Tag: Children

Having human rights in Kazakhstan depends on state permission – report

September 5, 2018 Kazakhstan Children, Human rights, Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, Proselytism, Religion Law, Religious freedom, Women

The Presidential Palace, the official work place of Kazakhstan's president, in the capital Astana. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)

Kazakhstan tries to make the “exercising of human rights conditional on state permission”, says the Oslo-based news service Forum 18. “[Kazakhstan] systematically violates intertwined fundamental rights – such as the freedoms of religion or belief, of expression and of assembly” when it has international obligations to respect and defend these, . . . Read More

Thailand called to release detained Vietnamese Montagnard refugees

September 3, 2018 Asylum seekers, Cambodia, Children, Hmong, Minorities, Montagnards, Refugees, Religious freedom, Thailand, Vietnam

The Montagnard-people are persecuted because of their faith but getting asylum in neighbouring countries is difficult. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)

Thailand should release the group of ethnic minority refugees and asylum seekers, mostly Christians, arrested last week during a crackdown just outside the capital Bangkok, rights groups say. Most of the 181 refugees detained are Montagnards, an indigenous group from Vietnam who face “harsh persecution if they are returned to . . . Read More

China has transformed Xinjiang into a ‘mass detention camp’ – UN

September 3, 2018 China Children, China, Prisons, Religious freedom, Terrorism, Uyghurs, Xinjiang

China's government has had an "anti terror" campaign in majority-Muslim Xinjiang region - meaning increased surveillance, arrests and detention. (Photo: JOHANNES EISELE/AFP/Getty Images)

The United Nations has raised alarm over the tens of thousands of Uyghur Muslims being held in detention centres in Xinjiang, northwest China. In a report last Thursday, the UN Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination said the Chinese government had “transformed the autonomous region of the Uyghurs into . . . Read More

Parents seek global petitions to Nigerian President to ‘#BringBackOurLeah’

September 3, 2018 Nigeria Boko Haram, Children, Dapchi, Leah Sharibu, Nigeria, Women, Yobe

Leah Sharibu, 14, was abducted by Boko Haram on 19 February 2018. (Photo from family)

The parents of the Nigerian Christian girl held by Boko Haram say they have renewed hope that she might safely return home after a short audio recording her kidnappers released last week. In the 35-second recording, Leah Sharibu is heard asking for help for her family and herself, calling on . . . Read More

Nigeria: Kidnapped Leah Sharibu calls on president for help

August 29, 2018 Nigeria Boko Haram, Children, Dapchi, Kidnapping, Leah Sharibu, Nigeria, Women

Leah Sharibu, the Christian teenager abducted by an Islamist group in February, has asked Nigeria’s president to intervene and help facilitate her release. In a 35-second audio recording, obtained by Ahmad Salkida for Nigerian newspaper The Cable, she asks for help for her family and herself. “I also plead to . . . Read More

Coptic boy who saw father killed wants to join police ‘to protect Christians’

August 20, 2018 Egypt Children, Copts, Egypt, Islamic extremism, Minya

Marco (l) and Mina (r)standing next to the car that their father drove when he was killed. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)

A young Christian boy from a small village in Egypt’s Minya region, who saw his father killed by Islamic militants, dreams of becoming a police officer so he can prevent similar attacks. Mina was only ten years old when he and his brother Marco, aged 14, saw their father murdered, . . . Read More

China: Christian summer camps closed down, priests dismissed

August 15, 2018 China Catholics, Children, China, Gansu, Religious freedom, Xi Jinping, Youth

Authorities make holding summer youth camps like this one held in 2008, increasingly difficult. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)

China has closed several Christian summer camps for children and dismissed two priests for holding a camp, reports Catholic news agency UCAN. The two priests belonged to one of the only two unregistered Catholic churches in Tianshui diocese, in China’s northwest Gansu province. After their dismissal, the Tianshui Municipal Ethnic . . . Read More

Nine-year-old Indian girl from convert family reported raped, then murdered

August 8, 2018 India Andhra Pradesh, Anti-conversion law, Chhattisgarh, Children, Converts, Gujarat, Gurdaspur, Himachal Pradesh, Hindu nationalism, India, Jharkhand, Ludhiana, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Rape, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Uttarakhand, Women

A nine-year-old girl from an Indian family that had recently converted to Christianity was murdered (and possibly raped before that) on Sunday, 5 August, in Punjab state. The girl was playing with her friends in the city of Gurdaspur, near the Pakistan border, when a 15 year old boy is reported to . . . Read More

China: Xinjiang’s children in orphanages as their parents held in re-education camps

July 20, 2018 China Children, China, Religious freedom, Uyghurs, Women, Xinjiang

As a rally in support of China’s prisoners of conscience took place in the streets of Washington DC last week, an ongoing Chinese government crackdown on its Uyghur-people in Xinjiang province is tearing both Muslim and Christian families and communities apart. The rally, hosted by five rights groups in the . . . Read More

70,000 Syrian Armenians have fled during the war, and few will return

June 27, 2018 Syria Aleppo, Armenians, Bashar al-Assad, Children, Civil War, Deir Ezzor, Education, Europe, Lebanon, Middle East, Refugees, Syria

The fragrance of Middle Eastern cuisine wafts into your nostrils, even before you open the door of the café opposite the central railway station in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital. Nerses Kevo, the café’s owner, is one of thousands of Armenian Christians who fled the Syrian civil war and moved to . . . Read More

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