Church officials in Sri Lanka plan to petition for the canonization of hundreds of Catholics killed in the Easter Sunday bombings in 2019. The petition to the Vatican will be submitted on  April 21.

The Church wants the slain Catholics to be declared “martyrs of faith” as they all died because of their faith, Oblate Father Rohan Silva, the chairman of the Colombo-based Center for Society and Religion stated adding that it has also filed a petition with the United Nations Human Rights Commission demanding justice for the Easter Sunday victims.

Demonstrators light candles during a silent protest to pay respect to the victims of the 2019 Easter Sunday suicide bombings at three churches and three deluxe hotels that killed almost three hundred people, on the day to mark the third anniversary of the attacks near the president's office in Colombo on April 21, 2022. (Photo by AFP)

Suicide bombers allegedly linked to local extremist outfit, National Thowheed Jamath, carried out coordinated attacks on April 21, 2019, targeting three churches and three luxury hotels.

The terror attack left 279 people including 37 foreigners dead and scores injured. Most of the victims were Catholics who flocked to churches to attend Easter Sunday Mass.

Filipino bishops have urged the Catholic-majority nation’s allies to defend Filipino fishermen’s rights over the West Philippine Sea, which has turned into a naval flashpoint between neighboring China and the US. This is the first time that prelates in the country are taking a stern stand on the maritime dispute.

In a statement issued on Monday, they said, “It is permissible -- even morally necessary -- to have recourse to the friendship of our allies who can help us defend what is ours. The friction over competing sovereignty claims in the West Philippine Sea increased since Ferdinand Marcos Jr. became president in June 2022.

Philippine sailors look on as the US Navy’s USS Ralph Johnson guided missile destroyer (right) and the Philippine Navy frigate BRP Jose Rizal sail through waters west of Palawan in the South China Sea on Sept. 4, 2023. (Photo: AFP)

In December last year, a Philippine boat and a Chinese ship collided near a contested reef. Before that, the Philippines conducted two separate joint air and sea patrols with allies US and Australia. An international tribunal refuted China's claims of 90 percent sovereignty in 2016.

The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague also invalidated China’s nine-dash line, affirming the Philippines’ exclusive right to fish within 200 nautical miles from its baseline. However, Beijing does not abide by the order and has denied allegations made by the Philippines government.

A group of Catholics in South Korea's Daegu archdiocese joined an open-air Mass in a forest as part of a campaign to oppose a development plan that allegedly threatens a major wetland.

The Life and Peace Mass held at Palhyeon Wetland last week drew dozens of Catholics as well as environmentalists. Father Benedict Lim Sung-ho, chairman of the Archdiocesan Committee on Ecology and Environment who led the liturgy said it was the first of planned monthly masses in the forest.

Father Benedict Lim Sung-ho presides over the Life and Peace Mass at Palhyeon Wetland in Daegu, South Korea on Jan. 27. (Photo: Catholic Times)

The Palhyeon Wetlands located on the Kumho River is one of Daegu's three major wetlands. The others are Anan and Dalseong. It is home to 300-year-old red-leaf pillow trees and hosts many wildlife species including eagle owls, whooper swans, and whooping geese.

Church leaders and environmentalists have expressed concern over a government plan to construct a pedestrian bridge over the wetland, which they say would cause deforestation and endanger wildlife and biodiversity.

Two Islamic organizations in Indonesia have won this year’s Zayed Award for Human Fraternity. Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah, with millions of members in the largest Muslim nation in the world, were conferred the award in Abu Dhabi on Monday.

The prize marks the fifth anniversary of the Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together, which Pope Francis signed with Sheikh Ahmed Al-Tayyeb, grand Imam of Al-Azhar, during a visit to Abu Dhabi in 2019.

Yahya Cholil Staquf (left), chairman of Nandlatul Ulama, and Haedar Nashir, chairman of Muhammadiyah. (Photo: Youtube)

The Ulama, founded in 1926, has organized several inter-religious and inter-cultural conferences, including the Asia-Africa Islamic Conference and the World Conference on Religion and Peace. Its diplomatic efforts helped secure the release of South Korean personnel held hostages held by the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2007.

Muhammadiyah was founded in 1912 and has built schools and universities in Christian-majority regions like Papua and East Nusa Tenggara. It played a role in resolving conflicts in the southern Philippines and southern Thailand and has carried out humanitarian aid to the Rohingyas in Bangladesh.

Christian leaders in India's Madhya Pradesh state are upset over its pro-Hindu government’s move to clandestinely profile Christian missionaries. Bishop Gerald Almeida of Jabalpur on Wednesday confirmed that Christian institutions received a questionnaire from the police, seeking details of missionaries.

The questionnaire asked the number of missionaries, their activities, and sources of foreign funding.  The questionnaire also sought to know whether missionaries resort to religious conversions, which are banned under a stringent anti-conversion law.

Bharatiya Janata Party leaders and workers celebrate their victory in the Madhya Pradesh legislative assembly polls, on Dec. 3, 2023. Police in the central Indian state are circulating a questionnaire seeking details of Christian missionaries and their activities in the state. (Photo: AFP)

The state government run by the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party government sharpened the law in 2021. This is the second such attempt in less than a year. Police sought similar details in July 2023, but gave up the effort after the questionnaire got leaked to the media.

Bishop Almeida is planning to seek legal opinion before sharing any information as police was trying to gather the information unofficially.

Lawyers for the ruling Cambodian People’s Party have targeted a civil rights activist and a leader of an opposition party for potential litigation ahead of the Feb. 25 Senate elections.

They have filed a complaint in the Phnom Penh Municipal Court against Soeng Senkaruna, vice president of the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association, according to government mouthpiece Fresh News. The lawyers also warned that comments made by Son Chhay, vice president of the opposition Candlelight Party, were politically motivated, undermining the ruling party and damaging the judiciary.

Son Chhay, vice president of Candlelight party, speaks to media representatives in front of Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Oct. 7, 2022. A prominent Cambodian opposition politician — who also has Australian citizenship — he was convicted of defamation for criticizing the country's local elections in which strongman Hun Sen's party won a landslide victory. (Photo by AFP)

Former prime minister Hun Sen recently posted on Facebook that attacks against the ruling party will not be tolerated and singled out Senkaruna. This year, so far, four senior members of Candlelight Party have been detained while three Cambodian refugees were held in Thailand ahead of a visit by Prime Minister Hun Manet.

Human rights groups say there are about 60 Cambodian political prisoners behind bars, including Khmer Bible editor Theary Seng, former opposition leader Kem Sokha, and prominent trade unionist Chhim Sithar.

Police in northeast China raided a gathering of Christian villagers and arrested 200 participants for allegedly joining a church that refused to abide by a theological doctrine promoted by a state-sanctioned body.

Some 150 police officers stormed the gathering in Xiaotuan, a village in Mudanjiang City of Heilongjiang province last month and arrested the Christians. This was reported on Monday by Bitter Winter, an online magazine covering religious freedom and human rights in China.

The Chinese national flag flies in front of St Joseph's Church, also known as Wangfujing Catholic Church, in Beijing on Oct 22, 2020. Members of religious groups including Christians continue to face persecution in China. (Photo: AFP/Getty Images)

Following the raid, the arrested Christians were driven away in three large buses and some in cars. Their whereabouts remain unknown. Those arrested were members of a house church that is part of the Sola Fide network.

Sola Fide, Latin for “faith only,” is a Protestant theological doctrine taught by Martin Luther, a German theologian and reformer who started the Reformation Movement in the 16th century.  Hundreds of local Christians from faraway places have been joining the gathering in Xiaotuan every month. However, in China, the state-controlled Three-Self Church, which oversees the affairs of Protestant Churches, contests the doctrine.

Christian villagers in a southern province in Laos have expressed frustrations after local officials allegedly burned Bibles and destroyed a house church during a Sunday worship.

The authorities led a mob of Buddhist villagers who stormed into a makeshift church in Kaleum Vangke village in Savannakhet province’s Xonboury district, Radio Free Asia reported on Monday. No one was hurt in the attack. The site was being used as a place of gathering and worship by several Evangelical Christian families.

An armed Lao policeman is seen in a village near the capital Vientiane in this file image. Christians in Laos face various forms of abuse in rural areas of Buddhist-majority nation. (Photo by Hoang Dinh Nam/AFP)

The incident is the latest in a string of similar assaults against Christians in the communist state. Such actions continued even after Laos passed a law in 2019 that allowed the free practice of faith.

The law has received very little publicity and is practically not applied in the villages where Christians continue to face discrimination from officials and Buddhist villagers who view Christianity as an alien faith. Laos is a Buddhist-majority nation that also recognizes Christianity, Islam, and the Baha'i faith.

About 30 percent of Hong Kong’s ethnic minorities, mostly coming from South and Southeast Asian nations, face higher risks of mental disorders due to various factors, says a new survey.

Some 28.6 percent of 273 people surveyed by the charity group, Hong Kong Christian Service, said they have faced mental problems. They identified cultural and language barriers, expensive mental health services, and extremely busy lives as the cause of this, the group said in a press release last week.

A new survey found about 30 percent of ethnic minorities in Hong Kong face higher risks of mental health disorders. (Photo: Hong Kong Christian Service)

The survey was carried out from January to August last year in collaboration with the Department of Psychiatry of the Faculty of Medicine at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and the Department of Social Work and Social Administration at the University of Hong Kong.

The research team advocated for cross-sectoral collaboration to remove barriers to help-seeking for ethnic minorities.