Asia/Pacific

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent BosNewsLife ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN (BosNewsLife)-- A Muslim leader has ordered Christian families to burn their homes and leave a village in Pakistan's Punjab province after a villager freed his abducted underage daughter who was "raped and forced to convert to Islam", negotiators told BosNewsLife Friday, November 30.

By BosNewsLife Asia Service NEW DELHI, INDIA (BosNewsLife)-- Human rights watchers on Wednesday, November 28, cautiously welcomed the sentencing of a dozen people to six years imprisonment for their involvement in India's deadliest anti-Christian violence in decades.

By BosNewsLife News Center BUDAPEST, HUNGARY (BosNewsLife)-- BosNewsLife's busy November 18-24 newsweek saw Christians in the crossfire worshiping behind bars or amid death and destruction from Africa to Gaza and Israel, while in Pakistan a mentally challenged Christian girl was acquitted of  blasphemy against Islam. In former Communist nations, including in Hungary, thousands took to the streets, concerned that their new found freedom was once again under threat by the government..

By BosNewsLife Asia Service BEIJING, CHINA (BosNewsLife)-- A Christian woman who has campaigned against China's strict one-child policy, remained in a labor camp Friday,, November 23, after she was sentenced to 18 months "re-education through labor" for the third time, her husband and fellow Christians said.

By BosNewsLife Asia Service ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN (BosNewsLife)-- A Pakistani court on Tuesday, November 20, cleared a mentally challenged Christian girl of "blasphemy against Islam" charges, which can carry the death penalty. The high court in Pakistan's capital Islamabad found the accusations against teenager Rimsha Masih "legally unsound" in a case that drew worldwide attention.

By BosNewsLife News Center BUDAPEST, HUNGARY (BosNewsLife)-- The November 11-17 newsweek was marked by reports of Islamic militants attacking churches and, in at least one case, beheading a young Christian man "for leaving Islam", though believers continued to gather in worship expressing their faith in Christ and in their future.

By BosNewsLife Asia Service JAKARTA, INDONESIA (BosNewsLife)-- Muslim protesters have prevented a Protestant church from holding its Sunday service in Indonesia's province of West Java after similar incidents elsewhere in this heavily Islamic nation, Christians said Thursday, November 15.

By BosNewsLife Asia Service with reporting by Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent BosNewsLife ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN (BosNewsLife)-- A Pakistani court refused on Wednesday, November 14, to rule on whether to dismiss a controversial case against a mentally challenged Christian girl who has been charged with "blasphemy against Islam."

By Santosh Digal, BosNewsLife Asia Correspondent reporting from Orissa, India PHULBANI, INDIA (BosNewsLife)-- Indian tribal Christians and their relatives are denied government scholarships for education in a violence-plagued district of India's eastern state of Orissa, local Christians and church leaders say.

By BosNewsLife News Center in Budapest BUDAPEST, HUNGARY (BosNewsLife)-- Triumphs amid trials marked BosNewsLife's November 4-November 10 newsweek with a Pakistani evangelist managing to distribute Bibles in areas hit by reported Islamic violence, the Middle East's largest Christian community embracing a new leader, while in Africa Christians died in attacks.