Updated: April 23, 2012

Algeria (MNN) ? Algeria is earning its keep as country number 23 on the Open Doors World Watch List for the worst persecutors of Christians.

Today is the five-year anniversary of the martyrdom of three very special men. On April 18, 2007, Necati Aydin, Ugur Yuksel and Tilmann Geske were brutally murdered at a Christian publishing house in Malatya, a city in southeastern Turkey. Five young Islamists bound and tortured the two Turkish Christians and one German Christian before killing them at the Zirve Publishing House.

A few days ago I was reading an article that brought some concern to me because I was very surprised to read that the Obama Administration's U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Ambassador Johnnie Carson, made some comments about the recent attacks against Christians in Nigeria, and specifically the group Boko Haram, that shocked me.

Hmong believers in Laos and Vietnam face opposition from village authorities because of their faith in Christ. Within the past month, authorities in several villages have expelled at least six families that converted to Christianity. The believers are struggling to farm and earn a living.

Nigeria (MNN) ? In its most recent YouTube video post last week, Nigerian terrorist sect Boko Haram threatened that it would bring down the federal government by June.

A suicide bomber killed 36 people and injured 13 others in Kaduna on April 5, after church security workers turned him away from the church they were guarding. Deterred from attacking the church, the bomber detonated his weapon a few moments later in a crowded commercial district.

UNITED STATES — A recent report from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) identified 16 countries that had committed severe violations of religious rights, including torture, prolonged detentions without charges and disappearances.