The Tamil Nadu state in southern India rejected a demand for a national law against religious conversion saying the country’s constitution guarantees religious freedom.

In an affidavit to the Supreme Court last Saturday, the state defended that the acts of missionaries spreading Christianity cannot be seen as something against the law unless these go against public order, morality, health, and other provisions of the constitution. The affidavit came in reply to the top court asking all the Indian states to file their responses on a petition demanding a national-level anti-conversion law.

A Catholic devotee kneels down in prayer in front of a statue of Jesus during a Good Friday procession at a beach in Chowara, a village of fishermen in India's Kerala state, on April 2, 2021. (Photo: AFP/ UCAN files)

Ashwini Upadhyay, a Delhi-based lawyer and leader of the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party filed a petition seeking a court direction to contain alleged forceful religious conversion. He also accused Christian missionaries of engaging in forceful religious conversions.

Christian leaders have hailed Tamil Nadu state’s move for upholding the right spirit of the Indian constitution. States ruled by India’s ruling BJP passed anti-conversion laws that have been used to target minority Christians and Muslims. 

Pakistani rights activists and church leaders paid tributes to Bishop John Joseph of Faisalabad on Wednesday, ahead of his 25th death anniversary. Bishop John committed suicide by shooting himself to death on May 6, 1998, in protest against the country's controversial blasphemy law.

During the memorial services in Lahore, Archbishop Sebastian Shaw said though the church does not glorify his final step, they consider him one of the Church’s recognized martyrs and saints. John Joseph was the first priest from Pakistan’s Punjab province and the first ethnic Punjabi bishop.

Archbishop Sebastian Shaw of Lahore and others at a memorial seminar to honor Bishop John Joseph who killed himself in protest against Pakistan's controversial blasphemy law, in Lahore on May 3. (Photo: Kamran Chaudhry)

He shot himself in front of the Sahiwal sessions court in Faisalabad, after a Christian, Ayub Masih, was sentenced to death for allegedly insulting the founder of Islam.

Masih was acquitted and released in 2002.To hail Joseph’s act, a vigil was conducted in front of the Sahiwal court. Blasphemy is a crime in Pakistan punishable by death. Between 1987 and 2022, about 2,120 people were accused of committing blasphemy, and more than 50 percent of the accused belonged to minority groups.

Police in Yunnan province of southwest China arrested a preacher of a Protestant house church for allegedly distributing Covid-19 masks inscribed with Bible verses.

The cops raided the preacher Chang Hao of a church in Zhaotong City where his wife Enlin claimed Bibles, Christian books, and the anti-Covid masks inscribed with verses were seized. The masks with Bible verses that he distributed became popular in the area, but the local officials of the Chinese Communist Party found his activism “disturbing.”

This undated picture shows a cross at Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu of China. Dozens of Protestant house churches have been raided and shut down and Christians arrested in recent years in the communist-ruled country. (Photo: Church Partnership)

Hao’s family and his lawyer were not allowed to meet him since his detention by the police. Hao runs a small house church that is not registered with the state-sanctioned Three-Self Church that oversees the affairs of Protestant churches in the country.

His arrest is seen as part of a rampant crackdown against religious groups in the communist country for refusing to register with the government and accepting the socialist policies of the regime.

Academic experts, teachers, and students in Hong Kong have lamented the decision of the authorities to remove Liberal Studies from the curriculum. They say it will affect the critical thinking and opinion formation of students on socio-political issues in the politically troubled former British colony.

Liberal Studies was introduced in 2009 as a part of the four core subjects in the senior secondary curriculum. It was revamped in 2021 as Citizenship and Social Development course with an emphasis on national security.

Students of the Chinese University of Hong Kong join a protest rally in 2019. (Photo: AFP)

The students who took up the course in 2020 with their exams ending in 2023 thus became the last batch to appear for the qualifying examinations on April 27.

The Education Department revised the subject after pro-Beijing figures – including former chief executive Tung Chee-hwa – and other officials blamed the subject for encouraging students to take part in the 2019 pro-democracy protests and unrest.

A group of South Korean Catholics made a "pilgrimage of reconciliation and peace" to several cities in Japan that hold memorial sites related to the Japanese occupation and persecution of Koreans.

The Korean delegation of about 30 people including clergy and lay people led by the National Reconciliation Committee of the Diocese of Uijeongbu made the pilgrimage in the final week of April. Bishop Peter Lee Ki-heon of Uijeongbu, the chairman of the Korean bishops’ Special Commission for the Reconciliation of the Korean People joined the delegation as well as members of the Civil Reconciliation Committee.

Korean Catholic pilgrims pay a visit to the memorial for victims of the Josei Coal Mine in Japan on April 26. (Photo: Diocese of Uijeongbu)

During the trip, they visited various memorial sites in the cities of Fukuoka, Yamaguchi, and Hiroshima. They prayed together and paid tribute to those who lost their lives due to oppression.

On April 27, the group participated in a special Mass for peace and reconciliation at the cathedral of Hiroshima diocese. During the homily, Bishop Alexis Shirahama Mitsuru of Hiroshima apologized for the atrocities committed by Japanese colonial forces against Korean people.

Residents in Zamboanga province of the Philippines gathered more than two thousand kilograms of plastics from the streets and water bodies and exchanged those for rice from the local government as part of a campaign to tackle pollution.

The pilot campaign ran throughout April and will be replicated in other provinces struggling to contain plastic contamination, according to the Office of City Environment and Natural Resources in Zamboanga City.

Workers clean up a beach in Zamboanga province of the Philippines in this undated photo: (Photo: Office the City Environment and Natural Resources, Zamboanga City)

According to the agency director Marigold Aranza, various campaigns in the past to tackle plastic pollution failed but the latest one became successful as residents received one kilogram of rice for every two kilograms of plastics.

During the “Plastic for Rice” campaign, a total of 4,144 kilograms of plastic bags and containers were collected. Such campaign is crucial for the Philippines as the nation is ranked the third-largest generator of plastic waste in the world, contributing an estimated 0.75 million metric tons of ocean plastic every year.

A new documentary film that exposes the dark side of tourism development on Indonesia's Catholic-majority Flores Island has caused a stir in the country and beyond.

The documentary, ‘Dragon for Sale,’ was released in April. It has been screened in various places in Indonesia and on Monday it was screened in eight leading universities in the US.

A screengrab of the documentary film, Dragon for Sale. (Photo supplied)

The film is produced by a group of activists and journalists who have traveled around the country on motorcycles since last year to document the realities in Labuan Bajo of Flores Island, which is being developed as a premium destination.

The documentary exposes the marginalization of local people, denial of indigenous peoples' rights, privatization of coastal areas and water resources, destruction of forests, control by big business players with strong political connections, and the resistance by residents to defend their living space.

Political activist Anousa “Jack” Luangsuphom was shot but survived death in communist-ruled Laos, which triggered strong calls from rights group to probe the attempted assassination. The 25-year-old activist was shot point blank in the face and chest last Saturday.

A gunman fired at him twice in a coffee shop in Chanthabouly district of the capital Vientiane. Earlier, New York-based Human Rights Watch said he died on the way to a hospital quoting Laos media, but revealed later he was still recovering from his wounds.

Prominent Lao political activist Anousa 'Jack' Luangsuphom was shot in Vientiane, Laos on April 29. (Photo: https://www.hrw.org)

Anousa is popular among the youth in the Southeast Asian nation as a social media influencer. He runs two Facebook pages with nearly 50,000 followers. The pages provide a platform for issues, including corruption, repression of fundamental freedoms and human rights violations against school children and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Intersex people.

The shooting outraged civil society groups as Laos has seen disappearance of a number of political activists. Activist Sombath Somphone — winner the Magsaysay award in 2005 for his dedication to community service – disappeared in 2012 and is feared dead.

A court in military-ruled Myanmar has dismissed an appeal by a prominent Baptist Christian leader four weeks after he was imprisoned and a day before thousands of political prisoners were freed.

Myitkyina Prison Court in Kachin state rejected an appeal from Dr. Hkalam Samson on Tuesday. The former leader of the Kachin Baptist Convention was sentenced by the same court on April 7 to six years in prison for unlawful association, defaming the state, and terrorism.

Reverend Dr. Hkalam Samson (center) had his appeal against a 6 year prison sentence rejected by a military court in Myitkyina, capital of northern Myanmar's Kachin state, on May 2. (Photo: Radio Free Asia)

The court’s decision came a day before 2,135 political prisoners were freed from various prisons across the country as people marked Vesak, a major Buddhist festival, on Wednesday. Since the military coup in February 2021, more than 21,000 people have been arrested.

Global rights group Amnesty International expressed deep concerns about thousands of individuals still unjustly languishing in prisons across Myanmar.