{"id":4956,"date":"2014-09-03T09:04:29","date_gmt":"2014-09-03T16:04:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/?p=4956"},"modified":"2014-09-03T09:04:29","modified_gmt":"2014-09-03T16:04:29","slug":"laos-five-christians-accused-of-murder-found-not-guilty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/?p=4956","title":{"rendered":"LAOS: Five Christians Accused of Murder Found Not Guilty"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Source: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.barnabasfund.org\">Barnabas Fund<\/a>, August 21, 2014<\/p>\n<p>A group of Christians in Laos who were falsely accused of murder have been found not guilty. The believers, who remain in custody, were\u00a0arrested\u00a0after a sick woman sought prayer at her local church, converted to Christianity, and later died.\u00a0The five Christians, four of whom are church leaders, have been detained since June 24.<\/p>\n<p>The accusations came after Mrs. Chan, a convert to Christianity, passed away on June 21. Mrs. Chan had been suffering from an unidentified illness for two years, and local Christians prayed for her recovery. After her health initially improved, Mrs. Chan and her eight children became Christians and began attending church. Mrs. Chan\u2019s health then deteriorated further, and she died on the way home from hospital.<\/p>\n<p>Mrs. Chan\u2019s sons and daughters wanted a Christian burial for their mother. When the village authorities prevented this from going ahead, Mrs. Kaithong, the leader of the Saisomboon church, appealed to the district chief. The five believers were then arrested, initially over the burial dispute, and later charged with murder. Buddhist leaders stepped in and conducted Mrs. Chan\u2019s funeral service against her family\u2019s wishes.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bb <a href=\"http:\/\/www.barnabasfund.org\/US\/News\/News-analysis\/Five-Christians-accused-of-murder-in-Laos-found-not-guilty.html\">Read full story<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bb Interested in East Asia? We\u2019ve been following stories about Christianity in China. See <a href=\"http:\/\/english.peopledaily.com.cn\/n\/2014\/0807\/c90882-8766262.html\">China Plans Establishment of Christian Theology<\/a> (China Daily) and <a href=\"http:\/\/thediplomat.com\/2014\/08\/why-is-china-nationalizing-christianity\/\">Why Is China Nationalizing Christianity?<\/a> (The Diplomat), as well as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.worthynews.com\/17829-china-removed-more-than-200-crosses\">China Removed More than 200 Crosses<\/a> (Worthy News).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: Barnabas Fund, August 21, 2014 A group of Christians in Laos who were falsely accused of murder have been found not guilty. The believers, who remain in custody, were\u00a0arrested\u00a0after a sick woman sought prayer at her local church, converted to Christianity, and later died.\u00a0The five Christians, four of whom are church leaders, have been &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/?p=4956\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">LAOS: Five Christians Accused of Murder Found Not Guilty<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-briefs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4956"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4958,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4956\/revisions\/4958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}