Today’s Headlines:

OFFICIALS IN BELARUS CONFISCATE LITERATURE FROM BAPTIST LIBRARY

CHURCHES FIND TEMPORARY HOME AFTER CLOSURES IN INDONESIA

VIETNAMESE CHURCHES PETITION AUTHORITIES IN FACE OF ABUSES

Today’s Top Stories:

OFFICIALS IN BELARUS CONFISCATE LITERATURE FROM BAPTIST LIBRARY

Religious literature was recently confiscated from a library run by Baptists belonging to the Council of Churches in late September in the city of Bobruisk in eastern Belarus. Mikhail Kovalevich, vice chairman of the Bobruisk city executive committee, said the literature is being held because the Baptists had both “ignored” and “violated” the legal procedure for holding religious events by acting without state approval. The church refuses to register with the government on principle. Local official Valeri Sidorenko said the operation of a street library by unregistered Baptists would have violated a law “because distributing literature counts as one form of their religious activity.” On Tuesday, Oct. 11, the head of the local Ideology Department informed Yermalitsky that the literature would be sent for expert analysis and might never be returned. (Assist News Service)

CHURCHES FIND TEMPORARY HOME AFTER CLOSURES IN INDONESIA

Denied permits and ordered not to worship in public or at home, churches in East Bekasi, West Java, Indonesia, have taken temporary refuge in a Social Affairs Agency office. In September local officials ordered them to close because they did not have the required permits. The congregations altered residential buildings to cater to large numbers of worshipers. The Anti-Apostasy Movement Alliance, an alliance of Muslim extremist groups, began to enforce the order, attacking the Pentecostal Church of Indonesia El Shaddai on Sunday, Oct. 2. Radical Muslims also forced a Lutheran (HKBP) and a Presbyterian church in the complex to cease services. About 500 Christians from the HKBP church “scuffled” with 200 Muslims on Sunday, Oct. 29, after a third street service, The Jakarta Post reported. Following the clash, district officials on Sunday, Oct. 30, offered the use of the Social Affairs Agency office for two months while they searched for a building site for each of the churches. (Compass)

VIETNAMESE CHURCHES PETITION AUTHORITIES IN FACE OF ABUSES

In an unprecedented shift, Vietnamese church leaders are now petitioning authorities more openly and internationally. In a country that sentenced Father Nguyen Van Ly to 15 years in prison for writing to a U.S. government agency about religious rights violations, leaders of one of Vietnam’s recognized churches have openly copied their petition against such abuses not only to U.S. and European Union officials, but to foreign media organizations. Since Wednesday, Oct. 5, Rev. Phung Quang Huyen and Rev. Au Quang Vinh, president and general secretary respectively of the Evangelical Church of Vietnam (North), have copied foreign governments and media on petitions they have written on behalf of persecuted Hmong Christians. (Compass)