A persecution watchdog has released a new report that aims to fill a “gap” when it comes to fully reporting on the Christian persecution raging across the globe.

“We found was there needed to be a report that was based entirely on well verified, carefully reviewed sources,” Isaac Six, senior director of advocacy for Global Christian Relief (GCF), told CBN News. “These are public sources that are included in a database we’ve commissioned called the Violent Incidents Database, and the report is built on that database.”

One of the issues with some of the other reports in this realm, Six said, is that they are relatively qualitative in nature, relying on interviews and available numbers to essentially “make an estimate.” While this is valid and helpful, he said GCF’s new “Red List” works a bit differently.

“Our report numbers can seem a little lower than some of those, but that’s because we’re only using numbers we can absolutely verify are true,” he said, noting the “Red List” provides data over a two-year period that is heavily verified and “irrefutable.”

The methodology even enabled the researchers to confirm a few hundred of the arrests that have unfolded in North Korea, a reclusive nation known for being the worst persecutor of Christians across the globe — and that’s not all.

“We were able to confirm that Afghanistan, since the takeover of the Taliban, is almost a closed box,” Six said. “Everything is underground. We do have networks there, but it’s very difficult to get any public verified reporting of persecution.”

And while there are many types of persecution and pressures placed on believers, Six said violence is the “primary method through which persecutors are trying to drive out the church.”

“This isn’t just random, sporadic acts of anger or violence towards Christians,” he said. “In a lot of these cases, this is well-organized, systematic, long-term, and the overarching goal here is to crush the church and extinguish it. It’s an existential crisis for a lot of these communities that we’re talking about in this report.”

One of the unique facets of the “Red List” is that nations are ranked not just by overall persecution metrics but by categories. Killings are just one such category, with Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mozambique, Ethiopia, and Russia serving as the top five on the list.

As CBN News has reported, Nigeria is consistently found by watchdogs to be the most deadly nation for believers. The “Red List” is no exception, with the numbers found in the report quite staggering.

“We documented almost 10,000 killings of Christians, mostly in the north and middle part of that country,” Six said. “And, again, that is systematic violence being perpetrated and led by groups like Boko Haram, and Islamic State West Africa Province, and then other armed groups.”

Ultimately, Isaac said Christians in America need to understand the extent of the terror.

“The church in America really has to hear how horrific some of these stories are,” he said. “It’s not just violence. It’s not just killings. It is brutal atrocities. And, frankly, the church has to wake up to some of this. Only a fraction of believers in America are even aware of what’s happening.”

Six also addressed Russia’s placement in the top five for killings.

“Russia … appears twice on a report, both for killings and also for arrests,” Six said. “Now, the killings are primarily happening in an area called Dagestan, which is in the North Caucasus region of Russia. It borders Georgia and Azerbaijan, the Caspian Sea.”

He continued, “And, in Dagestan, you have an Islamist militancy that’s …targeting Orthodox Russian Christians; it will target priests and churches. So that’s where most of those killings are happening.”

Six said some of the killings are also happening in occupied areas of Eastern Ukraine, as the Russia-Ukraine war continues to rage.

“Many parts of the church are going underground in Eastern Ukraine,” he said.

Six is hoping the “Red List” is a valuable resource – one that helps people navigate and understand these persistent issues of persecution.

“When I looked over the report and finally saw the numbers [I thought], ‘There is so much here for us to do,’” he said. “We’ve been working in this area and we get very focused on some areas where there’s great need and that’s good. … But I looked at it and thought, ‘We need a wave of support and prayer coming out of the American church and the global church for the areas where the body of Christ is just being attacked in the worst possible ways.’”

With those areas now identified in the “Red List,” prayer and action can more readily be taken — and with more spiritual and practical precision.
Sources:faithwire

http://theendtimeradio.com

South Sudan — Intelligence agents of the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) on Jan. 14 arrested and tortured at least seven Christians in Shendi, about 150 kilometers (93 miles) northeast of Khartoum, sources said.

The members of the Sudanese Church of Christ had sought refuge in areas controlled by the SAF from the military fighting in Khartoum, but upon arrival in Shendi, River Nile state, they were arrested by personnel from Military Intelligence, according to the Sudanese Christian Youth Union.

Military Intelligence agents accused the Christians of supporting the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and receiving stolen money, with the Christians denying both allegations. The youth union asserted that the false accusations were an excuse to arrest the Christians, and an attorney following the case said authorities tortured them into confessing.

The Christian attorney, Shinbago Mugaddam, said the seven young Christians were denied legal aid, tortured and taken to a sham trial on the same day as their arrest.

“They were arrested by the army intelligence and were subjected to beatings and interrogations,” Mugaddam, following the case from another country as a refugee from the war, told Morning Star News. “A case was opened against them where the complainant and the witnesses for the accusation were all members of the armed forces. The court did not ask them whether they needed a lawyer or had witnesses to deny this incident, knowing that they were beaten and forced to confess and provide evidence against themselves.”

The accusers and the witness were all from Military Intelligence, and they forced the Christians to plead guilty against their will, he said.

“These youths were tried under Article 174 of the Sudanese Criminal Code of 1994 relating to theft in a summary trial in the Shendi Court, River Nile state, where the conditions for a fair trial were not met,” Mugaddam said.

The Union of Sudanese Christian Youth condemned the arrests and called for their immediate release. Describing the arrests as a violation of human and religious rights in Sudan, the body urged all rights groups, regional and international organizations to intervene and protect those who have been jailed without evidence.

“We in the Sudanese Christian Youth Union hereby condemn these violations that are based on the religion, color and ethnicity” reads the statement issued on Turesday (Jan. 21).

In October, 26 Christians were arrested by Military Intelligence in Shendi after fleeing areas under RSF control in Khartoum.

Sudan’s military-led government in May approved a law restoring broad powers and immunities to intelligence officers that had been stripped after the ousting of President Omar al-Bashir in April 2019. The General Intelligence Service (GIS) Law (2024 Amendment) empowers intelligence officers to summon and interrogate individuals, conduct surveillance and searches, detain suspects and seize assets, according to the Sudan War Monitor.

The amendment granted extensive immunity, shielding agents from criminal or civil prosecution without the approval of the head of GIS. In capital punishment cases, it gave the director authority to form a special court.

“Any act committed by any member of the agency in good faith during or because of the performance of his job duties, or the performance of any duty imposed on him, or from any act issued by him under any authority authorized or granted to him under this law, shall not be considered a crime,” the law’s Article 52 states, according to the Sudan War Monitor.

Sudan was ranked No. 5 among the 50 countries where it’s most difficult to be a Christian in Open Doors’ 2025 World Watch List (WWL), down from No. 8 the prior year.

Conditions in Sudan worsened as civil war that broke out in April 2023 intensified. Sudan registered increases in the number of Christians killed and sexually assaulted and Christian homes and businesses attacked, according to the WWL report.

“Christians of all backgrounds are trapped in the chaos, unable to flee. Churches are shelled, looted and occupied by the warring parties,” the report stated.

Since April 2023 militants of the paramilitary RSF have been battling the SAF, and each Islamist force has attacked displaced Christians on accusations of supporting the other’s combatants.

The conflict between the RSF and the SAF, which had shared military rule in Sudan following an October 2021 coup, has terrorized civilians in Khartoum and elsewhere, killing tens of thousands and displacing more than 12.36 million people within and beyond Sudan’s borders, according to the U.N. Commissioner for Human Rights (UNCHR).

The SAF’s Gen. Abdelfattah al-Burhan and his then-vice president, RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, were in power when civilian parties in March 2023 agreed on a framework to re-establish a democratic transition the next month, but disagreements over military structure torpedoed final approval.

Burhan sought to place the RSF — a paramilitary outfit with roots in the Janjaweed militias that had helped former strongman Omar al-Bashir put down rebels — under the regular Army’s control within two years, while Dagolo would accept integration within nothing fewer than 10 years.

Both military leaders have Islamist backgrounds while trying to portray themselves to the international community as pro-democracy advocates of religious freedom.

Sudan had dropped out of the top 10 of the WWL list for the first time in six years when it first ranked No. 13 in 2021.

Following two years of advances in religious freedom in Sudan after the end of the Islamist dictatorship under Bashir in 2019, the specter of state-sponsored persecution returned with the military coup of Oct. 25, 2021. After Bashir was ousted from 30 years of power in April 2019, the transitional civilian-military government had managed to undo some Sharia (Islamic law) provisions. It outlawed the labeling of any religious group “infidels” and thus effectively rescinded apostasy laws that made leaving Islam punishable by death.

With the Oct. 25, 2021, coup, Christians in Sudan feared the return of the most repressive and harsh aspects of Islamic law. Abdalla Hamdok, who had led a transitional government as prime minister starting in September 2019, was detained under house arrest for nearly a month before he was released and reinstated in a tenuous power-sharing agreement in November 2021.

Hamdock had been faced with rooting out longstanding corruption and an Islamist “deep state” from Bashir’s regime — the same deep state that is suspected of rooting out the transitional government in the 2021 coup.

The U.S. State Department in 2019 removed Sudan from the list of Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) that engage in or tolerate “systematic, ongoing and egregious violations of religious freedom” and upgraded it to a watch list. Sudan had previously been designated as a CPC from 1999 to 2018.

In December 2020, the State Department removed Sudan from its Special Watch List.

The Christian population of Sudan is estimated at 2 million, or 4.5% of the population of more than 43 million.
Sources:Christian Post

http://theendtimeradio.com

Three Christians rearrested for their faith in Iran were subjected to torture and asked to write letters renouncing their belief in Jesus amid the reality of a sixfold increase in prison sentences for Christians in the Islamic Republic in 2024, a new report states.

Article 18, a London-based religious freedom nongovernmental organization, released an annual report this month chronicling rights violations against Christians in Iran.

The report, titled “The Tip of the Iceberg” and released in partnership with Open Doors, Christian Solidarity Worldwide and Middle East Concern, found that Christians in Iran were sentenced to a combined total of 250 years in prison in 2024, a sixfold increase compared to 2023’s report.

According to the document, 96 Christians were sentenced to a combined 263 years in prison, 37 years of internal exile and nearly $800,000 in fines.

“At least 139 Christians were arrested in Iran in 2024 on account of their religious beliefs or activities, 80 were detained and 77 were charged,” Article 18 stated in the latest report. “At the end of 2024, at least 18 Christians were still serving sentences related to their faith. There were also reports of detained Christians being physically tortured.”

To address cases that often go unreported, the report includes details on the prosecution of Jahangir Alikhani, Hamed Malamiri and Gholam Eshaghi. They were arrested last year by agents with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Ministry of Intelligence had previously arrested the three, along with 20 others, in December 2023.

IRGC agents rearrested the men and took them to a detention center in Sari, where they were denied access to a lawyer, according to the report. The Christians faced charges of “propagating a religion contrary to Islam” and “collaborating with foreign governments,” according to a November 2024 Article 18 report.

The three were released on Nov. 17, 2024, on bail of 1 billion tomans, which would cost $15,000.

Before their release, the three men were subjected to physical and psychological torture during prolonged interrogations. They were told to write letters renouncing their faith and apologize for their actions.

“On the day of their release, another member of the group, Javad Amini, was rearrested and transferred to the Sari detention centre,” the report states. “Mr Amini’s wife, Farzaneh Ahmadi, went home to discover it ransacked, and minutes later received another unwelcome visit from the agents, who claimed they were looking for her husband’s phone and Bibles.”

“The agents later returned for a third visit and confiscated several Bibles and other Christian books, as well as Mr. Amini’s notebooks related to his study of Christian theology,” the document continued.

Agents with the Ministry of Intelligence and IRGC interrogated Amini’s wife during his detention, subjecting her to “severe psychological pressure.” Amini and two other Christian converts were released on Nov. 27, 2024, on bail of 1 billion tomans ($15,000).

Before their release, Amini, Alikhani, Malamiri, and Eshaghi and eight others went through a trial at Branch 102 of the Criminal Court of Nowshahr, according to the Article 18 joint report. Prosecutor Mohammad Reza Ebrahimi said in the indictment that those on trial had identified themselves as Christians in their defense.

As the prosecutor wrote, “And this is supported by the messages exchanged in their phones,” as well as through the “Gospels and other Christian literature found in their possession.” The prosecutor argued that the individuals were guilty of a crime because they had set up groups to teach about Christianity.

The outcome of the trial remained unreported at the end of 2024, according to the Article 18 joint report.

The confiscation of Christian properties and the targeting of their finances is another trend highlighted by the watchdog groups. IRGC intelligence agents would question arrested Christians about whether they received any funding from abroad.

“Each arrest was carried out by IRGC intelligence agents, who sought to charge them under a provision within the amended Article 500 of the Islamic Penal Code, which calls for the maximum punishment of up to 10 years’ imprisonment in cases where the individual has received ‘financial or organisational help from outside the country,'” the report notes.

“The Iranian government seems to have intensified its efforts to isolate and financially undermine the Christian community as part of a broader strategy to suppress its growth and influence,” the report states.

“Making financial donations, charitable offerings, or paying tithes to support church activities are standard practices for Christians worldwide, but such activities have been criminalised by Iran’s Revolutionary Courts.”
Sources:Christian Post

http://theendtimeradio.com