News Articles in Persecution

The former president of the Russian Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists – a critic of Russia’s war against Ukraine – recently fled his homeland when authorities pressed criminal charges against him. (See related story.)

MOSCOW (BP) — The raid by secret police of Russian evangelical leader Yuri Sipko’s home will not silence the former Baptist Union president’s “uncompromised” stance.

JARANWALA, Pakistan (BP) – An outlawed extremist Muslim group has been charged with inciting destructive riots in Pakistan after two Christian brothers were falsely accused of blasphemy there.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP) — Pakistan is approximately 7,500 miles from Kentucky, but attacks on Christians and churches in eastern Pakistan this week have drawn strong rebuke from a Louisville man.

ASMARA, Eritrea (BP) – Eritrea released 13 wrongfully imprisoned Christians after a global prayer campaign led by Voice of the Martyrs (VOM), the ministry to persecuted Christians said Aug. 9.

More must be done to hold India accountable for its role in allowing and facilitating persecution and abuse against religious minorities. Southern Baptists have long believed that the state has no right to impose penalties for religious opinions of any kind and that the individual should be allowed to freely pursue the knowledge and love of God.

SHANXI PROVINCE, China (BP) -- Three leaders of a house church in northern China have been charged with forming a “criminal clique” and obtaining “illegal income,” the church said, describing the charges as a first in China’s war on religion.

A six-year-old boy looked up at my husband, Nik, with eyes as big as saucers. Those eyes are a sight forever etched on my mind. After a Sunday morning service, his mom, Debbie, asked us if her little boy, David, could talk to us before the evening service. We arrived a few minutes early to talk with him, and he was already sitting on the front row waiting for us.

BARTLESVILLE, Okla. (BP) -- When Abdiwelli Ahmed met his future wife Helen, she recalls, the first thing he confessed was his love for Christ and his willingness to die for Him.

SUDAN, NORTHERN AFRICA (BP) -- War, conquest, colonization, coups and dictators — Sudan’s history runs red. Blood flows now, leaving a trail behind the men, women and children who have, and are, fleeing to bordering countries.