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

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

A letter distributed on social media asks for the “attacks against the church” to stop. Twenty-five buildings are set to be demolished, but Christians in the country are “very resilient”, a source says.

“Belief-based intolerance and discrimination of refugees is a pan-European problem”, Christian organisations said during a hearing at the European Parliament. 

“Religious expression must not be repressed in the private sphere”, the new President of France said. Édouard Philippe is named Prime Minister.

“Except for a few Orthodox extremists, I do not hear a single voice expressing approval for the prohibition of the Jehovah’s Witnesses”, says Russian church historian Constantine Prokhorov.

Since 2014, 27 places of worship have been closed, affecting around 40 Christian communities. Some “bought a premise with a loan, remodeled it, but cannot use it”, says pastor Daniel Magnin.

The criminalization of the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia is a mistake, says the Italian Evangelical Alliance. Freedom of worship should be guaranteed for everyone, “even for those who, in our view, are completely wrong.”

Mobs led by Buddhist monks threat church members in several areas of the country. The homes of pastors have been attacked and new legal measures reduce the constitutional right to freedom of worship. 

The letter calls on the authorities to take the necessary steps to ensure Christian basic rights, like freedom of worship, and the oficialisation of churches, among others.

For the first time, Christians have been able to bring their requests to the National Council of Human Rights. “We were well received”, says the spokesperson of the National Coordination of Moroccan Christians.

The pastor of the Armenian Evangelical Church of Alfortville and his wife were sleeping in the first floor when the fire started. It is the third arson attack against an evangelical church in France in the last 12 months.