The trial of the Coptic woman accused of blasphemy opened on Tuesday 21 May. Primary school teacher Dimyana Obeid Abd Al-Nour did not attend the court hearing because she is in hiding.

"Free Patriarch Antonios" was one of the chants made by participants opposite the Eritrean Embassy in London yesterday. Over 60 people, including a group from Church in Chains, gathered to draw attention, once again, to the outlawing of independent churches in Eritrea since May 2002.

Click here to watch a YouTube video of the vigil

Security forces arrested Pastor Robert Asserian (pictured) in Tehran on 21 May and announced the closure of his church, as a crackdown on Christians intensifies ahead of elections in June.

The closure of more than a dozen unregistered churches in Hainan Province is evidence of a plan to do away with house churches, according to China Aid Association. Hainan is an island off China's south coast.

On 7 May the Administrative Court of Rabat delivered a verbal ruling in favour of the Moroccan government, which had deported Village of Hope staff members and their birth children in March 2010 as part of a purge of Christians.