The Nepalese president is expected to approve a bill that will outlaw any attempt to convert someone to a different faith, alongside the “hurting of religious sentiment.”

The country’s parliament passed the law, which will effectively ban evangelisation, on 8th August as fears grow of a crackdown on religious minorities, especially the country’s small Catholic population. Anyone convicted under the new law, including foreign visitors, could face up to 5 years in prison for seeking to convert a person or “undermine the religion, faith or belief that any caste, ethnic group or community has been observing since sanatan [eternal] times.

Anyone who “hurts religious sentiment” also faces up to two years in prison and 2,000 rupee fine. Although the bill does not mention any religious group specifically, it is similar to Pakistan’s blasphemy law, which is frequently abused to harass minorities, particularly Christians. Nepal is over 80% Hindu, with Christians making up barely one per cent of the population.

International free speech group the Alliance for Defending Freedom (ADF) says that in 2016 eight Christians were arrested in Nepal after sharing a comic book on Jesus with children. Since the overthrow of the monarchy in 2008, Nepal’s republican regime has become increasingly authoritarian. The country’s government has been dominated by Moaists and Leninists who have struggled to establish a stable government.

A new constitution, finally approved in 2015, already forbids any attempt to convert a person from one religion to another, but no law to that effect has been formally enacted until now.
Tehmina Arora, legal counsel and director of ADF India, said: “International law and the human rights treaties the country has signed protect religious minorities. They explicitly allow conversion, missionary work, and public worship. Nepal risks returning to a totalitarian society in which individual rights are being severely curbed.”

North Korea’s underground Christian community is thriving despite followers of Christ suffering horrific torture and brutal deaths at the hands of the communist government, according to Fox News.

According to Open Doors, a Christian persecution watchdog site, North Korea has ranked No. 1 as the deadliest place for Christians for the last 16 years. Yet, North Korea still has an estimated Christian population of around 9 million people, or 36 percent of North Korea’s total population.

The Korea Risk Group told Fox News that North Korea’s Constitution maintains a non-discriminatory policy concerning the practice of religion, but this is just a facade to please visiting foreigners. Foreign diplomats and tourists are wheeled past state-run churches and mosques for various faiths. Each of these churches has the appropriately dressed clergy worshiping at the appropriate alters with congregations of people passing around collection plates.

According to the Korea Risk Group, this is a show performed by hand-picked state workers. The reality is that Christianity is seen as dangerous to the state, according to Fox News. Those caught practicing it face the harshest penalties.

A Catholic priest convinced an armed and allegedly “drug-crazed” former choir member to surrender peacefully after he barged into a convent in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao on Ag.23, police said.

Father Roniedon Val-moria, parish priest of San Isidro Labrador parish in Naawan town in Misamis Oriental province, emerg-ed safe after almost four hours of negotiations between police and the suspect, Lavernton Rogedas. The priest said Rogedas used to sing in the parish choir.

“He barged into the convent with a gun. I was not taken as hostage,” the priest said in a radio interview. “He was just there to seek safety from the policemen who were running after him.”
Father Valmoria said he pray-ed for the suspect and convinced him to surrender peacefully.

Senior Supt. Rolando Destura, Misamis Oriental police director, said Rogedas was carrying a .45 caliber handgun and was high on drugs.

Rogedas had gone to the Naawan police station to clear a relative who was implicated in illegal drugs. Police said they noticed a gun tucked into his waistband and asked for it.

Rogedas resisted, briefly brandished the gun and then ran to the convent, which is near the police station, Destura said.

Fatalism, including acce-ptance of harmful traditions, exacerbates poverty in Nepal.

However, a lack of spiritual awareness and fatalism are also impedi-ments to progress among educated, well-to-do families.

Karma, the idea that a person’s fate results from their deeds in a past life, can constitute an escapist mentality.

Fatalism, that can be reflected in traditional plays and folk songs dealing with day-to-day struggles and sorrows, needs to also be subject to intellectual reflection. Nepalese society is still trapped by cultural malpractices and superstitions.

There has been a huge gap between Nepal and developed nations in terms of social development. Notwithstanding the sharing of some modern technologies, including social media, Nepal’s lack of sequential development has widened a generation gap.

For example, children in the 1990s still played with clay and stone. How-ever, the newest genera-tion jumped to smart-phones. More positive aspects of Nepalese socio-cultural and religious values have been degraded and confused. Spiri-tuality and social education have been usurped by militancy and street vandalism in support of political demands.

Leading Catholic human rights advocates in Pakistan are calling for authorities to take action after a Christian prisoner died in jail due to a lack of proper medical attention.

Dominican Father James Channan, the Director of Peace Centre Lahore, told Crux the death of Indrias Masih was the “result of negligence” by the authorities in the jail.

Masih was one of 42 people arrested as suspects in the lynching of two Muslims in the aftermath of a March 15, 2015, terrorist bombing of Christ Church, a Catholic church in Lahore’s predominantly Christian Youhanabad neighbourhood.

The two Muslims were suspected by a mob of having been involved in the attack, a charge their families and the authorities deny.

Christian leaders in the city say Masih himself was innocent of being involved in the revenge attack.

He died on August 13 of gastrointestinal tuberculosis. Channan called his death “sad and shocking.”

The National Commission for Justice and Peace, an office of the Pakistani bishops’ conference, said the family and community are demanding the government treat this incident as a murder case.
“His untimely death was a result of negligence on the part of jail authorities, poor prison conditions, consumption of unclean water and food. His deteriorating health was continuously neglected by the jail authorities. According to the family, Indrias was a healthy person and never had any major ailments before his arrest,” the NCJP said in a statement.

Bishop Joseph Arshad, the Chairperson of the NCJP, said police sensitivity should be made a priority, adding the police are often inconsiderate towards the sick and needy.