The Sealed

A team from The Voice of the Martyrs traveled to Washington, D.C., in November to make the first delivery of Call For Mercy petitions to the Pakistani Embassy. The team received a courteous response from Pakistani Embassy personnel, who accepted the more than 400,000 signatures that had been collected at that time, including the initial 150,000 from Christians inside Pakistan. “It’s hard to know what to expect when you call an...

A state leader in Malaysia ruled that members of a church will not be prosecuted for allegedly attempting to convert Muslims to Christianity. Islamic religious officers will not be charged either, the sultan of Selangor state said on Oct. 11. The sultan stated lack of sufficient evidence. Controversy broke out after at least 20 officers of the Selangor Islamic Religious Department (JAIS) raided an event at the Damansara Utama Methodist...

Attacks on Christians have continued near the Somalia-Kenya border since Kenya began air strikes and deployed troops last month to deter al-Shabab militants, an extremist Muslim group associated with al-Qaida. Last Saturday, Nov. 5, suspected extremists sympathetic to al-Shabab threw a grenade into a church elder’s home outside Garissa, Kenya, killing 8-year-old Winnie Mwenda Mutinda and 25-year-old John Kikavu. Three others in the house...

Burmese soldiers targeted Christian civilians and church buildings in a recent attack against insurgents from the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO). The military, which accused church leaders of being part of the KIO, reportedly burned church property and several homes. On Oct. 16, 2011, soldiers opened fire on a church in Bhamo District in Kachin state as the congregation prepared for Sunday service. No one was injured in the gunfire, but...