Religious persecution is the practice of discouraging freedom of religion and the freedom to express and/or promote all or certain religious beliefs – with repercussions ranging from prevention to persecution (including murder).
Vietnamese officials in Muong Cha district, Dien Bien Province, destroyed two new church buildings of ethnic minority Hmong Christians this month and threatened to tear down a third.
Lao officials arrested two Lao and two Thai Christians in Luang Namtha Province earlier this month, seizing them from a private residence in Long district, according to Human Rights Watch for Lao Religious Freedom.
Officials also arrested a pastor in Luang Namtha and dismissed two civil servants in Savannakhet for converting to Christianity.
In Nigeria’s Plateau state, Christian leaders said more Christians have died at the hands of Muslim extremists than the 35 that the military reported thus far in May.
The Nigerian president took pointed criticism for the government’s handling of Muslim extremist violence against Christians.
Amid global euphoria over reforms in Burman-majority parts of Burma, life has changed little for more than 3 million Christians and other minorities left to suffer from one of the world’s longest running civil wars.
While it is largely a struggle for self-determination in all ethnic states and all civilians suffer in the crossfire, the Burman-Buddhist dominated Burmese troops are often accused of being harsher on Christian civilians than on their Buddhist counterparts.
Christians faced increased hostilities in Sudan over the past few weeks, culminating in an attack on a Christian compound in Khartoum by a throng of Muslim extremists armed with clubs, iron rods, a bulldozer and fire.
Breaking down the compound wall with a bulldozer, the assailants set fire to the Gerief West Bible School and the Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church (SPEC) building; they also damaged three other places of worship and other buildings in the same compound.
A recent “reconciliation meeting” between members of a Muslim mob that attacked a Christian-owned school in Egypt and school administrators was nothing less than an attempt at legalized extortion, the director of the school said.
In exchange for peace, members of the sword-wielding mob that stormed the school last month without provocation — and held two nuns hostage for several hours — initially demanded in the meetings that the school sign over parcels of land that include the guesthouse the Muslim extremists attacked.
The mother of a 6-month-old girl has been wrongly jailed for more than a month, as Pakistani authorities have failed to file a charge sheet within the mandatory 14-day period against the young Christian woman falsely accused of “blaspheming” the prophet of Islam, her attorney said.
Sentiment against Christians in Turkey has persisted long enough for a U.S. religious rights monitor to recommend it as a “Country of Particular Concern.”
Many in Turkey see Christians as corrupt elements of the West out to shake the integrity of Turkey and Islam.
In a show of partiality to Muslims who go unprosecuted for like offenses against Christianity, a juvenile court in Egypt sentenced a Coptic Christian teenager to three years in prison for allegedly insulting Islam.
The court claimed that he posted cartoons on his Facebook account in December that mocked the Islamic religion and its prophet, Muhammad.
After Khartoum denied that it had bombed civilians earlier this month, Sudanese aerial strikes last week were aimed at church buildings and schools in Kauda, South Kordofan state.
Antonov airplanes dropped bombs, destroying some houses and cattle near the church buildings and schools.