Today’s Headlines:

9 CHRISTIANS IN INDIA ACCUSED OF ATTEMPTING TO ‘CONVERT’ HINDUS

CONFISCATION OF 3,000+ SATELLITE DISHES IN IRAN CONCERNS TV MINISTRY

MYANMAR GOVERNMENT ORDERS CHURCH MOVEMENT TO SHUT DOWN

EGYPTIAN DOCTOR REFUTES CHARGES AGAINST COPTIC CHRISTIAN

NEW TESTAMENT TRANSLATED INTO LANGUAGE SPOKEN IN BHUTAN

Today’s Top Stories:

9 CHRISTIANS IN INDIA ACCUSED OF ATTEMPTING TO ‘CONVERT’ HINDUS

Nine Christians in the Durg district of east-central India’s Chattisgarh’s state are on trial for disrupting the peace between two communities by “attempting to convert” Hindu villagers with offers of money. On Monday, Sept. 26, Pastor Jaichand Dongre and eight members of his church appeared before a judge who offered to dismiss the case if the Christians would agree to stop their activities — which they declined to do, asserting that the allegations against them were false. Narendra Sharma, police inspector of the local police station, claimed there was evidence that Dongre offered money to villagers and that Dongre had admitted this to him. However, Dongre emphatically denied that he either offered money or confessed this to Sharma. “We are all poor,” he said. “Most of the accused are laborers. How can we offer any money to anyone?” Police had arrested the group on June 6 and charged them with disturbing the peace after a mob of around 200 people attacked the Christians and accused them of offering money to convert Hindu villagers. Police did not file any charges against the attackers. Meanwhile, two other Christians in another district of Chattisgarh are awaiting charges against them for their alleged role in fraudulent “conversion.” (Compass)

CONFISCATION OF 3,000+ SATELLITE DISHES IN IRAN CONCERNS TV MINISTRY

More than 3,000 satellite dishes have been confiscated in Iran due to government crackdowns on what they’re calling “troublemakers” in the country’s capital city of Tehran. Many Iranians have satellite dishes even though they are illegal. Staff members at SAT-7, a Christian satellite television that reaches the Middle East and North Africa, is concerned about the most recent crackdown. “They’re trying to prevent sources of information coming into the country that the government considers to be anti-government, and we just happen to be on one of those channels,” said SAT-7’s Debbie Brink. “We are not anti-government or anti-Islam or anything like that. We don’t discuss those issues on our programs. We just present Christianity and what the Bible has to say, and legally we’re allowed to do that.” SAT-7 broadcasts in Arabic and Farsi, the common language in Iran. (Mission Network News)

MYANMAR GOVERNMENT ORDERS CHURCH MOVEMENT TO SHUT DOWN

The Full Gospel Assembly, a fast-growing church movement in the Kyauktada township of Rangoon, Maynmar (Burma), was ordered by the military government to shut down. Reports say State Peace and Development Council officials ordered Rev. Mung Tawng of the Full Gospel Assembly to cease all activities. An unnamed Burmese source urges Christians around the world to pray for Myanmar saying, “It’s a sad thing to hear that many churches have been shut down in Myanmar. Let us not forget the fact that freedom of worship is also one of the rights we have as human beings.” The U.S. Secretary of State has designated Myanmar as a “Country of Particular Concern” since 1999 under the International Religious Freedom Act for its “particularly severe” violations of religious freedom. (Voice of the Martyrs)

EGYPTIAN DOCTOR REFUTES CHARGES AGAINST COPTIC CHRISTIAN

In a case that has prompted death threats by Muslims, Egypt’s top forensic doctor refuted a court physician’s report on Tuesday, Sept. 20, that Coptic Christian Shafik Saleh Shafik had bound and beaten Magda Refaat Gayed before she fled from his Cairo shelter for troubled women. Dr. Ayman Soda testified that the way in which Gayed was said to have been bound with ropes and chains would have precluded free movement, making it impossible for her to escape from her second story bedroom window as she claimed. The Gayed family had requested that the then-16-year-old Coptic Christian girl be placed into Shafik’s safe house after she had run away from home with a Muslim man. Two weeks after she had disappeared from home, she was discovered living with a Muslim group that had promised she could marry the man as soon as she converted to Islam. The three judges of Cairo’s Abbassiya Criminal Court No. 15 delayed giving a verdict until Monday, Oct. 17. (Compass)

NEW TESTAMENT TRANSLATED INTO LANGUAGE SPOKEN IN BHUTAN

People living in the remote Himalayan country of Bhutan follow traditions steeped in Buddhism. For those with an image of building up the body of Christ there, change has come slowly and with difficulty. Rochunga Pudaite of Bibles for the World says the vision for evangelizing the lost in and around India began a generation ago. “In 1959 a group of people began praying for Bhutan,” he said. At that time a missionary made his way to the king and offered him a Bible, and he was promptly banished from the country. “Now, by the grace of God, we have a New Testament that has been translated in the Bhutani Dzongkha language,” said Pudaite. “And we’re going to print it!” There are few believers or churches in Bhutan which is considered a closed-access country. But missionaries are working to spread the gospel in border region of Bhutan and India. (Mission Network News)