News from Egypt, Ukraine, Pakistan, India and other countries where Christians are being persecuted for their faith.
By Andrew Halloway.
EGYPT: Secret trial and torture of two Christian men
Five years’ hard labour for criticising Islam
A Christian apologist with 100,000 subscribers on YouTube has been convicted of blasphemy in a secret trial. According to Australian Christian news outlet The Daily Declaration, Dr Augustinos Samaan was given the punishment of five years of hard labour. Arrested for ‘extremism’ in October 2025, he was convicted in January. Prosecutors had initially brought terrorism charges against Samaan, which could have led to the death penalty, but his case was downgraded to “contempt of religion” and propagating misinformation on social media.
Coptic Solidarity says Samaan’s trial was “conducted without notification to his lawyers or family, without public proceedings, and without granting the defence access to the case file or a meaningful opportunity to present arguments”. Samaan even has to pay the court costs. Coptic Solidarity has condemned the decision and is petitioning for his immediate release. Alliance Defending Freedom International (ADF) has filed an appeal to overturn his conviction. (Photo – Dr Augustinos Samaan. Credit Coptic Solidarity)
“Crucified” for converting to Christianity
A Christian man who is on trial for so-called “terrorism” related charges has been deprived of adequate food, clothing and medical care and was hung in a “crucifixion” position while in prison, according to Coptic Solidarity. Said Mansour Rezk Abdelrazek was arrested last July after becoming a Christian and attempting to change his religious designation on identity papers from Muslim to Christian. In theory apostasy is not illegal in Egypt, but changing official identity documents is almost impossible and can be regarded as a “national security threat”.
Christian Daily International reports that Said is accused of “establishing and leading a group in violation of the law; joining a group that was allegedly founded unlawfully; financing the group; promoting ideas and beliefs deemed ‘harmful to national unity and social peace’, and showing contempt for Islam and challenging its fundamental principles.” (Photo – Said Abdelrazek)
A trial in April was adjourned until 15 June. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has designated Said as a religious prisoner of conscience, and says that “during detention, authorities and inmates physically and psychologically abused Abdelrazek for his conversion”. His Christian tattoo was forcibly and painfully removed and the mock crucifixion lasted several hours.
UKRAINE: Russians expel pastor from Ukraine
A Baptist pastor has been given two weeks to leave his home and country by the Russian authorities occupying eastern Ukraine. Rev Vladimir Rytikov faced expulsion in April after being accused of “illegal missionary activity”, an ‘offence’ for which he had already repeatedly been fined under Russian Administrative Code Article 5.26. The Migration Service cancelled his residence permit and suggested he could go to a country like Poland, according to Forum 18, a Norwegian human rights organisation.
Christian Daily International (CDI) reported that Rytikov has led a Council of Churches Baptist congregation in eastern Ukraine for around 30 years, and that officials claimed that Rytikov was a threat to Russia’s security. He told Forum 18 that his phone had been tapped. The church Rytikov leads has also been repeatedly targeted. On 25 January a Sunday service was raided and officers, some armed, accused the congregation of meeting without being registered with the state. Other Baptist churches and leaders have faced similar persecution.
(Photo – Exiled: Rev Vladimir Rytikov faced expulsion from his birthplace in Russian-occupied Ukraine Credit: ©Baptist Council of Churches)
CDI says that Council of Churches Baptists do not register with the authorities on principle, leading them into conflict with the authorities.
PAKISTAN: UN body urges Pakistan to end forced conversions
The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has urged Pakistan to raise the minimum age of marriage to 18, criminalise forced religious conversion and enforce existing laws on human trafficking and sexual violence. According to Morning Star News, the UNHRC concluded: “We are deeply concerned that law enforcement authorities often dismiss complaints lodged by victims’ families, fail to investigate or prosecute forced conversions in a timely manner, or neglect to properly assess the age of victims.”`(Photo – Cover of a new report by the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace calling for the criminalisation of forced conversions of marriageable young girls. Credit: Christian Daily International-Morning Star)
The panel added: “Any change of religion or belief must be genuinely free from coercion, and marriage must be based on full and free consent, which is not legally possible when the victim is a child.” About 75 per cent of girls forced into conversion to Islam through marriage are Hindu and 25 percent are Christian, and nearly 80 per cent of cases took place in Sindh Province. The Catholic (National) Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP), a human rights body established by the Pakistan Catholic Bishops Conference in 1985, has also called for forced conversions to be criminalised.
Meanwhile Punjab has passed a bill restricting child marriage. Despite the opposition of Islamists, the state voted in April to curb child marriages by passing The Punjab Child Marriage Restraint Bill 2026. Christian organisations welcomed the decision, which will help protect underage girls from sexual exploitation, forced religious conversions and marriages.
Caption: Fined and jailed for worshipping Jesus: Pastor Youssef Ourahmane
Credit: ADF International
ALGERIA: Government closes Protestant churches
Protestant Christians are being pushed underground after the Government has forced nearly all of their churches to close, as control over non-Muslim religion is tightened. Pastor Youssef Ourahmane, a Christian convert and pastor in the Protestant Church of Algeria, was arrested in 2024 and sentenced to heavy fines and a prison sentence for “illegal worship”. (Photo – Pastor Youssef Ourahmane. Credit: ADF International)
Christian Daily International reports that, since 2006, “at least 58 Protestant churches have been shut down by authorities, including nearly all those affiliated with the Protestant Church of Algeria (EPA). By January 2025, the last remaining evangelical churches had effectively ceased operations.”
A report this year by the European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ) says that in Algeria it is a criminal offence to “undermine the faith of a Muslim” or attempt to convert them, and according to the report “any expression of Christian faith may be regarded as an attempt to ‘undermine the faith of a Muslim’”.
News in brief…
INDIA: Government moves to seize church assets
The government introduced the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Bill on 25 March, and it will be discussed again after parliament reconvenes in July. Opposition has come from other political parties and religions as well as church leaders, though it is Christian organisations that have already been disproportionately affected by the existing regulations.
Proposed amendments to India’s foreign funding law may give the state control over churches and Christian-run schools, hospitals and charities.
UGANDA: Evangelist killed
Muslim extremists are suspected of killing an evangelist after he preached at a Gospel event. Alfred Kitenga was beaten and stabbed in Kawaala, Wakiso District, after he and his wife returned home from preaching in the Namungoona area of Kampala. (Source: Morning Star News)
UK: Bishop warns of worsening persecution
Bishop Philip Mounstephen, author of the influential 2019 independent review on persecuted Christians, has warned that worsening political situations are threatening the progress made.
Mounstephen’s review, commissioned by the UK government, led to freedom of religion being given greater consideration in foreign policy discussions. But Mountstephen, the former Bishop of Truro, told a consultation on gender-specific religious persecution in April that although awareness of persecution had improved, “globally, the situation is getting worse” for Christian minorities.
Andrew Halloway is a British freelance editor, writer and publishing consultant. He is also editor of Good News—a national monthly evangelistic newspaper (www.goodnews-paper.org.uk). Andrew has 18 years’ experience as an editor and publishing manager in the Christian publishing world, and holds a first class honours degree in Humanities. He has long had an interest in the creation/evolution debate, and is the contributing editor of ‘The Delusion of Evolution’, a magazine-style evangelistic booklet that has sold over 23,000 copies in the UK (available from www.newlife.co.uk).