Teachers kidnapped in Cameroon

UNIDENTIFIED gunmen kidnapped 11 teachers on Tuesday from a Presbyterian school in Kumbo, in the north-west region of Cameroon, it was reported this week. The gunmen initially seized 12 people, but one teacher escaped. The supervisor of Cameroon’s Presbyterian schools, the Revd Fonki Samuel Forba, said that the staff members had been kidnapped in front of their students. The local authorities have blamed English-speaking separatists for the kidnapping. The incident comes a week after seven children were killed in an attack on a school in Kumba, in the south-west region of Cameroon (News, 30 October).

Indian pastors under threat, says Open Doors

CHRISTIAN pastors in India regularly face arrest owing to anti-conversion laws and rising religious nationalism, the charity Open Doors has said. The accusation is that they use “fraudulent means” to convert people to Christianity. Although few are imprisoned, they often face years of being ostracised and unable to work while fighting to clear their names. Anti-conversion laws exist in eight of the 29 states in India. They forbid anyone to convert someone “from one religion to another by use of force or by allurement or by any fraudulent means”. Open Doors has urged the Indian government to guarantee the peaceful right to assembly and the right to freedom of expression for its citizens.