A top Kenyan electoral official said the election commission's database was unsuccessfully targeted by a hacking attempt. Wafula Chebukati, the commission chairman’s comments came on the 10 August after allegations by opposition leader Raila Odinga that hackers infiltrated the database and manipulated results in favour of President Uhuru Kenyatta in the election on 8 August. At the time of writing the tallying of the final results is continuing with Kenyatta holding a strong lead. Clashes between police and opposition supporters have erupted in several areas with people being shot and killed, following Odinga's allegations. In the port city of Kisumu, the hometown of Odinga, police used tear gas and shot at supporters of the opposition leader, said demonstrator Sebastian Omolo. Kisumu shopkeeper Festus Odhiambo said he was praying for peace even as protesters blocked roads into city slums with bonfires and boulders. Everyone is keeping an eye on what the opposition leaders will do if Kenyatta is declared the winner. See: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/08/kenya-police-protesters-clash-poll-fraud-claim-170809081850902.html

Tajikistan's Sughd Oblast court sentenced Bahram Khalmatov, a 42-year-old Protestant pastor of the San-Maine-san-Bugim evangelical church in Khujand, to three years in prison on an unproven excuse of extremism, according to Mohabat News. The Tajik priest has expressed concern about the situation he faces in jail and called on believers and members of the church to pray for the priest Khalmatov. Officials of the Tajik Religious Affairs Committee state that the followers of this evangelical church were unlicensed and had registration documents, and therefore the churches and centres of this group were closed. Tajik authorities say the website of the Korean Christian Church said that the Christian centre was officially registered in the Tajik Religious Committee in 2009. This is the first time that a non-Muslim country is arrested and imprisoned on charges of extremism. Pray for the pastor’s safety, Tajikistan has been consistently criticised for violating human rights and religious beliefs in recent years.

Eight days after receiving a 15-year prison sentence and nearly a year after he was first detained, Muslim convert to Christianity Amin Afshar Naderi wrote an open letter to Iranian authorities. ‘What have I done against you and our country that made you hate me this much? I have learned from the Bible to love my enemies and to pray for those who hate me,’ his letter began. In July Amin was sentenced to 15 years in prison: 10 years for ‘acting against national security by organising and conducting house churches’” and an additional five years for blasphemy. Two other believers received 10-year sentences at the same time. In his letter, Amin said during his interrogations, he had been spoken to abusively, mocked and insulted, but he prays for the health of his interrogators. He also said his fellow prisoners were forced to sign a false statement against him, and that officials wrongly reported that Amin had insulted their religious beliefs.

Christians are being killed and imprisoned in Iran, Tajikistan, Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Pakistan, and Nigeria, to name but a few and persecution of Christians in the Middle East and Asia is forcing tens of thousands of families to flee for their lives. In India, for example, violent persecution of Christians in 2016 was over 800 and there have been hundreds of attacks so far this year. It is time to pray for charities and organisations that are working in dangerous conditions to provide corridors of escape to safe havens, for those providing aid and support to those living in camps, for those training and educating families for a new life, for those giving medical and counselling services for those who have been tortured and imprisoned for their Christian beliefs. We can pray also for those speaking out on behalf of the persecuted church in the media, at the UN and in government circles. See also articles 3 and 4 below.