Free Republic

A town has banned Christians from using publicly funded facilities. When people talk about Christian persecution, most people picture the Middle East, Asia, or Africa. Most people don’t expect something as shocking as this right in the Northern Hemisphere. Most people think of British Colombia as a beautiful place to vacation. I must admit, I spent some time there myself when I lived in the North East. Nobody would expect the tourist rich town of Nanaimo to pull a stunt like this, so full of hatred and arrogance. Just days before a Christian Convention was to be hosted at this...

<p>Back in the days when Vladimir Putin was first launching his crackdown on Russian mainstream media, killing and arresting reporters and publishers and seizing or shutting down publications, the Russia apologists rationalized his actions by claiming that the Russian Internet was free and always would be, and would counter any state propaganda.  It’s now clear that these statements were made simply ruse to induce the defenders of free speech to drop their guard and allow Putin to take over mainstream media unchallenged. It worked like a charm. And now we can clearly see how utterly false these statements were as Putin systematically exterminates the Runet.</p>

A Sudanese woman who was sentenced to death for renouncing Islam has been freed from detention for a second time. Meriam Ibrahim has now sought sanctuary at the American embassy in the capital Khartoum. Speaking exclusively to the BBC she thanked the Sudanese people for standing by her.

An Australian atheist campaigning to keep religion out of the education system won his second victory Thursday when the nation's highest court ruled that it is unconstitutional for the federal government to fund a program that provides chaplains to schools. Ron Williams began his legal battle against the multimillion-dollar program after his 6-year-old son came home from Darling Heights State School in Toowoomba city in Queensland state singing gospel songs in 2010. Williams won in 2012 when the High Court ruled that the government had exceeded its constitutional powers by funding the program, which began in around 2,700 schools five...

Ibrahim and her family have reportedly been re-released after being arrested yesterday trying to flee Sudan. The US government is said to be actively involved in getting the family out of the country...

Reacting to news of Sudan re-arresting Meriam Ibrahim, the young mother who was sentenced to death for converting to Christianity, Sen Ted Cruz tells Fox News "This isn't a partisan issue"

The Christian Sudanese woman released from prison and then re-arrested at Khartoum airport Tuesday has now been charged with fraud and banned from leaving the country, according to authorities. Meriam Ibrahim, who has been held in a Sudanese prison with her son since February, was freed of her death sentence for practicing her Christian faith, after international groups and government officials put pressure on the Sudanese government. Ibrahim gave birth to a baby girl while in prison. Ibrahim was then re-arrested at the airport with her husband and two children. Now, new charges are being brought against her for allegedly...

It certainly was a shock when the president of Russia lectured Americans that we are “becoming godless.” In his last “state of the nation” speech, Vladimir Putin told Russia that the United States was moving away from Christian values. Back in the 1980’s, Ronald Reagan was making similar comments about Russia! So is the United States still one nation under God? In a recent article, Dr. Ben Carson says yes. Americans still live in a culture that operates under many of Christianity’s basic assumptions about life. But with increasing numbers of Americans becoming reluctant to mention God in public, we...

The Sudanese woman sentenced to death for her Christian faith and released from prison yesterday was arrested with her family at Khartoum airport, according to sources. Meriam Ibrahim was arrested in February and gave birth to a baby girl while in custody. She was sentenced to death for apostasy, or renouncing Islam. Ibrahim was arrested today together with her two children and husband, Daniel Wani, an American citizen.

Arizona schools superintendent John Huppenthal admitted earlier this week that he has been posting anonymously on a number of political blogs using a handful of pseudonyms. Some of the postings attributed to Huppenthal, a Republican, are inflammatory and impolitic. He called food stamp recipients “lazy pigs,” for example, and equated Margaret Sanger’s promotion of abortion for poor black people to the extermination of Jewish people by the Nazis, reports The Arizona Republic. He also blamed Franklin Roosevelt’s policies during the Great Depression for the rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany and suggested that Obama’s policies are similar to Roosevelt’s.

ISIS to Iraqi Christians: 'Obey, Pay, or Leave' By Chris Mitchell CBN News Middle East Bureau Chief Thursday, June 19, 2014 BARTILLA, Iraq -- Throughout its Iraq campaign, ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) has targeted Christians. Many fled to the relative safety of Kurdish Iraq, but most still fear the wrath of the world's most brutal jihadist group. Pastor Majeed, CBN News' guide, drove with us toward Nineveh where most of the country's besieged Christians have fled. It wasn't long until we went as far as the Kurdish army, called the Peshmerga, would allow us to go. "So...

I gave a cursory read to the Code of Conduct in the updated Microsoft Services Agreement, which, among other things, states under Prohibited Uses states, You will not upload, post, transmit, transfer, distribute, or facilitate distribution of any content (including text, images, sound, video, data, information, or software) or otherwise use the service in a way that: ...Threatens...defames...degrades, victimizes, or intimidates an individual or group of individuals for any reason, including on the basis of age...sexual orientation, race or religion, or incites or encourages anyone else to do so. Obviously, this is purposely ambiguous and broad ("for any reason"!), but...

Over two days last week, every one of Mosul’s thousands of Christians fled the Sunni Jihadi invasion and they are not going back. All their ancient and beautiful churches and monasteries there will remain closed, and a handful have already been desecrated. In effect, a targeted religious cleansing of Christians has taken place in Iraq’s second largest city and one known through much of the past 2,000 years as Nineveh, Iraq’s Christian center.ISIS jihadists, reportedly with support from a sizeable segment of Mosul’s overwhelmingly Sunni population, have declared the establishment of a caliphate under medieval sharia rules and the black...

A significant rally in defense of the Franciscans of the Immaculate was held in Rome over the weekend. The effort was basically an appeal by the laity formerly attached to the FIs (their association being terminated by the direct order of the apostolic overseer Fr. Volpi) to Pope Francis to have mercy on the Immaculates and stop the severe intervention in the order, which many insiders report as dying as a result of the draconian actions taken against both the male and female sides over the past year. The rally was attended by hundreds (it could have been more, but...

The facts just don’t add up. Our President secretly negotiated a deal to free a man who appears to have deserted his country and put fellow servicemen in danger while there are innocent American citizens being held in Iran, North Korea and Mexico. Why Bergdahl? Lawmakers and human rights groups have called out for the release of Pastor Saeed Abedini, the 34-year-old from Boise, Idaho, who left behind his wife, Naghmeh, and two young children to go back to his homeland on a mission to build a family orphanage. Abedini, who had traveled to Iran many times before, was pulled...

Savannakhet - Five security officers in the village of Loynam, in Nong district in the province of Savannakhet, arrested a Christian man named Sort, they tied him to a pole and then they laughed and kept asking him to give up his Christian faith. The man, who did not give in, is still in prison in Nong. As Fides learns, a year ago, Sort, 40 years old, converted to Christianity, becoming the first Christian in the district of Nong, consisting of about 20 villages. Fearing the spread of Christianity "like a virus", on May 15 the police went to Sort’s...

An American citizen whose pregnant wife has been sentenced to death in Sudan for refusing to renounce her Christian faith told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren Friday that his wife is staying strong in her convictions despite her ordeal. Meriam Yehya Ibrahim, 27, whose Christian husband Daniel Wani holds American citizenship, has been held in a Sudanese prison along with her 20-month old son for more than three months. Wani said on “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren” that when his wife’s ordeal began he went to the U.S. embassy and tried to report the case. However, he said...

Following the demolition of one of the largest churches in an eastern Chinese city dubbed “China's Jerusalem,” the local authorities have reportedly widened a campaign to tear down or modify at least nine others while detaining several church members. The actions are raising concerns that they could mark a wider crackdown on Christianity and other organized religions. At least four churches in the coastal province of Zhejiang were razed in the past two weeks, reported the British newspaper The Telegraph on Monday. This comes in the wake of the bulldozing of the eight-storey Sanjiang Church on April 28 in Zhejiang's...

The 21st century is supposed to be a time of liberal enlightenment. But the reality looks very different. Instead of a world of mutual understanding and tolerance, people around the globe face spreading violence and human rights abuses. Religious persecution continues to rise. The latest report from the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom documents the worst manifestations of this attack on the most basic liberty of conscience. Now in its 15th year, the Commission reflected on the importance of religious freedom, which “means the right of all human beings to think as they please, believe or not believe...

The majority party and its leader Narenda Modi have ridden the wave of religious fanaticism. Minorities are appealing to the legacy of democracy and pluralism India is officially in the hands of the Hindu right wing. The Catholic Church and other religious minorities are concerned but they are grinning and bearing it, grasping onto the old and deep-rooted legacy of democratic values and pluralism that characterizes the Indian nation. Their concerns stem from the contiguity of India’s leaders with groups of Hindu fanatics. This is the landscape that has been emerging in the Indian sub-continent since the official general election...