Saudi Arabia is modernising, but will this mean greater freedom for religious minorities?

Saudi Arabia is modernising, but will this mean greater freedom for religious minorities?
The political landscape in the strict Islamic Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is changing, and quickly. A charismatic crown prince seems determined to modernise his country and even speaks of a shift towards a more “moderate” Islam. But will the changes taking place in Saudi also ease the situation for members . . . Read More

Iran protests saw people ‘turn their backs on political Islam’

Ayatollah Khomeini spoke about human rights and religious freedom when he returned to Iran 40 years ago. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)
Iranians are challenging the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic because corruption and inequality undermine its ideals, a human rights activist has claimed. In an interview with World Watch Monitor, Mansour Borji, Iranian-born advocacy director of UK-based human rights charity Article 18, said the street protests that spread across the country . . . Read More

‘Risk of genocide’ linked with level of religious freedom

The civil war in Yemen has displaced over 3 million people like this woman who is sitting under a makeshift shelter at a camp for internally displaced persons in the northern district of Abs in Yemen's Hajjah province, on July 23, 2017 (Photo: STRINGER/AFP/Getty Images)
Yemen is the country where the risk of genocide, or mass killing, rose most last year, says Minority Rights Group International (MRG) in its 2017 Peoples Under Threat index, which also includes a large number of countries in which it is most difficult to live as a Christian. Nine of . . . Read More

Middle East faith & money toxic for Horn of Africa

There’s a long-standing connection between the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, shaped by trade and faith. Former BBC Africa Editor Martin Plaut explores this relationship, which has caused increased tensions between and within the countries in the Horn, and which has affected the Christians there badly. Over centuries, . . . Read More

Gunmen kill 4 nuns and 12 others in Yemen

Gunmen kill 4 nuns and 12 others in Yemen
Four Catholic nuns from the late Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity were among 16 victims killed by six unidentified gunmen at a home for the elderly in Yemen’s southern port city of Aden. The four missionary nurses were serving breakfast to the home’s 80 residents on 4 March when armed . . . Read More

Yemen church set on fire

Masked militants yesterday (16. Sep) set ablaze one of the few remaining churches in Aden, Yemen’s southern port city. The fire, which witnesses told the BBC burned the entire contents of the St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church in the city’s Crater neighbourhood, came the day after vandals had broken in . . . Read More