“The sustained growth of the churches unnerves the government”, Cuban Pastor Mario Félix Lleonart, says. Several evangelical leaders have been interrogated and arrested in the last months.

“From now on, if any of you distribute Bibles, we will attack you brutally”, one of the Hindus warned the Christians, according to a video the extremists took of the attack.

Eyewitnesses said police confiscated chairs, tables and Bibles before the demolition. “These crazy actions will not stop us from praying and praising God”.

Twenty-six church leaders have appeared in court since last week for defending a Muslim business interest’s attempt to illegally seize the Evangelical School of Omdurman

“They threatened the pastor, ‘How dare you set up a church in our locality? This area is of upper castes. Stop running church here’”, a church leader in the region explains.

How will we react if God calls us to take a step of faith which could have drastic consequences?

Military Police used excavators and dynamite to destroy the Golden Lampstand Church. “This might be a new pattern against any independent churches”, Christian advocacy groups warn.

A letter to the embassador in Rome was delivered.

Intolerance against Christians is highest in Central and Southeast Asia, after North Korea. The situation worsens dramatically in Africa. In Europe, two people were murdered bacause of their faith last year.

A gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire outside Marmina church and nearby shop. More than 100 Christians have been killed in Egypt in the past year.

Fulani militants gunmen attacked Christian carollers while they were singing in a church of Southern Kaduna, Nigeria. Ten are still injured.

“There were around 400 worshippers inside the church when the attack began”, the senior leader of the church said. The community was holding a “Sunday school Christmas program” at the time of the attack.

Berating and slapping two pastors into signing an apology letter before police, Hindu extremists stopped a planned three-day gospel meeting in Chhattisgarh state minutes before it was to begin.

Around 1800 people from 160 churches gathered throughout Spain to pray for the persecution of Christians. “There are no closed borders, prisons or doors when we pray”.

The local government poverty-relief programme aims to “transform believers in religion into believers in the party”.

Sundays 5th and 12th of November have been set apart to advocate and pray for the Persecuted Church. This year’s motto is “From ashes to glory”.

“It is a well-planned conspiracy against the Christian community”, pastor Johnson Sathyanathan, president of the Synod of Pentecostal Churches of Coimbator, says.

Since 2012, Sudan has expelled foreign Christians and bulldozed dozens of church buildings on the pretext that they belonged to South Sudanese.

Other shipments of Bibles at Port Sudan have also been detained over the past two years. “It is difficult to get Bibles in the country”, a church leader says.

More than 300 participated in the first conference on Christian persecution held in Budapest.

“It is very important to communicate with those we are going to defend, otherwise, we can hurt them, or put them in jeopardy”, says Hans Gravaas of the Stefanus Alliance International. 

Besides raiding Christian bookstores and arresting Christians, authorities threatened to kill South Sudanese Christians who do not leave or cooperate with them.

There has been 410 reported incidents, while there were 441 in total in 2016. “Attackers know they will not be punished”, Open Doors says.

She was arrested in January 2013. Since 2016, a dozen Christians have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms on charges related to house-church activities.

Government of the Henan province orders 20,000 registered house church members to join the Three-Self Church, and ban foreign students from practising their religious beliefs.