On 10 July the U.S. Senate passed the Near East and South Central Asia Religious Freedom Act of 2014, which creates a special envoy within the State Department to promote the religious freedom of religious minorities in the region. The envoy would be required to: (1) Promote the right of religious freedom of religious minorities in…
Several university students from China’s western region of Xinjiang are being banned from fasting during the month of Ramadan. The BBC reports that students said they were being forced to have meals with professors to ensure they were not fasting. Those who refuse to eat risk being punished by officials. As part of a propaganda drive,…
Shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander MP spoke at a meeting in Parliament yesterday hosted by Christians on the Left in partnership with this APPG. Under the title International Religious Freedom – the next human rights frontier? he emphasised that “The government has a responsibility and an opportunity in this moment to take action on this issue,” adding “People…
The Pakistani government is systematically failing to protect the country’s Shia population, says Phelim Kine, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. Balochistan’s largely Shia Hazara community has borne the brunt of the Sunni militant violence, which is thought to have killed over 800 in the region since 2008. The author claims “The Pakistani government’s response…
Authorities in China are continuing their campaign of church demolition. The Guardian reports that Christians in Wenzhou – a city known as ‘China’s Jerusalem’ due to its 1,500 churches – say that they have not seen such sustained persecution since the Cultural Revolution. Between 3 and 6 am on 17 June the cross that topped Guantou…
The Federal Court of Malaysia in June refused the country’s Roman Catholic Church leave to appeal against the ban of the use of the word “Allah” in their weekly newspaper, The Herald. Christians argue they have used the word, which entered Malay from Arabic, to refer to their God for centuries and that the ruling violates their…
A Nigerian man sent to a mental institute in Kano state after he declared that he did not believe in God, is now in hiding and says he has been receiving death threats. Mubarak Bala says he wants to leave northern Nigeria but first is trying to reconcile with his family, especially the father, two uncles and…
On 24 June, a village chief forced a Christian family into a Buddhist funeral and five church leaders were arrested. They are currently being held handcuffed and with their feet in wooden stocks. Mrs Chan died last Saturday morning. Her family immediately obtained permission from the village chief to bury their mother on their own personal property since…
Prominent Muslims have recently spoken out against the persecution of the Bahá’ís in Iran. Led by Iranian Ayatollah Abdol-Hamid Masoumi-Tehrani, a number of senior Muslim figures from Iraq, South Africa and France have spoken out in favour of peaceful co-existence with members of the Bahá’ís religious movement. Eurasia Review reports that in Baghdad, in an extended interview…
Two senior staff of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) have expressed concern that in the Geneva meeting of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) that began on 10 June and runs through until 27 June are a number of member states that continue to perpetrate or tolerate serious violations of human rights, including religious…