AP

CHRISTIANS DIE AS CHINA IS DECLARED  THE “WORLD’S LEAD EXECUTIONER”

China has been named the “world’s lead executioner” in a top persecutors list. Amnesty International’s annual report on global capital punishment, estimates that thousands of people were put to death in China in 2024. According to Amnesty International, what sets China apart apart from other countries, is that it extensively uses the death penalty of executing religious minorities – including Christians – to harvest and sell their organs.
Amnesty recorded 1,518 executions globally in 2024 — the highest number in a decade and a 32% increase from the previous year. But that figure does not include executions in China, North Korea and Vietnam, where government secrecy prevents verification. Despite the surge in executions, only 15 countries were confirmed to have used the death penalty in 2024. 145 countries have abolished capital punishment. [Source: The Christian Post]

CHRISTIANS BEING DENIED THE RIGHT TO PROTECT THE UNBORN.
The denial of human rights in the United Kingdom and other parts of the Western World –  especially for Christians to express Biblical truths on social issues, is increasing. The extent of this in the UK has caught the attention of US government officials, who travelled to the UK, to meet British pro-life activists, over concerns that their freedom of speech has been threatened, As previously reported, the US Vice President JD Vance, in a speech in Munich Germany, mentioned the case of Adam Smith-Connor, a 51-year-old British army veteran who was arrested two years ago for silently praying for three minutes within a 150-meter “buffer” zone around a Bournemouth abortion clinic. Smith-Connor’s conviction, now on appeal, imposed costs and penalties of nearly $13,000 and cost his local council authority over $100,000 in legal expenses.
This was not an isolated case of zealotry. Five days after Vance’s speech, 74-year-old Scottish grandmother Rose Docherty was arrested on video by four police officers for silently holding a sign in proximity to a Glasgow abortion clinic reading “Coercion is a crime, here to talk, only if you want.” The Scottish MP who authored the relevant law expressed gratitude to the police “for acting so quickly … This kind of intimidation [silently holding a sign] has no place in a modern or progressive Scotland” – underlying the true intent of the law – to prevent Christians from speaking out and opposing the murder of babies. In recent times, Christian teachers and health professionals are being silenced in similar ways. And the response of the British Prime Minister on this issue? A response that re-defines the meaning of free-speech: “We’ve had free speech for a very, very long time in the United Kingdom, and it will last for a very, very long time.”
However, the USA has it’s own problems with free speech also. A pro-life protester was sentenced to six months in federal prison in Nashville, Tennessee, on Wednesday (21 May).  According to The Christian Post James Zastrow was among eleven people indicted in October 2022 for obstructing the entrance to a Health Center Clinic in a suburb of Nashville, on 15th March 2021. The group gathered at the entrance, sang hymns, and encouraged women not to proceed with their abortions. James Zastrow was also sentenced to three years of probation. He received no fine. Seven of the defendants faced conspiracy charges under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, while the others were charged with misdemeanors punishable by up to one year in prison and a $10,000 fine.
The sentencing for Eva Edl, an elderly pro-life activist who was also found guilty of being involved in the same rescue attempt, was delayed until August. Edl is 89 years old and a survivor of a communist concentration camp. A federal jury found the protesters guilty in January, 2025. [Source: The Daily Wire. Freedom Centre (USA) and Catholic news Agency]

CHAPLAINS – ON THE FRONT LINE WITH THE GOSPEL
UKRAINE: Military chaplaincy is when the church’s walls are stretched all the way to the battlefield. There are currently more than 300 chaplains on the front lines in Ukraine, and another 500 volunteers working with them. The Slavic Gospel Association (SGA) partners with Ukrainian chaplains, providing training and hospital aid. The chaplains are pastors who choose to serve people affected by war. Mission Network News reports that some pastors minister in field or civilian hospitals, while others risk their lives on the front lines. Chaplains are with soldiers who might never have thought about eternity or faith — until the fragility of life and the threat of death confront them daily. Eric Mock with SGA says the role of the chaplain is to be an ambassador of hope in Christ, in a situation that might seem hopeless. Field hospitals, remote clinics, rehabilitation centres, and even families who have lost loved ones are asking for chaplains.
PRAY – that the Chaplains will be kept safe in the midst of war, and be able to bring the Gospel of life and hope to soldiers and their families. [Source: Mission Network News]

NO UNIFORM LAWS TO STOP CHRISTIAN GIRLS BEING FORCED TO MARRY MUSLIMS
PAKISTAN – Kidnapped girls, some as young as 10, are abducted, forced to convert to Islam and raped under cover of Islamic “marriages” and are then pressured to record false statements in favour of the kidnappers. And then as human rights advocates say – Judges routinely ignore documentary evidence related to the children’s ages, handing them back to kidnappers as their ‘legal wives’. Amid a proliferation of such cases, Pakistan’s parliament on May 19 passed a significant bill aiming to curb, discourage and eventually eradicate child marriages in the federal capital territory by raising the legal age of marriage for both sexes to 18 years, and prescribing stern punishment for violators. However this law is only legal in the federal capital territory.
And so  in Lahore on May 16, a judge handed custody of a Catholic girl to the Muslim who kidnapped and forcibly married her despite evidence that she was coerced into stating she converted to Islam.  Her father, Iqbal Masih, told International-Morning Star News that  “My daughter Jessica couldn’t recite the Kalima [Islamic conversion proclamation] or respond to any other question about Islam in the courtroom. It was quite evident that she had been forced to claim that she had willingly converted her faith, yet the magistrate still allowed her to go with her abductor.”
Masih, a house painter, said  his 32-year-old Muslim neighbour took his 16-year-old daughter from their house in the early hours of April 30. “I don’t know how he fooled my innocent child into going with him,” Masih said. “She was clearly enticed by the man who is almost double her age.” Masih said that he and his wife were in agony over their daughter’s well-being. Sohail Habil of HARDS** Pakistan, which is supporting the Masih family’s legal struggle, said that in 99 percent of such cases, victims are coerced into giving false statements as kidnappers threaten to harm them or their families. The group has now petitioned the sessions court to challenge the judge’s order.
In contrast, a 15-year-old Christian girl has been reunited with her family after five months in captivity. While held, she was reportedly forcibly converted, married to a 29-year-old man and raped, resulting in pregnancy. The girl, whose name has been withheld, was taken from her aunt’s home in Punjab and subjected to a fake Islamic marriage to conceal her abduction and assault. After police failed to act, the family turned to the courts, which eventually ordered her recovery. Three suspects are now in custody; others are being sought.
Nationally, the Christian Marriage (Amendment) Act 2024, set the marriageable age at 18 only for Christians; if they convert to Islam, girls considered Muslims come under sharia (Islamic law), which allows them to marry younger. Pakistan, whose population is 96-percent Muslim, ranked eighth on Open Doors’ 2025 World Watch List of the most difficult places to be a Christian. [**HARDS (Health And Rural Development) aim to provide awareness/assistance about health, moral and social issues. Source: Morning Star News]

ONE MAN’S PRAYER, TWO DEAD RATS, AND A SAVED HARVEST
It was close to harvest season, and the corn was ripening in the fields. *Asam, a former Muslim who follows Jesus and lives out his faith in his Muslim community, cared for a lot of corn in the middle of the other villagers’ fields. The community had problems with rats eating all the corn the closer it got to harvest time. They physically guarded the crops to ward off the rats — an impossible task given the  determined resourcefulness of these creatures. The day before the harvest, Asam walked around his area and prayed to Isa al Masih (Jesus the Messiah), asking Him to protect his crops for the next day’s harvest. When the neighborhood woke up the following morning, they found that the rats had beaten them to the harvest. Every field except for Asam’s had been devoured. Asam’s lot was untouched, and two rats were found dead in his field!
Jesus had answered Asam’s prayers and saved his crops. His obedience to do what Jesus told him to do deepened his faith. It also made Asam stand out as a God-fearing witness and a true follower of Isa al Masih in his community. Pray for the many Muslim background disciples of Jesus who are bravely living out their faith. Pray that Jesus will show Himself to their precious families, friends, and communities through Bible stories, miracles, and dreams! [* Not his real name. Source: From Beyond.org]

IRANIAN CHRISTIANS’ APPEALS REJECTED BY TEHRAN COURT
The prison sentences of three Iranian Christian converts from Islam have been upheld by the 36th branch of the Tehran appeal court. The three believers were arrested during a series of raids by intelligence agents in November 2024. Narges Nasri, who is in the latter stages of pregnancy with her first child, Abbas Soori and Mehran Shamloui were sentenced on 8 March to prison terms totalling more than 40 years on charges concerning their beliefs and involvement in worship meetings. On 26 April, the Christians were informed that the appeal court had turned down their appeals. The rejection of the three Christians’ appeals, announced in a ruling dated 23 April, was made “in view of the scope of their activities and their harmful effects”.
Narges, 37 years old, received a sentence of 16 years: 10 years for “propaganda activities contrary to Islamic law”, five for membership of a house church (deemed to be an “opposition group”) and one year for “propaganda against the state” after she expressed support for the Women, Life, Freedom movement on social media. Abbas, 48, was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment. The term comprises 10 years for “propaganda activities” and five for belonging to an “opposition group”. The sentences for Mehran, 37, for the same two charges were eight years, and two years and eight months, respectively.
The sentences included deprivation of social rights – for example, restrictions on their employment. This restriction applies for 15 years in the case of Narges and Abbas, 11 years for Mehran. Narges and Abbas were each fined 330 million tomans ($US 3,500), and Mehran was fined 250 million tomans ($US 2,750). On completion of their prison terms, Narges and Abbas must serve two years of internal exile outside their home province of Tehran, during which time they are banned from leaving Iran.
Meanwhile, two Iranian Christian converts, Mahmoud Mardani-Kharaji, 56, and his brother Mansour, 50, have been sentenced to four years in prison for their membership of a “house church”. They were convicted under Iran’s amended Article 500, which criminalises “deviant propaganda activities contrary to the holy religion of Islam”. In addition to their prison terms, Mahmoud and Mansour were each fined 150 million tomans ($US 1,500). After their release they will be banned from joining any groups for five years and barred from their home province of Isfahan for two years, a stipulation known as “internal exile”.The brothers were first arrested at a “house church” meeting in December 2022 when plainclothes officers raided the gathering.
PRAY that Narges, Abbas and Mehran will sense the Lord’s presence, draw encouragement from the Scriptures and know the comfort and counsel of the Holy Spirit as they seek to endure these long, harsh sentences. Ask God to give them insight into His perfect plans and the assurance that even such injustice can be used to further His kingdom. [Source: Barnabas Aid]

– compiled by Guido Kettniss