ChinaAid, an international organization supporting persecuted Christians inside China, has launched a petition and advocacy campaign to bring Pastor John Cao back to his home in the U.S.

Pastor John has been imprisoned in China for seven years for his missionary work on the China-Myanmar border, helping establish 16 schools that serve thousands of local children and families.

He was “released” in 2024, but he is still blocked from returning to the U.S., where his wife and sons, American citizens, live.

He now has advanced prostate cancer, and his situation is even more critical. ChinaAid’s campaign and petition call for Pastor John’s immediate release, particularly urging President Donald Trump to personally raise his situation in his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sept. 24.

“Please pray for Pastor John, his health, and his family in the U.S.,” an International Christian Concern (ICC) staffer said. “And please consider signing and sharing the ChinaAid petition.”
Sources:persecution

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A mob of hundreds gathered outside a Christian family’s home in Karachi last month after blasphemy allegations began to spread, but the crowd dispersed after police intervened. An initial inquiry has since found the underlying allegation to be false.

According to Reuters, the four women and one child inside the home were spared partly because the organized fundamentalist groups that have historically led such riots were absent from the scene.

The incident reflects a sharp shift now underway across Pakistan. Registered blasphemy cases have fallen by roughly two-thirds this year, down to just 13 so far in 2026, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. Blasphemy-related riots and attacks, which averaged more than seven per year between 2021 and 2024, dropped to just one during the past 12 months, according to data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project.

A Military-Led Crackdown
Reuters reported that the decline traces to a crackdown on hardline Islamist groups overseen by Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir. The largest target has been Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), long Pakistan’s most prominent blasphemy-focused movement, whose rallying cry was “Death to blasphemers.” TLP was banned in late 2025; its leaders have since been jailed, its mosques sealed, and its bank accounts frozen.

A government document supporting the ban, reviewed by Reuters, described TLP as having become “a serious threat to Pakistan” that harmed both internal peace and the country’s international standing. A TLP spokesperson referred to a prior statement calling the ban illegal and unconstitutional.

Reports suggest that the crackdown’s motivations were largely strategic rather than protective of religious minorities. Pakistani officials grew concerned that TLP’s hostility toward European nations was jeopardizing an EU duty waiver on which nearly a third of Pakistan’s exports depend.

Separately, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) recommended last year that Pakistan again be designated a Country of Particular Concern over its blasphemy laws, a designation Pakistan has decried. Analysts also pointed to Pakistan’s deteriorating relationship with the Afghan Taliban, once a military ally, as Islamabad increasingly blames Taliban-linked networks for fueling insurgencies in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Talal Chaudhry, Pakistan’s minister of state for the interior, told Reuters that the government and military are aligned in cracking down on “any group that tries to hold the people or this country hostage to its dictates.”

A Law That Hasn’t Changed
Pakistan has recorded roughly 90 blasphemy-linked lynchings since 1990. Blasphemy remains punishable by death under Section 295-C of Pakistan’s penal code, and the law itself has not been amended or repealed as part of the current crackdown. What has shifted is the state’s tolerance for organized groups acting as enforcers of that law in the streets.

Christians, who make up roughly 2% of Pakistan’s population, have long faced a disproportionate share of blasphemy accusations relative to their numbers. The 2010 case of Asia Bibi remains among the most widely known: a Christian farm laborer sentenced to death after a workplace dispute over drinking water escalated into a blasphemy accusation. She spent eight years on death row before an international campaign led to her acquittal and exile.

Ihsan Ghani, Pakistan’s counter-terrorism chief during deadly TLP riots in 2017, told Reuters that a movement cultivated for years as a tool of state policy “cannot switch on, switch off,” warning it could re-emerge in force if TLP’s usefulness to the military changes again. Elizabeth Threlkeld, director of the Stimson Center’s South Asia program, raised a similar concern about whether Pakistan will sustain the crackdown at all.

Relief, But Not Certainty
For Pakistan’s Christian, Shi’ite, and Ahmadi communities, the change has been striking after decades in which suspects in blasphemy-related killings were sometimes publicly celebrated rather than prosecuted. The Christian woman whose family was targeted in Karachi last month told Reuters that she and her relatives are now physically safe. But, she said, the fear has not gone away.

Religious freedom advocates note that Pakistan’s response to international pressure has historically proven temporary, tied closely to trade access, diplomatic relationships, and terror-financing scrutiny, and vulnerable to reversal once those pressures ease. A drop in this year’s case numbers reflects a shift in enforcement priorities by Pakistan’s military leadership, not a change in the underlying legal framework that allows a single accusation to place a Christian’s life at risk.

Sustained international attention will be needed to determine whether this year’s decline in blasphemy violence outlasts the strategic circumstances that produced it. Pakistan’s blasphemy laws remain in force regardless of how few cases are filed under them, and advocates continue to call for their repeal, along with due process protections for the accused and accountability for the mob violence and impunity that have defined the law’s enforcement for decades.
Sources:persecution

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നൈജീരിയ: നൈജീരിയയിലെ ബോർണോ (Borno) സംസ്ഥാനത്ത് നിന്ന് തീവ്രവാദികൾ തട്ടിക്കൊണ്ടുപോയ കുട്ടികളെ മോചിപ്പിക്കാൻ നടപടി സ്വീകരിക്കണമെന്നാവശ്യപ്പെട്ട് മാതാപിതാക്കൾ തെരുവിലിറങ്ങി പ്രതിഷേധിച്ചു. കുട്ടികളെ തട്ടിക്കൊണ്ടുപോയിട്ട് നൂറ് ദിവസമായിട്ടും വിട്ടയ്ക്കുകയോ രക്ഷിക്കാനുള്ള ശ്രമത്തിൽ പുരോഗതിയോ ഉണ്ടാകാത്തതിനാലാണ് മാതാപിതാക്കൾ പ്രതിഷേധവുമായി തെരുവിലിറങ്ങിയത്. മെയ് 15 നാണ് സംബിസ വനമേഖലയ്ക്കു സമീപമുള്ള മുസ്സ (Mussa) ഗ്രാമത്തിലെ ക്ലാസ് മുറികളിൽ നിന്ന് കുട്ടികളെ തട്ടിക്കൊണ്ടുപോയത്.

ഇസ്ലാമിക് സ്റ്റേറ്റ് വെസ്റ്റ് ആഫ്രിക്ക പ്രൊവിൻസ് (ISWAP), ബൊക്കോ ഹറാം തുടങ്ങിയ തീവ്രവാദി ഗ്രൂപ്പുകൾ സാധാരണക്കാർക്കും സ്‌കൂളുകൾക്കും നേരെ നടത്തുന്ന ആക്രമണങ്ങൾ നൈജീരിയയിൽ തുടരുകയാണ്. മുസ്സയിൽ നിന്ന് തട്ടിക്കൊണ്ടുപോയവരിൽ 45 ഓളം കുട്ടികൾ ഇനിയും തിരിച്ചെത്താനുണ്ട്.

മുസ്സയ്ക്ക് സമീപമുള്ള ലാസ്സയിൽ ജൂൺ 29 ന് നടന്ന ആക്രമണത്തിൽ 36 വിദ്യാർഥികളെയും ഒരു അധ്യാപകനെയും കാണാതായിട്ടുണ്ട്. ഇവർ ഇപ്പോഴും ഭീകരരുടെ തടവിലാണ്. മൂന്നരയും എട്ടരയും വയസ്സുള്ള തങ്ങളുടെ രണ്ട് മക്കളെ നഷ്ടപ്പെട്ട പീസ് നിക്കോളസ് ഉൾപ്പെടെയുള്ള രക്ഷിതാക്കൾ വലിയ മാനസിക സംഘർഷത്തിലൂടെയാണ് കടന്നുപോകുന്നത്. “ഞങ്ങൾ ദിവസവും ഭയത്തിലാണ്. ഭക്ഷണം കഴിക്കാൻ പോലും കഴിയുന്നില്ല. മക്കളെ രക്ഷപെടുത്താൻ സർക്കാരിനോട് അപേക്ഷിക്കുകയാണ്,” പീസ് പറയുന്നു.

വർഷങ്ങളായി സൈനിക നടപടികൾ തുടരുന്നുണ്ടെങ്കിലും വടക്കുകിഴക്കൻ നൈജീരിയയിൽ ഇത്തരം തട്ടിക്കൊണ്ടുപോകലുകൾക്ക് ഒരു കുറവും വന്നിട്ടില്ല. കമ്മ്യൂണിറ്റി നേതാക്കൾ പറയുന്നത്, പിഞ്ചുകുട്ടികളെ മാതാപിതാക്കളിൽ നിന്ന് വേർപെടുത്തി കൊണ്ടുപോകുന്നതിനേക്കാൾ വലിയൊരു വേദന മറ്റൊന്നില്ലെന്നാണ്.
Sources:azchavattomonline.com

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Parents ‌of children abducted from Nigeria’s northeastern Borno state protested in Uba town on Thursday, demanding the federal government secure their release nearly 100 days after they were taken.
The children were seized from their ​classrooms on May 15 in Mussa, a community on the fringes of ​the Sambisa Forest, a long-time stronghold of Islamist militants.

The protest underscored ⁠families’ frustration as kidnappings persist despite years of military operations against Boko Haram and ​its Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) offshoot in northeastern Nigeria. While the insurgency has ​weakened since its peak, both groups continue to stage attacks on civilians, schools and security forces across Borno and neighbouring states.

The abduction was followed by another attack in nearby Lassa on June 29, where 36 ​students and a teacher also remain captive. Last month, authorities secured the release of ​schoolchildren abducted by gunmen from schools in southwest Oyo state after nearly two months in captivity.

A ⁠police spokesperson said the military is “on top of the situation” but declined further comment, directing enquiries to the military. A spokesperson for the military did not respond to requests for comment.
“We still have not seen them,” said Chinda Buba, whose child was ​among those abducted. “We do ​not know where ⁠our children are. We don’t know whether they are healthy or going through difficult conditions.”

Peace Nicolos, whose two children, aged 3-1/2 ​and 8-1/2, are among the missing, said families lived in constant ​anxiety.
“We worry ⁠every day and struggle to eat,” she said. “We are pleading with the government to rescue them.”
Orbet Lawan Yakubu, representing the traditional ruler of Mussa, said around 45 children remained ⁠unaccounted ​for.
“There is nothing more painful than separating very young ​children from their parents,” he said. “The entire community is affected because almost every family is connected to ​those who were taken.”
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