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Nepal: Two Churches Attacked in Growing Trend

September 7, 2023

In the mid-twentieth century, there were no Christians at all in Nepal. Now their official number is approaching 400,000, and some Christian leaders in Nepal believe the actual number of Christians in the country is 2.3 million. 

For more ChristianPersecution.com coverage of the persecution of Christians in Nepal, see here.

“Two Nepalese Churches Attacked in Growing Trend,” International Christian Concern, September 5, 2023:

09/05/2023 Nepal (International Christian Concern) — An attack on a church in Nepal’s Lumbini Province on Monday was just the latest in a string of recent violence against Christians in the country. The church is in the southern Nawalparasi district of Lumbini along the border with India’s Uttar Pradesh state and was one of two churches in the same town that were vandalized over the weekend.

Photos and videos reviewed by International Christian Concern (ICC) showed broken windows and other signs of violence around the property, including damage to fencing and a broken motorbike. Another photo shared on social media showed two men, identified as pastors, being assaulted on the street. Gathered locals appear to have smeared the pastors’ faces with a sticky black substance in an act described by ICC contacts as a cultural sign of hatred and disrespect.

ICC has learned that the attacks in Lumbini are the sixth and seventh such attacks against churches in Nepal in the last two weeks….

Chapter 19 of the Muluki Ain, or general code of Nepal, states that “no one shall propagate any religion in such manner as to undermine the religion of other nor shall cause other to convert his or her religion.”…

The U.S. Department of State highlighted its concerns with Nepal’s anti-conversion and anti-proselytization laws in a report published earlier this year. “Multiple religious groups in the country,” the report stated, “[continue] to reiterate that the constitutional and criminal code provisions governing religious conversion and proselytism [are] vague and contradictory and [open] the door for prosecution for actions carried out in the normal course of practicing one’s religion.”