Vietnamese authorities have arrested 71-year-old Pastor Nguyen Manh Hung in Ho Chi Minh City, charging him with spreading “anti-state propaganda.” Officers also detained his son during the same raid but later released him after several hours of interrogation.

Pastor Nguyen was taken into custody during a raid on his home, where police reportedly cut off electricity before entering the premises, according to Radio Free Asia, which said they handcuffed him as soon as he opened the door, citing an arrest warrant under Article 117 of Vietnam’s Penal Code.

The law prohibits the distribution of content deemed to be against the state, with penalties of up to 20 years in prison. Officials also seized mobile phones, laptops and some documents from the scene, the U.K.-based group Christian Solidarity Worldwide reported.

The pastor’s son, identified as Nguyen Tran Hien, was taken to the Ministry of Public Security’s Institute for Criminal Sciences on the same day. He was questioned about his father’s activities, including alleged bank transactions, before being released at midnight. He was not charged but had to surrender his phone and laptop during the interrogation process, according to witness accounts.

Pastor Nguyen was taken to a detention facility to be held for four months pending further investigation, based on statements from his family.

Authorities claim that Pastor Nguyen’s use of social media amounted to “anti-state propaganda,” reported the U.S.-based persecution watchdog International Christian Concern.

Investigators noted a Facebook post from Jan. 14 in which the pastor suggested that while Vietnam’s Communist Party once called land purchasers “cruel landlords,” it now refers to those who allegedly acquire land through abuse of power as “outstanding.”

Pastor Nguyen is the first individual arrested on such charges since the start of this year and the second since To Lam took office as Vietnam’s general secretary in August 2024.

Nguyen Manh Hung was previously associated with the Chuong Bo Protestant Church, an independent Mennonite congregation, and he remains a member of the Interfaith Council of Vietnam. The council advocates for religious freedom across the country. Neither the church nor the council are officially registered with Vietnamese authorities, which is required under law.

Although many of those who have encountered legal trouble in similar cases come from minority ethnic groups in Vietnam’s central highlands, Pastor Nguyen belongs to the Kinh majority group.

The pastor has faced repeated harassment from the authorities over the past 15 years. He has spoken out against reported instances of corruption and human rights violations in the country.

In 2015, he appeared before a U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Sub-Committee investigating alleged religious freedom violations in Vietnam.

His current detention is part of an ongoing clampdown on critics of the country’s one-party system. Cases involving criticism of the Communist Party or allegations of corruption often receive heightened scrutiny in Vietnam.

Before his ministry, Nguyen served as a soldier in the Northern Vietnam Army during the Vietnam War. He later worked in management roles and briefly entered a monastery before becoming a pastor in 2011.
Sources:Christian Post

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സോഷ്യൽ മീഡിയ വഴി മതനിന്ദ നടത്തിയെന്ന് ആരോപിച്ച് പാക്കിസ്ഥാനിൽ നാല് യുവാക്കൾക്ക് വധശിക്ഷ വിധിച്ചു. ഇസ്ലാമിനെ നിന്ദിക്കുന്ന കാര്യങ്ങൾ സോഷ്യൽ മീഡിയയിൽ പോസ്റ്റ് ചെയ്തുവെന്നാണ് പഞ്ചാബ് പ്രവിശ്യയിൽ നിന്നുള്ള 20നും 32നും ഇടയിൽ പ്രായമുള്ള നാല് യുവാക്കൾക്ക് എതിരെയുള്ള ആരോപണം.

“അവരിൽ മൂന്ന് പേർ ലാഹോറിൽ നിന്നുള്ളവരും ഒരാൾ ബഹവൽപൂരിൽ നിന്നുള്ളതുമാണ്. വിവാദപരമായ ഉള്ളടക്കം പങ്കിടുന്ന സോഷ്യൽ മീഡിയ ഗ്രൂപ്പുകളിൽ അവർ കബളിപ്പിക്കപ്പെട്ട് ചേർന്നതായിരുന്നു. മതനിന്ദാപരമായ ഉള്ളടക്കം അവരുടെ ഫോണുകളിൽ സൂക്ഷിക്കാനും മറ്റുള്ളവരുമായി ഷെയർ ചെയ്യാനും കാരണമായത് കബളിപ്പിക്കപ്പെട്ടായിരുന്നു.”- മതനിന്ദാ കുറ്റം ചുമത്തപ്പെട്ട കുടുംബങ്ങൾ ചേർന്ന് രൂപീകരിച്ച ഗ്രൂപ്പായ വോയ്‌സ് ഓഫ് ദി വിക്ടിംസ് ഓഫ് ബ്ലാസ്‌ഫെമി ബിസിനസ് ഗ്രൂപ്പിലെ ഒരു അജ്ഞാത അംഗത്തിന്റെ മൊഴികൾ വ്യക്തമാക്കുന്നു.

സെന്റർ ഫോർ സോഷ്യൽ ജസ്റ്റിസ് (CSJ) എന്ന അഭിഭാഷക ഗ്രൂപ്പിലെ അംഗമായ ഒരു അഭിഭാഷകൻ നസീർ വില്യം, പാക്കിസ്ഥാനിൽ ക്രിസ്ത്യാനികൾക്കെതിരായ വർധിച്ചുവരുന്ന പീഡനങ്ങളിലും മതനിന്ദ ആരോപിക്കപ്പെടുന്ന കേസുകളിലും ആശങ്ക രേഖപ്പെടുത്തി. “ഈ ഇരകൾക്ക് ദീർഘകാലമായി അർഹമായ നഷ്ടപരിഹാരം നൽകാൻ സർക്കാർ അധികാരികളോട് അഭ്യർഥിച്ചുകൊണ്ട് പത്രസമ്മേളനങ്ങൾ നടത്തുന്നു. ദേശീയ അസംബ്ലിയുടെ സ്റ്റാൻഡിംഗ് കമ്മിറ്റി ജനുവരി 27 ന് വൈകുന്നേരം സെഷനിൽ ഇക്കാര്യം ചർച്ച ചെയ്യും. കുറഞ്ഞത് ഈ ഇരകൾക്ക് കോടതിയിൽ അപ്പീൽ കൊടുക്കാനെങ്കിലുമുള്ള അവകാശം നൽകണം” വില്യം പറഞ്ഞു.

കഴിഞ്ഞ വർഷം 19 ക്രിസ്ത്യാനികൾ ഉൾപ്പെടെ 343 പേർക്കെതിരെ കേസുകൾ ഉണ്ടായിരുന്നു. അതിൽ അഞ്ചുപേർ സ്ത്രീകളാണ്. പാക്കിസ്ഥാനിൽ ഇസ്‌ലാമിനും മുഹമ്മദ് നബിക്കും എതിരെയുള്ള മതനിന്ദ ജീവപര്യന്തമോ വധശിക്ഷയോ ലഭിക്കാവുന്ന ഗുരുതരമായ കുറ്റമായി കണക്കാക്കപ്പെടുന്നു. മിക്ക കേസുകളിലും, പാക്കിസ്ഥാനിൽ മതനിന്ദാ നിയമങ്ങൾ സ്വകാര്യ നേട്ടങ്ങൾക്കായി – പണമോ വ്യക്തിപരമോ ആയ നേട്ടങ്ങൾക്കായി ഉപയോഗിക്കുന്നു.
Sources:azchavattomonline.com

A Pakistani court has sentenced four men to death on blasphemy charges in the garrison city of Rawalpindi for allegedly uploading sacrilegious content about the Quran and Islamic figures.
Tariq Ayub, a judge who awarded the sentence, said the contempt of figures sacred to Muslims and insulting the Quran were unforgivable offences that don’t deserve mercy. He sentenced the four men to death and also fined them 4.6 million Pakistani rupees (approximately $16,000). They were identified as Rana Usman, Ashfaque Ali, Salman Sajjad, and Wajid Ali.
According to the court order, dated Jan 24, the four individuals were sentenced to death by hanging for using derogatory remarks against the Holy Prophet. They were also sentenced to life in prison for defiling the Holy Quran and to 10 years’ imprisonment for deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs. “All the sentences shall run concurrently,” the order read.
The prosecution lawyer said the case was supported by forensic evidence from the devices used. The men’s lawyer, Manzoor Rahmani, criticised the court’s order, saying doubts and uncertainties that arise in such cases are ignored by the courts, likely due to fear of a religious backlash and potential mob violence against the judge if the accused is acquitted.

We are preparing our appeals against the decision and will go to the high court,” Rahmani said. A member of a support group formed by the families of the accused was quoted by media as saying the pattern of arrests and prosecutions in this case was consistent with previous ones.
“We urge the government to establish a commission to investigate the rise in these cases before these young individuals spend the best years of their lives behind bars,” said the support group member.
Critics say blasphemy accusations, whether true or false, often lead to lengthy prison sentences on death row and solitary confinement. The laws, according to them, are often abused to settle scores or used to target members of Pakistan’s religious minorities.
Hundreds of people have been accused of blasphemy since the draconian laws were introduced by former dictator Gen Zia-ul-Haq in the 1980s. Nearly 100 people have been reportedly lynched to death so far while dozens remain on death row.

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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

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