been jailed.

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

July 1- July 26, 2010
July 1, 2010
Morocco
Moroccan authorities expelled eight more foreign Christians from the country last weekend, bringing the total of deported Christians since March to 128.
July 3, 2010
Indonesia (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
A banner with a picture of a young, bespectacled Christian man is draped in front of a mosque, a fiery noose around his neck and the words, "This man deserves the death penalty!" More HERE. http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Radical-Muslims-threaten-to-kill-Christian-man-in-Bekasi-18839.html
July 4, 2010
India
Two Muslims were arrested for cutting off the hand of a Christian college teacher because he had an exam question that allegedly insulted Muslims.
July 8, 2010
Pakistan
The local government has forbidden poor Christians from taking advantage of a soup kitchen because of their faith.
July 8, 2010
Pakistan (Hat tip to Atlas Shrugs)
Muslim mob murdered the wife and four children of a Christian last month, but local authorities are too afraid of the local Muslim leader to file charges.
July 9, 2010
Pakistan
A Christian family had to flee their home to escape a mob of local Muslims.
July 10, 2010
Pakistan
Christian students in Pakistan are victims of violence and discrimination.
July 12, 2010
Kashmir
A Catholic missionary is forced to leave his two schools in Kashmir because they are "too good."
July 13, 2010
Iran
(Hat tip to JihadWatch)
An Iranian pastor faces execution after two judges agreed to make him "liable to capital punishment," as part of a crackdown on the growing Protestant church movement in the Islamic nation.
July 14, 2010
Egypt
What happens when Islamic totalitarianism meets Christian freedom.

Turkey (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Police have started an investigation after the façade of the 1,700-year-old Mor Jacob Syriac Orthodox Church in Nusaybin, was defaced with pro-Islamic slogans.
July 16, 2010
Pakistan
A large number of Christians has fled the outskirts of Faisalabad, fearing violence, after Muslims launched a protest action that started at a local mosque after Friday prayers.

Russia (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
A minister died who was shot while leaving church in an attempt to intimidate Christian converts from Islam.
July 17, 2010
Nigeria
A Christian priest and three others were murdered and their church burned down.

Nigeria (Hat tip to InfidelsAreCool)
At least eight people have been hacked to death in a predominantly Christian village in central Nigeria.
July 19, 2010
Pakistan
A Christian herbal medicine doctor has been deprived of his house and only daughter because he had refused to convert to Islam.

Pakistan
Gunmen have killed two Christian brothers who had been accused of blasphemy against Islam. More HERE. Update HERE.
July 21, 2010
Indonesia (Hat tip to InfidelsAreCool)
A group of 500 Islamic extremists blocked Christians from a Protestant Church in a field where the Sunday service was taking place.
July 23, 2010
Indonesia (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
A group called the Forum of the Muslim Brotherhood of Limusnunggal went to the police and had a Christian church pulled down.
July 26, 2010
Indonesia (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Attacks on Christian churches are up in Indonesia.

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

May 15, 2010 - May 31, 2010

May 15, 2010
Iraq
In-depth article on the "obliteration" of the Iraqi Christians.
May 17, 2010
Egypt
An Egyptian convert to Christianity said he is devastated by a recent court decision to suspend a lawsuit he filed to change the religion on his identification card from Muslim to Christian.
May 18, 2010
Yemen
Saudi Arabian and Yemeni security forces rescued two German girls yesterday, 11 months after the two young sisters, their parents, brother and four other Christians were taken hostage in Yemen.
May 18, 2010
Sudan
Three Samaritan's Purse employees have been abducted in Sudan.
May 19, 2010
Pakistan
Muslim teachers at a girls school here have derided Christian students for their faith, beat them, pressured them to convert to Islam and forced them to clean school bathrooms and classrooms after class hours, according to area Christians.
May 20, 2010
Iran
A Christian couple who were arrested and detained for 75 days on the charges of evangelizing the Christian faith in the city of Isafahan was released conditionally after posting a $100,000 bail bond.
May 21, 2010
Morocco
In a second wave of deportations from Morocco, officials of the majority-Muslim country have expelled 26 foreign Christians in the last 10 days without due process.
May 21, 2010
Nigeria
Muslim extremists destroyed several churches and a pastor's house in the latest religious violence to hit Nigeria.
May 22, 2010
United States/Egypt
Leaders of the Coptic Christians, whose community is facing growing persecution in Egypt, say they have been unsuccessful in efforts to gain a hearing from the White House or other parts of the Obama administration.
May 23, 2010
Iran
Iran has acquitted "on all charges" two young women who were detained fourteen months ago "for their Christian faith and activities" and abandoning Islam.
May 23, 2010
Somalia
Somalia's minority Christians observed Pentecost amid gunfire Sunday, May 23, as witnesses reported that at least 14 people died in clashes between pro-government troops and Muslim militants who have killed Christians and pledged to turn Somalia into a strict Islamic state.
May 24, 2010
Indonesia
Bogor mayor closes the church of an important local Christian group, banning all its activities. The faithful protest and take their faith to the streets. Rights groups issue official protest.

Pakistan
Several Pakistani Muslims who recently participated in the marriage ceremony organized by a well-to-do Muslim man, allegedly heavily drank alcohol, vomited and then ransacked and desecrated a nearby church.
May 25, 2010
Pakistan
Islamists armed with pistols and rifles waited for two Christian couples to return to their rented home this week, seeking to kill them after the newlyweds complained to police that the radical Muslims had falsely accused them of desecrating the Quran, according to a local Christian legislator.

Pakistan
A Christian who accused a Muslim of raping his 12-year-old daughter has fled his town in Punjab Province with his family following death threats and police pressure to drop the case.

Egypt
For nearly two years, El-Gohary and his teenage daughter have been living in hiding because he abandoned Islam and embraced Christianity. During this time he has been beaten and forcibly detained, and his daughter has been attacked. He has had to endure death threats, poverty and crushing boredom.

Pakistan
Muslims invaded a church and threatened to massacre the worshipers. But when the Christians went to the police to file a report, they were charged with crimes!

May 26, 2010
Pakistan
The Khatm-e-Nabuwat Conference, an international Islamic organization, has put up banners saying "Jews, Christians and Marzai (Ahmadis) are enemies of Islam," along several roads in the city.
Uzbekistan
The New Zealand member of the World Evangelical Alliance is calling on the government to make representation to the authorities in the central Asian country of Uzbekistan, asking them to honour their commitment to the United Nations declaration on religious freedom and desist from religious persecution.
May 27, 2010
Turkey
The trial of five men who murdered three Christians continues.
Pakistan
Sidra Sarwar, a fourteen-year-old Christian girl, has been allegedly raped by three Muslim men and held in captivity for about three months
May 28, 2010
Turkey
The 11th hearing of a case of two Turkish Christians accused of "insulting Turkishness" closed just minutes after it opened this week, due to lack of any progress.
May 29, 2010
Egypt
An Egyptian court issued a controversial ruling on Saturday, May 29, which deprived the head of the Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Church of the control over matters of divorce and marriage, giving the civil courts the authority to oversee affairs which the Church considers are in its core religious competencies.
May 31, 2010
Afghanistan (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Afghan authorities suspended two Christian foreign aid groups Monday on suspicion of proselytizing in the strictly Islamic nation.

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

April 17 - May 15, 2010

April 17, 2010
Nigeria
Update on the Jos massacres.
April 22, 2010
Egypt
Lawyers of Christmas Eve murder victims request a change of judge in Egypt. And more HERE.

USA
Members of Congress are pressing the State Department to act on the "grim reality" faced by Coptic Christian women in Egypt, who frequently are coerced into violent forced marriages that leave them victim to rape and captive slavery.
April 23, 2010
Iran
Three cases of assault upon Iranian Christian leaders reported in the past week.
April 26, 2010
USA
The 'Underwear Bomber' in a tape says, "the enemy is in your lands with their armies, the Jews and the Christians and their agents." He reads several passages from the Koran and adds, "God said if you do not fight back, He will punish you and replace you."

Egypt
Christian twin boys refuse to be Muslims.
April 27, 2010
Nigeria (Hat Tip to InfidelsAreCool )
Two journalists working for a Christian magazine were hacked to death by a mob in a predominantly Muslim suburb in the flashpoint Nigerian city of Jos, a union official said Monday. Nathan Dabak, deputy editor of the bimonthly Light Bearer and reporter Sunday Gyang Bwede, were pulled from a motorcycle and killed on Saturday evening as youths rioted in the aftermath of the death of a Muslim teen.
April 28, 2010
West Java Indonesia
Muslim extremists attacked a Christian educational center in Bogor regency, West Java province, Indonesia. The toll from yesterday's attack is three destroyed cars and several buildings damaged or burnt. The wrath of fundamentalists was unleashed, and encouraged by the local Council of Ulema (MUI), by unsubstantiated rumours that the Christian community BKP Penabur were planning "to build a place of worship" within the complex. Update HERE. And HERE.
April 28, 2010
Pakistan
A Christian barber in this Punjab Province city is still recovering from broken bones and other injuries sustained earlier this month after eight Muslims allegedly beat and sodomized him for cutting the beard of a Muslim.

Pakistan
A Christian housemaid is tortured by a member of the Pakistan Air Force Police.
April 29, 2010
Pakistan (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
A Pakistani man beat two Christian brothers with an iron rod. One died and the other was seriously injured.
May 2, 2010
Iraq (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Two bombs exploded minutes apart Sunday near buses carrying Christian students in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, killing at least one bystander and injuring around 100 others, a security official said. Sunni Muslim insurgents have frequently targeted members of Iraq's Christian minority, especially in Mosul, which is home to a large Christian community. Some extremist Sunnis consider Christians to be nonbelievers and supporters of the Shiite-led government they oppose. Update HERE. And HERE.
May 5, 2010
Somalia
Jihadis execute a Christian leader in the underground church movement.
May 6, 2010
Pakistan
A Christian mother who was trying to find her kidnapped daughter was beaten by Muslims.

Pakistan
Five Christian boys have been forced to leave their homes in Lahore, after they were accused of committing blasphemy.
May 8, 2010
Pakistan
On April 4, 2010, Easter Sunday, ten Christian men were beaten by Muslims in Sargodha, and then, despite being severely injured, were booked by the local police.
May 10, 2010
Pakistan
The Pakistani court released 8 Christian workers after they had been detained illegally by their employer.
May 13, 2010
Italy
Two Moroccan terrorist suspects deported from Italy last month were allegedly plotting to kill Pope Benedict XVI.
Britain (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
A Roman Catholic schoolgirl has been labeled a truant after she refused to wear a headscarf during a compulsory trip to a mosque.
May 14, 2010
Iraq
A report on Christian persecution in Iraq.
May 15, 2010
Pakistan (Hat tip to AtlasShrugs)
A low-wage Pakistani Christian said his Muslim employer last week forced him to sell his kidney in an effort to pay off a loan his boss made at exorbitant interest rates charged only to non-Muslims.

A Special Review: The Middle Eastern Review of International Affairs on the Declining Situation of the Copts in Egypt.

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

April 1 - April 16, 2010

April 1, 2010

Pakistan
A Muslim land owner who effectively seized a Christian graveyard here refused to allow the burial of a young Christian at the site

April 3, 2010

Iraq
The United Nations humanitarian arm has reported that 4,320 Iraqi Christians have been displaced following recent unrest in the northern city of Mosul in Iraq.
April 4, 2010
Jordan
Jordanian Christians risk their professional reputation and family disapproval by going to holy sites in Israel on Easter Sunday.
Pakistan
A Pakistani court has fined police for "illegally" detaining and "torturing" a Christian young man.
April 6, 2010
Egypt
Christian converts from Islam are persecuted in Egypt.
April 7, 2010
Pakistan
A Christian woman admits to committing blasphemy against Islam.
April 8, 2010
Pakistan
Police here filed false charges of alcohol possession against 47 Christians, including women and children, on March 28 in an attempt to intimidate and bribe them.
April 10, 2010
Iran
Two Christian converts from Islam, who were originally charged with anti-government activities and held in Tehran's notorious Evin Prison for more than six months, will go on trial, Tuesday, April 13.
Egypt
The Copt Christians claim a Copt has been framed for raping a Muslim girl and allege that Muslims are using this crime as the reason they murdered 7 Copts on Christmas Eve in a drive-by shooting.

April 11, 2010
Egypt
Copts complain about the hate messages loudly spewed by the microphones of many a mosque during Friday sermons.
April 12, 2010
Philippines
Jihadis targeted a government office and a church in Isabela city on Basilan island with two home-made bombs, in the latest show of force from the Abu Sayyaf network that is blamed for the worst attacks in the Philippines. More HERE.
April 13, 2010
Morocco, translated. (Hat Tip to Infidelsarecool)
Throughout the month of March about 70 Christians have been forced to flee the country, as calculated by the different churches.
West Java
Christians are suing the government for unilaterally closing their under construction church following protests
from local Muslim residents.

Indonesia
A Muslim terrorist is involved in the beheading of three Christian female students killed in Aceh.
Pakistan
A Muslim tricked a 19-year-old Christian woman into leaving her house here on April 1, and he and a car full of friends took her away, according to her family. The family fears the man will force her to marry him and convert to Islam.
April 14, 2010
Iraq
An personal account of the persecution of Iraq's remaining Assyrian Christian minority.
April 15, 2010
Mogadishu, Somalia (Hat tip to Jihadwatch)
Somalia's al Shabaab militants have ordered schools in Jowhar town to stop using bells to signal the end of classes because they sound like those of Christian churches, teachers said on Thursday.
Kyrgyzstan
Christians, who claim persecution under the current government leadership, help injured as gunfire rocks a presidential rally.
April 16, 2010
Nigeria
Pentacostal Christians threaten to sue the government for the killings of Christians by a Muslim orthodox sect last year.

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

March 20 - March 31, 2010

March 20, 2010
Bangladesh
Armed with knives, bricks, and sticks, a group of Muslims attacked Christian villagers in Bangladesh injuring 50.
March 21, 2010
Indonesia
Hundreds of Muslims mobbed the Huria Kristen Batak Protestant Church under construction, calling for the project to be halted.
March 23, 2010
Pakistan
A Pakistani Christian who was burned by Muslim hardliners for refusing to convert to Islam, died early Tuesday at the age of 38.

Nigeria
Nigeria will prosecute hundreds of suspects in the slaughter of hundreds of Christians.
March 24, 2010
Egypt
An Anglican Church pastor and his wife were assaulted by Security agents in Luxor in order to evacuate them by force from their home and demolish Church property.

Pakistan
A Christian woman is accused of "blaspheming" Mohammed.

Somalia
Islamic militants in Somalia tracked down an underground church leader who had previously escaped a kidnapping attempt and killed him last week, Christian sources said. And HERE.
March 25, 2010
Pakistan
Muslims kill a Christian for not converting to Islam.

Pakistan
There was an increase in violent attacks on religious minorities in Pakistan in 2009 and the government failed to take effective preventive action, according to the Human Rights Commission.The report singled out attacks against the Christian community in areas dominated by insurgents.
March 26, 2010 (Hat Tip to JihadWatch.org)
Nigeria
Residents of Nigerian village live in fear of renewed massacres.
March 28, 2010
Pakistan
A Muslim land owner who effectively seized a Christian graveyard refused to allow the burial of a young Christian at the site.

March 29, 2010
Indonesia
Under sharia based Indonesian law, naked Christian angels and Christ on the Cross could be interpreted as pornography.

USA
A Muslim student wants to remove the words "Our Lord" from the Trinity University diploma. Founded by Presbyterians in 1869, Trinity has been governed by an independent board of trustees since 1969 but maintains a "covenant relationship" with the church.
March 31, 2010
Bosnia
Serbian Christians were sent invitations to convert to Islam.

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

March 3 - March 20, 2010
March 3, 2010
Pakistan
A Pakistani court convicted a Christian couple, Munir Masih and Ruqqiya Bibi, to 25 years in prison for touching the Koran without washing their hands.
March 4, 2010
Egypt
Egyptian sharia court acquits Muslims who beheaded a Christian.
March 5, 2010
Gaza Strip
From MEMRI: Rome will be conquered by Islam says preacher on Al Aqsa TV.
March 7, 2010
Nigeria
Muslims attack a Christian village and kill more than 100 people. Update HERE. And MORE. And HERE.
March 7, 2010
Nigeria
A time-line of Muslim attacks on Christians in Nigeria, beginning in the year 2000.
March 9, 2010
Egypt
Christian villagers are under siege by Muslims in Upper Egypt.
March 9, 2010
Iran
Protestant clergyman tortured for "converting Muslims" An anti-Protestant crackdown is underway in Isfahan. The regime's fight against proselytising is coupled with fears that Christian gatherings might host its opponents.
March 9, 2010
Pakistan (Hat Tip JihadWatch.org)
In the weeks following a February attack on Christian churches and homes in Pakistan's largest city, police have questioned 40 Christians and arrested five, according to a report published by the Fides news agency.
March 12, 2010
Pakistan
A Christian maid is raped and burned alive.
March 13, 2010
Egypt
Three thousand muslims attack a Coptic Christian community and injure 25 people including women and children.
March 13, 2010
Egypt
A video of the history and background of the persecution of the Egyptian Copts.
March 13, 2010 (Hat Tip Islamineurope.blogspot.com)
England
The Home Office was accused of discriminating against Christian groups after it emerged a Muslim police group has received at least six times more funding than a Christian one.
March 14, 2010
Egypt
A Muslim teacher sexually assaulted a Coptic Christian girl at school.
March 17, 2010
Egypt
Muslims who convert to Christianity face persecution by the state and rejection by their families.
March 17, 2010
Palestine
In its official statement in honor of International Women's Day, the Fatah movement listed a group of "Palestinian" women of whom it is proud: Martyrs, fighters, prisoners and the Virgin Mary. Turning Virgin Mary and Jesus from Judeans (Jews) into "Palestinians" is a basic part of the Palestinian Authority's revision of history.
March 17, 2010
Nigeria
Attackers killed 12 people Wednesday morning in a small Christian village in central Nigeria, officials said, cutting out most of the victims' tongues in the latest violence in a region where religious fighting already has killed hundreds this year.
March 17, 2010
Iraq
Yaqub Adam, a 54-year-old father was hit by a hail of bullets fired from a pistol with a silencer. He was murdered near the shop where he worked as a glassmaker.

March 17, 2010
Palestine
After 14 years on the air, the government shuts down the only Palestinian Christian TV station. Located about 350 metres from Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, the station broadcast shows with social, religious, economic and cultural content.
March 18, 2010
Egypt
Egyptian security forces have arrested 13 Coptic Christians - including four minors, subsequently released - victims of the attack on 12 March. They are being charged with illegal religious assembly, damage to public property, arson and assault. About a dozen Muslims, from a total of 2000 perpetrators, have been detained over the assault against 400 Coptic faithful at the Church of St. Michael in Mersa Matrouh .
March 18, 2010
Pakistan
Five Muslims ransacked the house of an impoverished Christian last month and angrily beat his daughters in an effort to get the family to withdraw rape charges.
March 19, 2010
Pakistan/Canada
Daniel Dhani Ram fled to Canada from Pakistan with his two daughters after Muslim extremists abducted and tortured him for 10-hours because he refused to convert to Islam.
March 19, 2010
Malaysia
Canings and church firebombings have some wondering whether the nation's Muslims are becoming more conservative and less tolerant of Christians and other minority groups.
March 19, 2010
Nigeria
Movement for the Survival of Plateau People (MOSOPP) has called for protection against genocide due to the Jos jihad.
March 20, 2010
Pakistan
Christian man is fighting for his life after Muslim leaders backed by police burned him alive for refusing to convert to Islam, while his wife was raped by police officers.

March 20, 2010
Australia
Assyrians in Australia rally in support of Egypt's persecuted Copts.

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

February 12 - February 28, 2010
February 12, 2010
Saudi Ariabia
Christian Filipino workers in Saudi Arabia are complaining that their employers are threatening to fire them if they do not convert to Islam.
February 12, 2010
Indonesia
A crowd of over 150 Muslims in the village of Curug Mekar, in a West Java province, staged a protest against the building permit of a Protestant church.

February 12, 2010
Turkey
An Istanbul court has ordered the release of a jailed Turk who publicly threatened and held a knife to the throat of a Christian he attacked six months ago.
February 15, 2010
Turkey
Christian converts still in court for slandering Islam and the Turkish nation and trying to convert muslims.
Feb 16, 2010
Iraq
Gunmen killed two Christian shop owners in separate attacks within 24 hours in the city of Mosul, police said as the community's leaders hit out at the violence. Update HERE.
February 16, 2010
Pakistan
Pakistani Christians have strongly protested the release on bail of a Muslim lawyer accused of raping, torturing and killing last month Shazia Bashir, a 12-year-old Catholic girl, employed in his household as domestic worker.
February 18, 2010
Kenya
Prosecutors and police are trying to concoct a terrorism case against an Ethiopian convert from Islam who has been jailed since May without formal charges.
February 22, 2010
Pakistan
The four older Muslim brothers of a 26-year-old Christian beat him unconscious here earlier this month because he refused their enticements to convert to Islam.
February 22, 2010
Bangladesh
Violence stoked by disputed land, which Muslims settlers want to rob from Christians and Buddhists. Local sources say the army fired on the crowd. At least 50 homes and the UN headquarters destroyed. Dhaka promises reconstruction of places of worship. Update HERE and HERE.
February 22, 2010
Saudi Arabia
A Fillipino maid in Saudi Arabia says, ""During my three years working in Saudi Arabia I was never allowed to leave the house or have a day off to go to mass".
February 23, 2010
Egypt
Egyptian State Security has been accused by lawyers, rights activists and victims' families of torturing the Christian youths arrested in the aftermath of the Christmas Eve shootings of Copts on January 6, 2010.
February 25, 2010
Iraq
In a "humanitarian emergency" in just one day, hundreds of Christian families left the city in search of shelter, leaving behind their homes, property, commercial activities: the situation "is dramatic" said the Chaldean archbishop of Mosul.
February 23, 2010
Nigeria
A Muslim mob burned down Christians' shops and eight Christian churches.

February 26, 2010
Iran
An evangelical priest was among nine Christians arrested in central Iran on Friday as authorities continued a crackdown against Christians in the Islamic country.
February 26, 2010
Pakistan
In the wake of an attack this week by 150 armed Muslims on a Christian colony in this city in Sindh Province, police have filed a false First Information Report (FIR) against 40 unnamed Christians and arrested five, Christian leaders said.
February 26, 2010
Indonesia
Demonstrators from 16 Islamic organizations, including the hard-line Islamic Defenders Front, gathered on Feb. 15 to demand a stop to all activities by the Galilea Protestant Church in the Galaxy area of Bekasi City.
February 26, 2010
Middle East and Asia
The rise of Islamic extremism is putting increasing pressure on Christians in Muslim countries, who are the victims of murder, violence and discrimination. Christians are now considered the most persecuted religious group around the world.
Part 2 HERE
Part 3 HERE
February 27, 2010
Liberia
Fighting broke out between Christians and Muslims when a Christian girl's dismembered body was found near a mosque. An unknown number of deaths resulted while Catholic, Baptist and Episcopal churches in the area were burned down.

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

January 12 - February 9, 2010
Europe
January 12, 2010
Portugal
The church of the Holy Trinity and four statues at the shrine of Our Lady of Fatima were vandalized early Sunday morning. The graffiti includes the words "Islam," "moon," "sun," "Muslim" and "mosque."
January 24, 2010 /
Britain
Anjem Choudary says "We [Muslims] need to go to Rome and raise a banner saying the Day of Judgment will come when the Muslims take Rome. We will definitely conquer Rome one day."
February 6, 2010
Britain
Aaqil Ahmed, a controversial executive whose appointment last year prompted more than 100 complaints has accused the Church of England of "living in the past" and said that the corporation should not give Christianity preferential treatment.
February 8, 2010
Britain
A Christian teacher yesterday claimed he was forced out of his job after complaining that Muslim pupils as young as eight hailed the September 11 hijackers as heroes.
Asia
January 15, 2010
Pakistan
A Christian youth who was beaten by a mob is sentenced to life imprisonment under Sharia blasphemy laws for desecrating a Koran.
January 20, 2010
Pakistan
Five Muslim men have abducted a 21 year old Christian woman after one of the suspects asked her to convert to Islam and marry him.
January 23, 2010
Pakistan
The Christian teenage Shazia daughter of Bashir Masih aged 12 years, resident of Islamia Park, Punch Road Aria Nagar, Samanabad, Lahore was found dead after rape by Muslim attorney Mohammad Naeem here today.
January 23, 2010
Sumatra
At least 1,000 people set fire to the Pentecostal community places of worship. According to local Muslims, the two buildings did not have the legal permits as "churches." The Nahdlatul Ulama admits the violence of radical Islamists against Christians. In 2009 in Indonesia, 35 cases of violation of religious freedom, 28 against Christians.
January 28, 2010
Philippines
A Filipino nurse with ten years in Saudi Arabia talks about the dramatic situation of Christian workers, forced to embrace Islam just to keep their job. Despite abuses and violence, migrants still choose the Middle East because of the availability of work.
Feb 3, 2010
Indonesia
A Muslim mob set fire to a pastor's house and two Christian churches in North Sumatra, Indonesia, last Friday.
Africa
January 18, 2010
Nigeria
Angry Muslim youths set fire to a church filled with worshipers, starting a riot that killed at least 27 people and wounded more than 300 in Jos, in northern Nigeria officials said Monday. More HERE.
January 26, 2010
Somalia
Islamic extremists shot the leader of an underground church to death outside the capital city of Somalia this month and have threatened to kill his wife.
Feb. 1, 2010
Nigeria
An al Qaeda group in North Africa has offered to give Nigerian Muslims training and weapons to fight Christians in the West African country, where more than 460 people were killed in sectarian clashes last month.
February 2, 2010
Kenya
Two Christian evangelists in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, have been arrested after Muslims invited them to debate religion but instead called in security agents who charged the evangelists with illegal preaching.

February 9, 2010
Algeria
A military-led team of Moroccan authorities raided a Bible study in a city southeast of Marrakech last week, arresting 18 Moroccans and deporting a U.S. citizen, area Christian leaders said.
Mid-East
January 19, 2010
Iraq
The second targeted attack against the Christian community in less than 24 hours. Yesterday in Mosul, northern Iraq, an unidentified group shot dead 45 year-old businessman Amjad Hamid Abdullahad. Sunday, January 17th, the same day of the inauguration of new local archbishop, a Christian aged 52, married and father of two daughters, was killed.

North America
February 7, 2010
USA
Egypt's Copts are fearful amid increasing tensions.As the majority Muslim nation turns more conservative, the Christian minority, which has lived in relative peace for centuries, faces an uncertain future. Recent killings and riots add to the fear.

Universal Human Rights Alpha and Omega

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Armenian Genocide

The Armenian Genocide (Part 1 of 4)

The Armenian Genocide (Part 2 of 4)

The Armenian Genocide (Part 3 of 4)

Armenian Genocide - Armenia, November 2008

Armenian Genocide - 60 Minutes [CBS]

Bulletin of Christian Persecution - 2012

Bulletin of Christian Persecution December 27, 2011 - January 28, 2012

Bulletin of Christian Persecution - 2010 - 2011

Items listed below are from Political Islam.com.

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

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