The brave relief teams provide aid in the form of food, clothing, medical supplies and expertise.

Always as they do their work they have to avoid being found by the Burmese Army.

The Kachin people in the north have a ceasefire with the regime, but the peace dividend is severely limited. An end to widespread killing and mass displacement is welcome, but the cost is a climate of intense restriction, discrimination, and crimes committed with impunity by military personnel.

A 21-year-old Kachin Bible school student who was raped and strangled by two Burma Army soldiers, said she heard one of the soldiers had raped many girls but had never been brought to justice.
The Chin people in the west also face constant religious and ethnic discrimination and severe abuse. These two ethnic groups feel forgotten by the international community.
   In addition to the many thousands in the ethnic minorities of Kachin, Chin, Karen and Karenni, who are under constant threat and many of whom are Christian, there are also 2,100 political prisoners in Burma.

In the midst of accounts of capture and forced labor, one cruel form of this is the kidnapping of children who are then forced to join the military.

Such is the case of Myint Myint Win, now aged 16, pictured below. Living near Hla Gone Byone SPDC (army)camp in Dwelo Township, Papun District, he was forced to enter the army when aged 15.
He was treated harshly by older soldiers and not given his salary by his army officer who told him he would be killed by the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) if he ran away.
However civilians told him this was false and he believed them. He escaped from the Burma Army.
On April 26, 2009, he was able to contact the KNLA and arrived to the local KNLA Battalion head-quarters. He surrendered his rifle complete with its three magazines.  He has been  cared for and provided civilian clothes.     
                           FBR & CSW

Christians in India are heaving a sigh of relief after the rout of the extremist Hindu nationalist party Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in both the national parliamentary and state assembly elections in Orissa state, a scene of anti-Christian arson and carnage last year.

The ruling centrist party won a second term, but concerns over persecution of minorities remain. The embarrassing defeat for the BJP came as a surprise.
A local centrist party, the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), won government in the eastern state of Orissa.
The new federal government is led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, giving a second term to the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), led by the left-of-center Indian National Congress (Congress Party).
John Dayal, secretary general of the All India Christian Council (AICC), said the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was “defeated not by Christians or Muslims, but by secular Hindus.
“… I am hoping that the BJP will learn that it does not pay to persecute minorities, and that civilized Hindus are disgusted with divisive antics of the **RSS family.” 
An editorial in The Times of India stated, “Internal criticisms within the BJP have brought out that it is losing popularity among youth as well as among the urban middle  classes, two segments where it had been strong earlier and which represent the emergent India of the 21st century”.

 Meanwhile political analyst and senior journalist Vijay  Simha warned , “One would expect a lessening in persecution of Christians and other non-Hindus – however, extremist groups often step up activities to garner funds and patronage when they are on the retreat.  …. So, one could also see a rise in anti-minority activities.”

In Orissa, the BJP won not a single parliamentary seat – not even in Kandhamal.
The BJD broke its 11-year-old alliance with the BJP over its role in the violence which killed more than 127 people and destroyed 315 villages, 4,640 houses, 252 churches and 13 educational institutions, and rendered more than 50,000 homeless.
 In the Orissa state assembly elections, the BJP faced a debacle winning only 7 of the 147 seats including two from Kandhamal district in the areas which were at the epicenter of last year’s violence.
Even in Andhra Pradesh state, where Hindu nationalist groups have launched numerous attacks on Christians in the last few years, the BJP’s count was nil.
States where the BJP won a majority of votes and where anti Christian sentiment may yet rise higher are:
Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh in the north, and Jharkhand in the east.
**(Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), is a Hindu nationalist conglomerate and the parent organization of the BJP.)    Compass       

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After Saw Simon fled to Mae La camp on the Thai-Burmese border he opened the Karen Baptist Bible School which celebrated its 25th anniversary in    March 2009. It offers general education to refugees and training to church leaders.

There are more than 240 Karen Baptist churches in the refugee camps on the Thai/Burma border.

Sixteen Christians who were detained by officials while attending a communion service in Shuitaizi village, Henan province in late April have been released, according to a May 24 report from ChinaAid.

The 16 church leaders were released on May 8-9 due to international pressure and were not required to complete their sentences of 10-14 days in detention or pay their fines of 1,000 Yuan (approximately      $US 150).

In Tao Dan Stadium, Ho Chi Minh City on April 21st, unregistered house church groups held a large public Easter related service.
More than 15,000 people met to worship God in the open air. Authorities granted this rare permission just three hours before the event began. Christians from small house churches had an unusual opportunity of large-scale Christian unity.

   Christians - Necati Aydin, Ugur Yuksel and American Tilmann Geske were tied up and stabbed to death on April 18, 2007 at the Zirve Publishing Co. offices.

Plaintiff lawyers had moved the focus of the trial away from the five suspects and the alleged ringleader, Emre Gunaydin to those believed to be themaster minds of the murders, namely Mehmet Ulger the gendarmerie commander of Malatya province and Ruhi Abat a theology instructor at Ismet Inonu University.

   In court on May 22, the alleged ringleader unexpectedly contradicted his previous testimony implicating a suspected middleman.
Gunaydin said the suspect, a Christian missionary who was being held in prison, was not guilty and should be released. The suspect was released.     

  In a bold move, Egypt’s Coptic Church has issued its first-ever certificate of conversion to a former Muslim, supporting his petition to have his national identification card denote his Christian faith.

Maher Ahmad El-Mo’otahssem Bellah El-Gohary’s request to legally convert is only the second case in Egypt of a Muslim-born citizen trying to change his religious affiliation to Christianity on identification documents.
His case will be heard in court on June 13 with two others. He is in hiding  and has received death threats  
   Christian convert Raheal Henen Mussa and her Coptic husband, Sarwat George Ryiad, are hiding from police and her Muslim family for violating an article of Islamic law (sharia) that doesn’t exist in the Egyptian penal code.
     Miss. Inas Rafaat as-Sa’id Muhammad Hassan is a convert to Christianity from the Muslim faith. Several months ago she informed her family that she had converted to Christianity. Soon afterwards the secret police started to follow her.
    Early in the morning of April 29 she was detained at Cairo international airport from where she had a ticket to fly to South Africa. She was kept at the al-Waiely police station until she was transferred to al-Kanater prison the next day. There is real concern that she is suffering abuse.
Swine flu excuse.
   The Egyptian government ordered the slaughter of Egypt’s pigs, despite WHO’s criticism that it was unnecessary, destroying the livelihood of thousands of breeders, nearly all Coptic Christians.                        

Egypt, population 75million, is the Middle East country with by far the most Christians. 10% Coptic, or 7.5million, plus others.

The Egyptian government chooses to minimize this percentage to between 2%-3%, or no more than 2.2million.
In principle, Egyptian Christians enjoy the same rights as their Muslim compatriots.  But in reality things are very different, so much so that Coptic Christians say, “We feel like foreigners in our own country” and many abstain from voting – only about 12 % of them vote.
The Egyptian constitution guarantees, “All citizens are equal before the law (Article 40) and the State shall guarantee the freedom of belief and the freedom of practicing religious rights (Article 46). 
But the constitution also states, “Islam is the Religion of the State”.
                                                                    
Arabic is the official language and the principle source of jurisprudence i.e. Sharia law.
It is compulsory for a person’s religion to be stated on their ID card from the age of 16, which results in discrimination in many different fields and professions. 
Only 1.5% of civil servants are Copts. In the best government schools, a Christian cannot be first in his course or his class.
No Copt is permitted to teach Arabic, except in low grades of primary school where reading is taught without using the Koran.
No Copt is granted equal access to education or equal opportunity with Muslims in recruitment or promotion.
In effect they are second class citizens.    ACN Intl. Religious Freedom in the World Report 2008                                
                              
           

Kyrgystan

Since January, using Kyrgystan’s new Religion Law, officials of the Prosecutor’s Office, Police, secret police, local Executive Authorities and State Agency for Religious Affairs have checked up on many religious communities. This includes finding whether Protestant churches have shared their faith and if children are involved in religious activity.
A church must have 200 members to be registered, or be banned from religious activity.                                
Vietnam
The first  Degar church built in the central Highlands, from which Christianity spread to 100s of 1,000s, was destroyed in March by the Vietnamese government. On May 1, 2009 86,829 Degar Christians in the Central Highlands and abroad stayed home for three days and nights to mourn their failure to protect the church.    

Vietnam

The first  Degar church built in the central Highlands, from which Christianity spread to 100s of 1,000s, was destroyed in March by the Vietnamese government. On May 1, 2009 86,829 Degar Christians in the Central Highlands and abroad stayed home for three days and nights to mourn their failure to protect the church.   Israel

A group of Messianic Jews handing out evangelistic pamphlets in the city of Rehovot, were attacked on May 13 by ultra-Orthodox Jews. There is no Israeli law against sharing one’s faith with consenting adults—although many who attack Messianic evangelists  claim there is.

North Korea

Suzanne Scholte head of North Korean Freedom Coalition estimates there are 400,000  Christians worshipping secretly in North Korea.
Open Doors estimates 200,000 people are incarcerated in N Korean political prison camps, at least 40,000 being Christians.The conditions in the camps are reported as appalling and the guards as sadistic.                         

The war is over, but many Tamils are in refugee camps, including a lot of Christians. Their needs are massive.

Journalists were barred from the war zone. Journalist J S Tissainayagam was indicted under terrorism legislation for having published two articles criticising the government’s war on the Tamil Tigers in 2006. He has been in prison for a year, and remains there while his trial continues.
President Obama says he is “Guilty of nothing more than a passion for truth.”    

In an attempt to silence a Christian human rights activist living in England, Iranian authorities arrested and interrogated his Muslim father on May 14. He was released on May 19.

Abdul Zahra Vashahi, a retired 62-year-old suffering a heart condition, was arrested in Bandar Mahshahr, SW Iran, and interrogated about the human rights activities of his son, John (Reza) Vashahi, who has lived in England since 2003.
John converted to Christianity in England and in 2008 founded the Iranian Minorities Human Rights Organization (IMHRO).
In February Zahra Vashahi received a call from local authorities saying if his son didn’t stop his activities, they would arrest him instead.

John Vashahi said the Iranian government began putting increased pressure on his family, whom he has not seen for six years, since he founded IMHRO.