Christian Heritage News

Student Dorcas Adedayo Adekanola is still missing after Kaduna State University personnel abducted her and forced her to convert to Islam.  (Campus Watch Mission)  Posted at Morning Star News: University aiding in forcible Islamization, watchdog group says. Published October 25, 2023 ABUJA, Nigeria ( Morning Star News ) – Personnel of Kaduna State University have aided in the kidnapping and forcible conversion to Islam of a Christian student, according to a campus watchdog group. Dorcas Adedayo Adekanola, a 20-year-old, first-year chemistry student at the university, was an active member of the Fellowship of Christian Students when other members noticed her absence last month, according to leaders of Campus Mission Watch (CMW). Her parents received a phone call on Sept. 20 from Christian students saying they were distressed that she was acting strange before her disappearance. “She was always looking scared, which shows she was being threatened by the Islamists on campus,” CMW leaders

 Posted at Morning Star News: Published September 29, 2023 Onslaught continues in southern part of state. ABUJA, Nigeria ( Morning Star News ) – Fulani herdsmen and other terrorists this week killed 15 Christians in Kaduna state, Nigeria, following the slaying of another one last week, sources said. The assailants on Wednesday (Sept. 27) attacked predominantly Christian Angwan Magaji village, Kauru County, killing three Christians, after attacking Kigam village on Tuesday, where three others were slain, said Abel Habila Adamu, an area community leader. The terrorists also wounded four others in the two villages, he said. 'We are saddened to inform you with a heavy heart about a resurgence of attacks on Christians by the armed Fulani herdsmen and terrorists,' Adamu said in a text message to Morning Star News. 'Indeed, our land is bleeding, and the blood of innocent Christians cries profusely for justice.' Continue here. 

Posted at Morning Star News: Published September 13, 2023 Fulani herdsmen and others massacre 10 on Sunday. ABUJA, Nigeria ( Morning Star News ) – Fulani herdsmen and other terrorists on Sunday (Sept. 10) killed 10 Christians in Plateau state, Nigeria, where 27 others were slain in August, sources said. The terrorists attacked Kulben village, Mangu County, at about 8:40 p.m., an area resident said. “Armed Fulani herdsmen alongside terrorists attacked Kulben community, killing 10 Christians, and injured one other Christian villager,” Yitmwadi Raymond told Morning Star News in a text message. On Aug. 14 in Riyom County, herdsmen and others attacked a community high school in Kwi village, killing two Christian teachers, Rwang Danladi and his wife Sandra Danladi of BECO Comprehensive School, and injuring two other Christian staff members, said Jeremiah Nyam, a resident of the area. “They were in the school teaching their students when armed Fulani herdsmen shot and killed them,” Nyam said

 Posted at Morning Star News: Published September 4, 2023 Assailants ordered him to recite Islamic profession of faith. LAHORE, Pakistan ( Morning Star News ) – A pastor was shot and wounded by hardline Muslims on Sunday evening (Sept. 3) in Jaranwala, Pakistan a week after Islamist slogans were written on the walls of his church building, sources said. The Rev. Eleazar Sidhu, pastor of a Presbyterian church in Kukranwala village in the Khanuwana area of Jaranwala tehsil, Faisalabad District, said the assailants ordered him to recite the Islamic creed before shooting him. He was returning home to Rehmat Town with an assistant after pastoral visits to church members when two bearded men stopped his motorcycle near the Khanuwana bus stop, he said. “One of the attackers pulled out a pistol and asked me to recite the Islamic Kalima, [profession of faith],” Pastor Sidhu stated in the First Information Report (FIR) filed at the Saddar Police Station in Jaranwala. “When I refused and instead

Home of Rafaqat Masih burned in rioting that began Aug. 16, 2023 in Christian Town, Jaranwala, Pakistan. ( Morning Star News )  Posted at Morning Star News: Published August 22, 2023 LAHORE, Pakistan ( Morning Star News ) – Police in Pakistan on Saturday night (Aug. 19) charged a Christian with blasphemy for uploading on TikTok a video of content that last week led to attacks on Christian homes and businesses in Jaranwala more than 100 kilometers away, sources said. Tensions flared over the weekend in 186/9-L village, Sahiwal, Punjab Province when members of Islamist extremist party Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan called for protests against the alleged blasphemy after the TikTok post by 27-year-old Ehsaan Shan Masih went viral. “A major crisis was averted due to timely action by the police, otherwise the entire Christian community of Sahiwal was in a state of perpetual fear since Saturday afternoon,” Bishop Abraham Daniel of the Sahiwal Baptist Church told Morning Star News. Continue here.

Muslim leader advised complainant that content was not derogatory. Published July 12, 2023 LAHORE, Pakistan ( Morning Star News ) – Police in Pakistan on Saturday (July 8) arrested a Christian for allegedly sharing a post on Facebook even though his village’s Islamic cleric and other Muslims denied that it amounted to blasphemy, his brother said. Wasim Masih told Morning Star News that Sargodha police registered a blasphemy case against his 35-year-old brother, Zaki Masih of Chak 98 Shumaali village, after a local Muslim, Muhammad Awais, accused him of insulting Islam by sharing a post on Facebook. Police arrested Zaki Masih under Section 295-A of Pakistan’s blasphemy statutes relating to “deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs,” punishable by up to 10 years in prison, a fine or both. He was also charged under Section 298 against hurting religious sentiments, punishable by up to one year in prison

 By Samuel Sey - Posted at Slow to Write: The deadliest country in the world for Christians isn’t Afghanistan or North Korea, it’s Nigeria. Last year, 5,621 Christians were killed worldwide because of their faith—90% of them were northern Nigerians. Mission organizations are reporting that Christian persecution is at its highest in 30 years. And that’s primarily because of what’s been happening in northern Nigeria over the last 24 years. Approximately half of Nigeria’s population are professing Christians, and most of them live in the south. However the other half are Muslims, and most of them live in the north. Northern Nigeria is where Boko Haram, an Islamic terrorist group, have kidnapped thousands of young girls and killed tens of thousands of people over the last decade. But Boko Haram is enabled by northern Nigeria’s Sharia laws. There’s a direct relationship between terrorism and Sharia law in Nigeria. Boko Haram was founded in northern Nigeria in 2002, shortly after 12 norther

Yousef Nadarkhani.  (Present Truth Ministries photo - Morning Star News)  Posted at Morning Star News: Pastor initially sentenced to death freed in annual tradition. Published March 5, 2023 ( Morning Star News ) – Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani, once sentenced to death in Iran for apostasy, was the third Christian convert recently released from prison as part of the government’s annual amnesty marking the anniversary of the 1979 revolution. Originally sentenced to death in 2010 for leaving Islam, Nadarkhani was freed on Feb. 26, following the pardon and release earlier in the month of Hadi Rahimi and Zaman Fadaei, religious freedom advocates said. While welcoming the releases, they noted that those released had already served significant portions of their sentences in cases marred by legal irregularities even by Iranian standards. “Their pardon hardly addresses the injustice of the original sentencing and suffering that the men and their families endured,” said a specialist on Iran with Midd

By Chris Reimers - Posted at Wings of the Wind : Most people, even those who were born after the incidents on September 11, 2001, have heard of the horrific events at the World Trade Center in New York City. 2,977 victims died that day and thousands more were injured. Most people don’t know that the country of Nigeria has it’s own World Trade Center complex. I didn’t know about it until I was researching the tallest buildings in Nigeria and found the video above and others like it. In July of 2020, a fire broke out on the top floor of one of the Nigerian World Trade Center buildings in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city. Thankfully, no one was injured. Here is a video and short report of that event. Continue here...

 By Diana Chandler - Posted at Baptist Press: ORANGE, Calif. (BP) – Violence against Christians is spiking in Sub-Saharan Africa, driven by violence nurtured in Nigeria by Islamic and Fulani terrorists, Open Doors U.S. said Jan. 17 in its 2023 World Watch List tracking Christian persecution globally. Nearly 90 percent of the 5,621 Christians killed in the study period were in Nigeria, Open Doors U.S. said, verifying 5,014 such killings there. “Open Doors only records the events that we can verify. In reality much persecution, including killings, happen in very rural areas, or behind closed doors or in prison camps,” Lisa Pearce, Open Doors U.S. interim CEO, said in releasing the report. “So it’s likely that the recorded figures are just the tip of the iceberg.” In Nigeria, terrorists including Boko Haram, the Islamic State West Africa Province, militant Fulani and others are known for raiding Christian communities, killing, maiming, raping and kidnappings its residents and demanding ex

 Posted at Morning Star News: Benue state officials seek to arm citizens to defend themselves. Nigeria led the world in Christians killed for their faith last year (Oct. 1, 2020 to Sept. 30, 2021) at 4,650, up from 3,530 the previous year, according to Open Doors’ 2022 World Watch List report. The number of kidnapped Christians was also highest in Nigeria, at more than 2,500, up from 990 the previous year, according to the WWL report. ABUJA, Nigeria ( Morning Star News ) – Fulani herdsmen last week killed more than 70 Christians in a village in central Nigeria, prompting state officials to state that lack of government protection means citizens must defend themselves, sources said. In what a Benue state police official suspected was a revenge attack for the alleged killing of five Fulani herders in three different incidents in the area on Tuesday (Oct. 18), herdsmen the next day attacked Gbeji village in Ukum County, Benue state. “In just two days, over 70 Christians were killed by Fu

Posted at Morning Star News: House churches considered threat to national security. ( Morning Star News ) – When authorities in Iran summoned a Christian couple in Tehran on Aug. 13, the house-church members supposed it concerned the return of their confiscated belongings. Instead, Homayoun Zhaveh and his wife Sara Ahmadi were detained in Tehran’s Evin Prison, notorious for its harsh treatment of people deemed political enemies of the state, rights organizations say. “Friends are concerned about their well-being, especially as Homayoun suffers from advanced Parkinson’s disease,” Christian Solidarity International (CSI) said in a statement. CSI and other advocacy and aid organizations recently issued calls for prayer for Zhaveh, 63, and Ahmadi, 44. Middle East Concern (MEC) reported they were first arrested in June 2019 on suspicion of belonging to an “illegal organization,” with Zhaveh spending a month in Evin Prison and Ahmadi held there for 67 days – half the time in solitary confine

 By Diana Chandler - Posted at Baptist Press : NINEVAH PLAINS, IRAQ (BP) – Christians largely remain displaced from the once vibrant Nineveh Plains eight years after the Islamic State decimated the region, a Christian charity working in the area said. Of the estimated 100,000 or more Christians who fled their homes in the 2014 invasion, perhaps 20,000 have returned to date since repatriation efforts began in 2017, Max Wood, chairman of the nondenominational American Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East (American FRRME), told Baptist Press. “It was very peaceful until ISIS came along. It’s got its own charm. It’s just horrible that so many people have had to flee that area in 2014,” Wood said after the eighth anniversary of the invasion that refugees remember as The Black Day. “We learned about The Black Day from working with refugees in Jordan.” About 200 refugees gathered at the American FRRME’s Olive Tree Center in Madaba, Jordan, Aug. 6 in prayer, dance, poetr

 By John Stonestreet and Glenn Sunshine What has happened to Nigerian Christians meets the established international standards for genocide. Back in May, 20 Nigerian Christians were brutally martyred by the Islamic militant group ISIS. In June, 40 more Christians died in Owo, Nigeria, in a terrorist attack against a church. Though it is not clear who is responsible for that attack, what is clear is that Christians continue to be severely persecuted in this West African nation. The persecution, which has been ongoing for years, is part of a long history of conflict with Islam. In 1953, Christians made up only 21.4% of the population in Nigeria. Today, about half of the country’s population, about 96 million people , are Christians. To put that number in perspective, Germany, the largest country in Europe, has a total population of less than 84 million . Much of the Christian growth in Nigeria has resulted from education efforts by Western missionaries, though the country has long h

Charles Kamya was beaten unconscious in Kampala, Uganda on Saturday, Jan. 29, 2022.  (Morning Star News)  Posted at Morning Star News: Muslim extremists tried to kill him prior to debate, he says NAIROBI, Kenya ( Morning Star News ) – Islamic extremists on Saturday (Jan. 29) stopped an evangelist on his way to participate in a debate about Christianity and Islam in Kampala, Uganda and beat him unconscious, he said. Charles Kamya, 43, said he was about 300 meters from the open-air debate site in the Bwaise area of Kampala when two men stopped his car. “I stopped my car only to be ambushed by six other Muslims in Islamic attire who resurfaced from the bush at around midday,” Kamya told Morning Star News from his hospital bed. He said one of the assailants told him, “You have been terrorizing our religion. Today Allah has called you, and you are going to meet him.” “Some beat me badly while others cut me with some objects, and I lost a lot of blood as they pulled me out of my car and thr

 Posted at Voice of the Persecuted : Nigeria ( Morning Star News ) – Terrorists with the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) on Sunday (Dec. 19) killed 12 Christians in an attack in Borno state, northeastern Nigeria, sources said. The Islamic extremist militants attacked the predominantly Christian village of Kilangal, Askira-Uba County, in the afternoon, shortly after residents were leaving church worship services, area residents told Morning Star News by text message. Dauda Sabo, spokesman for the Askira-Uba Local Government Council, confirmed the attack in a statement on Monday (Dec. 20), saying ISWAP militants killed 12 people and wounded three others, along with burning down nine houses. “The [Askira-Uba Local Government] Council officials visited the grave where the 12 people killed were buried,” Sabo said. “They condemned the attack and described it as gruesome, sad and inhumane.” The terrorists also were reported to have looted shops. Sources said the assailants faced no

Shrine of Imam Ali Reda in Mashad Iran. (Iahsan at English Wikipedia)  Posted at Morning Star News: The first Christians to be punished under a newly amended law in Iran aimed at halting the growth of Christianity and other religious groups were sentenced to five years in prison for spreading “propaganda” against Islam after they refused to renounce Christ, sources said. Amin Khaki, Milad Goudarzi and Alireza Nourmohammadi, all converts from Islam, were sentenced under Article 500 of Iran’s newly amended penal code, which states that “any deviant education or propaganda that contradicts or interferes with the sacred Sharia [Islamic law] will be severely punished.” Members of the Church of Iran, the three men were informed on June 26 that they had each been given the maximum prison sentence allowable under the amended article and also fined 40 million tomans (US$1,600). Another member of the church, Hamet Ashouri, was told the same day that his appeal of a 10-month prison sentence on ch

 By Morning Star News Algeria Correspondent - Posted at Christian Headlines: TIZI-OUZOU, Algeria, March 23, 2021 ( Morning Star News ) – A judge in Oran, Algeria on Monday (March 22) upheld a five-year prison sentence for a Christian convicted of reposting a cartoon of Islam’s prophet on his Facebook account three years ago, sources said. Farid Khemisti, attorney for Hamid (surname withheld for security reasons), said the 43-year-old father of four young children appeared to have received the heavy sentence because he was a Christian. The Oran City Court of Justice also upheld his fine of 100,000 dinars (US$750). “I really hoped for a reduction in the sentence – I expected at the worst, six months in prison,” Khemisti told Morning Star News. “That is the maximum that a fair judgment would have given, but I don’t think my client’s being a Christian made it any easier.” Read more here.

Morning Star News - Posted at Voice of the Persecuted : ( Morning Star News ) – In another sign that Islamist elements hostile to Christianity in Sudan could be reined in, the minister of religious affairs has reiterated that Christian properties confiscated under the previous regime would be returned. Acknowledging that Christians were persecuted and endured “very bad practices” under the regime of former President Omar al-Bashir, Minister of Religious Affairs Nasr al-Din Mufreh on Sunday (Nov. 3) was quoted in International Arabic newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat as saying property stolen from Sudanese Christians would be returned through court proceedings. Mufreh also had told media in September that confiscated church properties should be returned. In Sunday’s article in which he invited expelled Jews to return to Sudan – as he had in September, drawing criticism from Muslim hardliners – Mufreh said that Christians and people of other beliefs are free to practice their faith

Mugshot of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi taken by U.S. armed forces while he was detained at Camp Bucca near Umm Qasr, Iraq, in 2004. (U.S. Army) Posted at Morning Star News : JOS, Nigeria (Morning Star News) – The death Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State (IS), did not come as a surprise to many across the world – many terrorists brandishing a gun in one hand and the Koran in the other have gone the same way. Boko Haram, the terrorist group now allied with IS as the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP), has launched an insurgency in Nigeria for 10 years that has spread to other countries like Cameroon, Niger and Chad, killing thousands of people and displacing millions. Christians in these areas have carried much of the brunt Boko Haram’s bombings, burnings and kidnappings. The emergence of ISWAP under the leadership of Abu Musab Al-Barnawi has aggravated the crisis as the terrorists carry out attacks in different parts of Nigeria and other countries. ISWAP is st