Persecution

“Latest report on Christian persecution finds 3 in 4 martyrs are in Nigeria, ranked among 10 worst persecutors for first time. Sudan finally exits top 10 and India remains, while Mozambique and DRC added to Open Doors watch list.” - CToday

“Tens of thousands of house church pastors and evangelists across China have gone into hiding as the Communist Party prepares for what seems like a ‘final assault’ on Christianity in an attempt to eradicate it from the country” - CPost

“The latest report on government restrictions and social hostilities in 198 nations follows the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church.” - C.Today

“A transitional government in Sudan is taking steps toward ‘achieving equality’ and ending discrimination, leading to cautious optimism …. Apostasy (abandoning Islam through speech or behavior, including conversion to Christianity) and morality laws have been eliminated, and female genital mutilation is now banned.” - CLeaders

“The national-security law in Hong Kong now prohibits secession, sedition, terrorism, and collusion with foreign forces. Those terms are so broadly defined that they can be used arbitrarily to prohibit any form of dissent. What worries religious minorities, and Catholics and other Christians in particular, are the law’s collusion and subversion and clauses.” - N.Review

“So far in 2020, the US has resettled fewer than 950 Christians from the 50 countries where it is hardest to be a Christian, according to Open Doors’s annual World Watch List. At this rate, the US will receive 90-percent fewer Christian refugees this year than five years ago.” - CToday

According to Voice of the Martyrs: “In Shandong Province, officials issued guidance forbidding online preaching, a vital way for churches to reach congregants amid both persecution and the spread of the virus” - Fox

“Junaid Hafeez, a university lecturer in Pakistan, had been imprisoned for six years when he was sentenced to death in December 2019. The charge: blasphemy, specifically insulting Prophet Muhammad on Facebook.” - The Conversation

“The author of that booklet,which sets forth the Biblical teachings about sexuality, is also under investigation for the crime of ‘agitation against an ethnic group,’ a statute which added “sexual orientation” to the list of protected classes. The maximum punishment is two years in prison.” - Gene Veith

“Most U.S. adults know what the Holocaust was and approximately when it happened, but fewer than half can correctly answer multiple-choice questions about the number of Jews who were murdered or the way Adolf Hitler came to power” - Pew