Spotlight

Persecuted Christians

There is an estimated 200 million Christians currently persecuted worldwide. That's an awesome number, more than the population of Brazil. Earlier in the last century, communist countries, such as Russia, China and North Korea were the main persecutors, but these days extremist Islamic states bear chief responsibility, from Africa, through to the Middle East, Central Asia and Indonesia. It is a story that needs to be told and here we draw on the experiences on three major Christian ministries - the Barnabas Fund, Open Doors and Release International - to explain to us what is going on.

Why do Muslim extremists have a problem with Christians?

We have one of the World's experts, Dr Patrick Sookhdeo, founder of the Barnabas Fund, to explain, in two exclusive interviews.

Here Dr Sookhdeo explains the rise of Islamic violence in the modern world.

In this video, he looks at Islam in the Modern World, particularly in relation to other faith groups, such as Christians.

NIGERIA

Persecuted Church

"His wife was killed for touching the Koran. Yet he forgives her killers".

The full story comes to us from the June edition of the World Update for the Persecuted Church, from Release International, where Andrew Boyd also introduces other stories from Pakistan, Indonesia and Nigeria.

Indonesia

This story hit the World's newspapers in 2005. Three ladies were thrown into prison on a three year sentence for running a Sunday School for Muslim children, in apparent breach of the country's Child Protection laws.