(Morning Star News) – The blasphemy trial of Jakarta Gov. Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama began on Tuesday, with the ethnic Chinese Christian breaking into tears inside the courtroom while hundreds of people protested outside.

Some 2,000 police officers kept anti-Ahok and pro-Ahok protestors apart outside the heavily guarded court. Those opposing Ahok chanted, “Jail Ahok, jail Ahok, jail Ahok now.”

A panel of judges will hear from 30 witnesses and see 50 pieces of evidence regarding the charge o..

A bomb blast in St Peter’s church in Cairo on Sunday killed 25 people and wounded 49, mostly women and children.

The bombing during morning mass was the deadliest attack on Egypt’s Christians since a 2011 bombing killed 21 people at a church in Alexandria.

The Sunday bombing is the latest indication of how challenging it is for Christians living in Egypt, who account for about 10 per cent of Egypt’s 92 million people.

The Bible Society of Egypt has requested prayers f..

Although Daddo and Badriya resisted many of IS’ attempts to convert them, she told Reuters last month that she eventually told the terrorists what they wanted to hear. “My heart would race when they tried to get me to convert. They would try to get me to (say the Muslim declaration of faith). I told them I didn’t know how to say it, and I said it in reverse,” she said. “I would say what they wanted.”

Iraqi Christians who survived living under Islamic State rule in occupied territories are now s..

“Inside the church, Habib, the priest, and several other men banged bibles and other holy books against each other, creating puffs of dust. A 54-year-old woman, Almaz Sleiman, sobbed quietly, holding a tissue against her face as she looked around. Prayers were held under the watchful eyes of armed Assyrian Christian militiamen, known as the Nineveh Plain Protection Units.”

There were gasps, followed by tears at a small church in northern Iraq as a group of Christians returned to their parish Su..

Donald Trump seems to be backing off from some of what he said on the campaign He now says that he won’t prosecute Hillary Clinton, that the Wall with Mexico will mostly be more of a fence, that he may not use torture after all, that maybe climate change is real, that he won’t apply libel law to the press.
The press is reporting these apparently more moderate positions as criticisms, as if they believe Trump changing his mind from policies they denounce is a bad thing.
Do you think he is going s..

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Nenous Thabit puts the finishing touches to an artwork.(Facebook/Nenous Thabit Art)

A Christian teenage boy from Iraq is fighting the terror group Islamic State (ISIS) in a different way: by replicating the ancient artworks destroyed by the militants.

Nenous Thabit, 17, an Assyrian Christian from the Kurdish city of Erbil, has been picking up the shattered pieces of artefacts left..

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Police stand near the scene of an explosion outside a church in Samarinda, East Kalimantan, Indonesia, on Nov. 13, 2016 in this photo taken by Antara Foto.Reuters

Their four-year-old daughter was severely wounded when an Islamist extremist hurled a bomb at a church in Indonesia on Nov. 13, killing a toddler and injuring three others.

But despite the atrocity, the parents of Trinit..