March 26, 2019 Recently, 40 Christians in Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest province, met in the home of a church leader to pray. Two dozen Hindu militants stormed in and verbally and physically abused those gathered. Six of the worshipers needed urgent medical attention, and it is reported that the militants threatened to return and kill the Christians if they continued …
Your Voice Matters: Stand with Human Rights Heroes
March 12, 2019 Raif Badawi co-founded the website Free Saudi Liberals in 2008 to encourage debate on religious and political issues in Saudi Arabia despite the country’s restricted civic space. In 2012 the Saudi government arrested him on charges of promoting religious freedom. Badawi received a sentence of 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes and has been banned from …
Anti-Semitism: An Ugly Hate Returns
Across France protestors recently rallied in solidarity against what appears to be a growing trend of anti-Semitism in the country and throughout Western Europe. Earlier this month, nearly 100 graves were desecrated with swastikas in a Jewish cemetery near Strasbourg. This follows other incidents in the region in December, including another cemetery where tombstones and a Holocaust memorial were vandalized. …
Nigeria Steps Forward with Historic Multi-Faith Event
February 3, 2019 The first fruits from last summer’s inaugural Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom have begun to ripen. At the close of the Ministerial, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo challenged participants to endorse the Potomac Declaration and join in the Potomac Plan of Action. The pair established a framework from which the international community could draw inspiration and a …
China’s Shameful Abuse of Uyghurs
January 22, 2o19 In China’s northwest province of Xinjiang, family members are disappearing. Arfat Aeriken is a Uyghur Muslim who lost contact with his family in 2017. While studying in the U.S., Arfat learned that his father was sentenced to a nine-year prison term and his mother was sent to a concentration camp. He does not know what has happened …
A Schism for the Modern Era: Russian Orthodox Church and Orthodox Church of Ukraine
January 8, 2019 Readers of history will recall the Great Schism of 1054 as the moment when the western Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Church parted ways, a separation that punctuated the end of the Roman Empire. That split, with its religious and political undertones, rocked Christendom in the 11th century and remains a visible wound even today, never fully …
Tis the Season…to Pray for Persecuted Believers
December 18, 2018 For the world’s 2.3 billion Christians, the week ahead marks the culmination of one of the holiest seasons of the year — the anticipation and arrival of the Christ child. Sadly, the advent period has been marred by persecution, as global headlines make clear. In China, authorities arrested more than 100 leaders and members of the Early …
Coptic Christians shut out of worship
December 4, 2018 In Egypt, a law designed to open doors has served to close them instead. Dozens of Coptic Christian churches have been shut down since Law 80/2016, also known as the Church Construction Law, took effect two years ago. The reform measure, required as part of the constitution adopted following the ouster of President Mohammed Morsi in 2014, …