It has been almost 12 months since Argentinian pastor Marcelo Nieva survived an assassination attempt, but he has in October this year been forced to leave his church.
In May 2014, he said that the introduction of a state law in August 2013 purporting to safeguard religious freedom was having the opposite effect. He said that the lives of his wife Janet (now 24) and baby daughter Marta (then just one month old) had been threatened, while pressure on his church, the majority of whose members were former drug addicts and prostitutes, had increased.
Impact of the church
Leaving his church in Río Tercero, a city in Argentina’s central Córdoba region, has come about after the pressure against him and his Pueblo Grande Baptist Church became too great – pressure he claims came from corrupt local officials unhappy with the impact the church was having on the sex and drugs trades.
