News articles

An Egyptian Church leader was sentenced to six months in prison, while those who attacked his church have not been prosecuted. The destruction of his church last year prompted Christians to protest.  Many of the Christian protesters were killed, and other Christians were arrested. 

On Sunday morning, February 26, suicide bombers attacked a church in Jos, Nigeria.  At least 38 people were injured and at least one person killed, although some reports indicate that the death toll may be higher.  

Certain Afghan lawmakers have called for "jihad," or holy war, against the U.S. after coalition soldiers brought a truckload of Qurans and other Islamic books from a Bagram detention facility to an incinerator. The material had been labeled "extremist literature" because it was being used to incite violence.

"This is a huge crime, and the people involved in it must be punished," said Afghan parliamentarian Mohammad Noor Akbari, who participated in the meeting.

An Afghan soldier shot and killed two U.S. soldiers in the resulting protests. President Obama has apologized for the 'inadvertent' sacrilege. 

This article gives you an idea of what Christians living in Islamic countries face if they are accused of desecrating a Qur'an.  

Reports from Iran continue to indicate that an execution order may have been signed for Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani.  Please pray!

According to some reports, Youcef Nadarkhani's execution may have been ordered.  Throughout his long imprisonment, trial, conviction, sentencing, and appeal, much uncertainty has surrounded his case. Many times rumors of decisions have preceeded written decisions.  Please pray for this pastor in Iran.

Mohammad Shafia, his wife Tooba Yahya and their son Hamed, were accused (and convicted) of drowning Hamed’s three teenage sisters and his father’s first wife from a polygamous marriage, in what the judge described as crimes stemming from a “twisted concept of honour." Most news sources covering this story quote at least one expert who maintains that honor killings have no place in Islam, but as GetReligion observes, none of them explore why the Afghan-Canadian family said that Islam was the motivation for the murders. Again, this atrocity begs the question BBC reporter Olenka Frankiel asks here: is 'true' Islam different than 'actual' Islam? 

Muslim on Christian attacks increase in post-Mubarak Egypt. 

A U.S. federal appeals court has blocked a measure (passed by voters in Oklahoma) that would forbid state judges from considering Islamic and international law in their decisions. In this article Dr. Tawfik Hamid discusses the logical ramifications treating Sharia as a Constitutional right will have on America. Hamid, an Egyptian Muslim and former jihadi-sympathizer, warns the United States that Sharia law is diametrically opposed to the freedoms which Americans value most.  

Despite skyrocketing malnutrition and a humanitarian crisis that is affecting hundreds of thousands of Sudanese people, the Islamic government in Khartoum has banned foreigners from distributing aid to the South Kordofan or Blue Nile states. There is a very real concern that Sudanese aid worker, employed by the Muslim government, are denying aid to non-Muslim citizens, specifically Christians. 

Christianity is growing throughout the strongly Muslim region of Kashmir, India....and persecution in escalating as well. In November 2011, Pastor Khanna was arrested for 'hurting religious sentiment." In December 2011, a Dutch Catholic missionary who had spent 50 working to promote education was also arrested. Both are charged with 'luring' Muslims away from Islam, and offering young people 'baits and inducements' to become apostates. Local newspapers are running false stories slandering Christians, fueling Muslim outrage with lies and disinformation. 

The BBC reports that a "tall Pakistani-Christian living in Lahore...has dedicated 25 years of his life to helping prisoners." They quote the man, Arthur Wilson, as saying that he does not proselytize, but rather teaches "positive thinking" and ethics for living. Interestingly, a prison officer at Camp Jail does not allow "non-Christians" (read: Muslims) to go to Wilson's lectures, purportedly because Wilson's life would be endangered by "extremists." As you read this, note that the BBC quotes a random woman in support of the notion that Muslims and Christians can co-exist peacefully...with very little fact backing up that statement. The author also fails to tell us how many Christians are incarcerated for blasphemy. 

Each day, more than 25,000 young girls become child brides, joining almost 60 million girls who have married before their eighteenth birthday.Within the next ten years, over 100 million girls in the developing world are predicted to be married before they reach adulthood. For hundreds of thousands of these young girls, abuse and rape are daily events. The plight of girls in Yemen is especially severe, and as this article illustrates, in a country where a popular boy's name is "Saddam" (after Saddam Hussein), it will take more than well-intentioned NGO's to change the culture. 

Hillsborough Circuit Judge Richard Nielsen in Tampa, Florida is considering using Islamic law to decide an arbitration case between a mosque and its ex-trustees. "Nielsen said he will decide in a lawsuit against a local mosque, the Islamic Education Center of Tampa, whether the parties in the litigation properly followed the teachings of the Koran in obtaining an arbitration decision from an Islamic scholar." 

The murder of three Christians in Malatya (pronounced "Malacha") Turkey rocked the Christian community four years ago. This film covers the events of April 18, 2007. That morning, a group of Muslim teens entered the offices of Zirve, a Christian publishing house. Hours later, police found three Christian men bound, gagged, and gruesomely tortured. Two were pronounced dead on the scene and the third died from his wounds that evening.

Two of the martyrs, Necati Aydın, 36, and Uğur Yüksel, 32, were Turkish converts from Islam. Necati Aydın was an actor who played the role of Jesus Christ in an Easter production broadcasted by the TURK-7 network. The third man, Tilman Geske, 45, was a German citizen. Following their death, Niyazi Güney, a Justice Ministry official, said, "Missionary work is even more dangerous than terrorism and unfortunately is not considered a crime in Turkey." Government officials are suspected of instigating the murders. 

Shortly afterward Susanne, Tilman's widow, appeared on national television with words of forgiveness for her husband’s murderers. Her testimony of love rippled across the Islamic world, leading Muslims from Turkey to Nigeria to question their faith and seek for more news about Jesus Christ, who also forgave those who killed Him. This film is powerful!

This report begins, "The violence erupted when Coptic protesters....[protested] against the burning of the church in the province of Hilwan."  Apparently, the 4,000-strong Muslim mob that just 4 days ago attacked that church isn't worth mentioning. Nor the fact that in that attack Muslims exploded 5-6 gas cylinders inside the church, pulled down the cross and the domes and burnt everything inside. The Copts are presented as the group responsible for the violence.

Coptic sources gave a different perspective on the deadly romance between a Christian man and a Muslim woman south of Cairo...a perspective conspicously absent in the Associated Press' coverage of this tragedy. This article shows both sides, and gives some helpful insight in how to read news currently coming out of Egypt.

As you read news coverage, be aware that certain organizations are not interested in reporting a balanced view of religious persecution. Formerly a top anchorman for the BBC, Peter Sisson has stated that in the BBC’s “pervading culture” of anti-Christianity, “Islam must not be offended at any price, although Christians are fair game because they do nothing about it if they are offended.”