Officials in a village in southern Laos on March 25 arrested and detained five Christians during worship and charged them with leading a religious movement without official approval, according to advocacy group Human Rights Watch for Lao Religious Freedom (HRWLRF).
In a rare crackdown on a concentrated area, Iranian authorities have arrested Christians living in the country’s third largest city in what is seen as a tactic to discourage Muslims and converts to Christianity from attending official churches.
The U.N. Security Council has described the Arab Spring as the “most significant event of the early 21st century.”
The Holy Bible has been translated into more than 450 languages and portions of the Scriptures exist in more than 2,000 languages.
Militant Islamist group Boko Haram has declared “war” on Christians in Nigeria, saying that they are planning coordinated attacks to “eradicate Christians from certain parts of the country.”
In the wake of a year of protests and violence, the situation in Syria has brought great suffering to the entire population. Syrian Christians say their greatest need right now is prayer, according to Open Doors.
