Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi plans visited St Anthony’s Church, venue of the first bomb blast site in Colombo, during his official visit to the island nation on June 9. The Indian premier’s Sri Lanka visit was announced by Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena on May 31, a day after he attended Modi’s swearing-in ceremony in New Delhi.

Modi will go to Sri Lanka after completing a trip to the Maldives, the Sri Lankan president told reporters.

“Prime Minister Modi’s visit is very important to us. We are neighbours and friends… We are eagerly awaiting his arrival,” Sirisena told a news conference on May 31 after his meeting with the Indian premier at Hyderabad House.

Sirisena also said that his country is eagerly waiting to welcome the Indian leader.

Earlier, India’s Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement that Modi warmly thanked Sirisena for his gesture of attending the ceremony and for his good wishes. “He conveyed his government’s continued commitment to further foster friendly bilateral ties with Sri Lanka,” it added.

Modi’s Sri Lanka visit would highlight that for India “neighborhood first policy” is paramount.

Sirisena also said that the visit will further strengthen bilateral ties between the two countries, particularly in areas of trade and commerce. India is currently cooperating with Colombo in the investigations being carried out on the Easter Sunday terrorist attack bombers and ISIS presence. New Delhi has also sent a team from its National Investigation Agency to Colombo to further assist them with the investigations and their findings.

Modi is expected to visit Maldives on June 7-8 which will be his first bilateral visit after becoming the Prime Minister for a second term. However there is no official statement regarding the matter.

The funeral of a Chinese underground bishop was held under strict government control and underground priests were only allowed to attend part of it.

Bishop Stephen Li Side of Tianjin died at the age of 92 on June 8 after suffering a stroke in mid-May and being admitted to a hospital in Ji County.

Underground Coadjutor Bishop Shi Hongzhen, who will eventually succeed Bishop Li, was not allowed to attend his funeral on June 10. A source said Bishop Shi had been under 24-hour surveillance by local authorities who had restricted his movement.

State-sanctioned Tianjin Catholic Patriotic Association was put in charge of the funeral. When underground priests asked officials to allow Bishop Shi to hold the ceremony, the request was rejected because Bishop Li and Bishop Shi were not recognized by the government.

However, underground priests were allowed to organize a requiem Mass held by senior underground priest Father Yang Wanyuan at a funeral home, but laypeople and the taking of photographs were banned.

Thirty years ago, China’s Communist Party regime revealed, yet again, its true character when it turned its guns on the people and sent in its tanks to crush peaceful pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square.

The People’s Liberation Army turned out to be neither on the side of the people nor for liberation as it slaughtered thou-sands who were simply seeking freedom. “We didn’t commit any crimes,” says Bob Fu, an exiled dissident and president of China Aid, who had joined the protests but left the square three days before the massacre. “We were just holding a peaceful protest.”

Three decades later, China, under President Xi Jinping, is undergoing the worst crackdown on human rights since the Tiananmen massacre. Hopes that China would gradually liberalize politically as it opened up economically have been dashed.

And the crackdown is on every form of freedom, from expression to religious belief, and in every corner of China’s territory, from Xinjiang to Hong Kong, and has taken on an unprecedented extraterritorial aggression, resulting in critics abroad being harassed, intimidated, threatened and, in the worst cases, kidnapped.

Furthermore, the Chinese regime has done everything possible to bury the truth of what happened in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989.

A Pakistani high court is to hear the appeal of a Christian couple who have been on death row since 2014 for insulting the Prophet Muhammad, their lawyers confirmed.

Lawyer Saiful Malook, who successfully defended Catholic Woman Asia Bibi and had her blasphemy conviction overturned in the Supreme Court, will also contest the charges against the couple in Lahore High Court.

Disabled Shafqat Emmanuel and his wife Shagufta Kausar were arrested in 2013 and sentenced to hang in Toba Tek Singh town of Punjab province in addition to a fine of 200,000 rupees (US $ 2,000) after being accused of sending text messages insulting the prophet. Sentencing went ahead despite it transpiring that a SIM card presented as evidence by police was bogus.

The case was filed by Mohammed Hussain, a prayer leader in Gojra who alleged that the couple had sent religiously offensive text messages to him and other Muslims.

The couple pleaded their innocence, maintaining they were illiterate and could not write the text messages that were written in English. They also said that the SIM card used to send the alleged messages was bought using Kausar’s stolen identity card.

Sri Lanka’s government will introduce laws to curb hate speech and false news that threaten ethnic reconciliation and national security, in the aftermath of Easter bombings that killed more than 250 people.

According to a government statement, the Cabinet decided to amend the penal code to include the penalty of five years in prison and $5,670 fine for those found guilty of distributing false news.

The ministers, at their weekly meeting on June 4, also decided to take legal action against hate speech. A penalty will be announced later, after Parliament approves amendments to the penal code.

Tensions have been running high in the Buddhist-majority Indian Ocean island nation since seven suicide bombers struck two Catholic and one Protestant church and three luxury hotels on April 21.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attacks, which were carried out by a local radicalized Muslim group known as National Thowheed Jammath.

In the wake of the attacks, dozens of shops and homes belonging to minority Muslims have been burned. Muslims have been harassed in public places and subjected to hate comments.

Mob attacks on the community have killed at least one. Police have arrested several dozen suspects, whose court cases are pending.

Police in Vietnam have been accused of abducting a Catholic advocate for social and charitable activities.

Nguyen Thi Tinh said her husband Nguyen Nang Tinh was seized and pushed into a truck by police officers while he and their two sons were on their way to have breakfast on May 29.

She said police later asked her father-in-law to get the sons from the police station. Her eldest son is just 7 years old.

Nang Tinh, 43, had taken their two sons to their home in Vinh City, the capital of Nghe An province, from Ho Chi Minh City where she works.

She said police “have no heart to separate our children from their father.” The woman said they had not done anything wrong. She said law enforcement officers should have acted according to laws and their conscience.

Government-supported bloggers or online opinion sharpeners reported that Nang Tinh was arrested for joining the Viet Tan pro-democracy group based in the United States. Vietnam lists the group as reactionary and a terrorist organization.

They said police searched Nang Tinh’s house and took away his materials relating to his “crimes.”

They also threatened to arrest other activists including Fathers Anthony Dang Huu Nam and John Baptist Nguyen Dinh Thuc, whom they described as reactionaries.

Blogger Paul Tran Minh Nhat said Nang Tinh’s family has not been informed about why he was seized.

Nhat said Nang Tinh, who teaches music at a public college of culture and arts in Vinh City, is an amiable man and heavily involved in rights, justice, cultural and religious activities at parishes in Vinh Diocese. He gives material and spiritual support to victims of social injustice.

He suffers from kidney stones and had made plans to have medical treatment before his arrest. On May 29, hundreds of Catholics gathered at My Khanh Church in the province to pray for Nang Tinh to bravely bear witness to justice and truth.

Ultra-nationalist monk U Wirathu has been accused of sedition for speeches attacking Myanmar’s State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi, with a local court reportedly already having issued a warrant for his arrest.

U Wirathu has also railed against religious minorities and especially Muslims, deepening the social divide in the Buddhist-majority Southeast Asian nation where Rohingya Muslims have been persecuted by mobs and the military.

Ashin Ariya Wun Tha Bhiwun Sa, a Buddhist monk from Mandalay, said he should have been put behind bars years ago, calling his criticism of both Muslims and Suu Kyi “unacceptable.”

“Due to his notorious hate speech, Buddhism in Myanmar has been tarnished,” said Ashin Bhiwan Sa, who regularly joins interfaith activities in a bid to help reconcile the nation’s fragile society.

“He undermines all the good work monks have done both here and in the international community.”

A government official filed the suit against U Wirathu at the Yangon Western district court on May 28, according to police spokesman Myo Thu Soe.

This came just days after Myanmar’s religious and cultural affairs said officials were gathering evidence against the controversial monk.

The Bangladeshi government’s unprecedented two-month sea fishing ban has hit thousands of fishermen in the country’s long southern coastal zone.

Lamenting their loss of livelihood and pondering alternative means of survival, many have taken to the streets to protest against the ban in recent days. Protesters have demanded the ban be shortened and fishermen get allowances from the government while they cannot go fishing.

The government imposed a ban on fishing from May 20 to July 23 in the Bay of Bengal in line with Marine Fisheries Ordinance 1883 (amended in 2015) to ensure the smooth breeding of fish.

In April, the Department of Fisheries sent out an order to fisheries officers in 19 coastal districts to implement the ban and take action against those who violate it.

Although a praiseworthy move in terms of conservation and increasing fish stocks, the ban has faced criticism for having no apparent rehabilitation program for thousands of vulnerable fishermen.

It came into force just weeks before Muslim-majority Bangladesh is to celebrate the Eid-ul-Fitr festival in the first week of June.

Cardinal Charles Bo of Myanmar has asked Church leaders in Asia to preach peace, not vengeance.

The 71-year-old president of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences urged his fellow prelates to follow leader of India’s freedom struggle Mahatma Gandhi who is revered as the apostle of non-violence.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who was born on October 2, 1969, practiced non-violence to defeat British brutality and colonialism.

“Remember Gandhi who said ‘an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind,’” Cardinal Bo said while addressing delegates of the Bible and Evangelization seminar held on May 16 in Bangkok’s Camillian Pastoral Centre.

The meeting took place 25 days after bomb blasts in churches and hotels claimed 258 lives in Sri Lanka.

Cardinal Bo said Easter Sunday turned out to be Good Friday “for our brothers and sisters in Sri Lanka, who sit at the graves on Holy Saturday awaiting the streaks of hope of resurrection amidst the silence of the graves.”

The cardinal also lamented that Christians have become “the most persecuted religious group in the world,” especially in China, Egypt, India, Libya, Middle East, and Sri Lanka among other places.

“Christians have become the scapegoats,” the cardinal said. “In many Middle Eastern countries, the once flourishing Christian communities have disappeared. Too many innocents lost their lives and their blood cries out.”

“I come from a country where religious extremism saw violence and tears of the thousands,” said the cardinal recalling the words of Pope Francis, who visited Myanmar and left a mandate saying, “Do not repay hatred with hatred. Be an instrument of peace.”

The Asian Church leader called on Catholics and their leaders to become people of Hope.

“We cannot allow ourselves to be gripped by fear and paralysis. These are the moments the shepherds need to walk through the way of the Cross – never losing the hope of a better tomorrow – not only for our people but those who fell victim to evil,” Cardinal Bo said.