Christian Persecution Around the World

[Soldier4Christ]

Mexico: Pact Sets New Course for Threatened Christians

But ‘traditionalist Catholics’ may not to sign it; evangelicals vow they won’t be expelled.

SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico (Compass Direct News) -- On Monday (April 23), small town political bosses near this city in Chiapas state are set to meet with representatives of 65 Christians they have threatened to expel in a showdown that could influence religious rights throughout the region.

The town rulers decided to drive 13 Christian families from their homes last December for refusing to help pay for “traditionalist Catholic” festivals in Los Pozos, 29 kilometers (18 miles) from San Cristobal. State and federal officials intervened, and on February 28 the town bosses verbally agreed to a pact pledging they wouldn’t expel the evangelicals, whose water lines and electricity they have cut since January.

But Christian leaders told Compass the rulers have signaled that either they will not sign the accord, or will exact fines before signing, or will sign it with plans to renege on it.

Leaders of both the evangelicals and the traditionalist Catholics, who practice a blend of Roman Catholicism and Tzotzil Maya customs, view the showdown as their Waterloo. For evangelicals, the outcome of the political maneuvering is expected to influence whether other Protestants in the region continue to be bullied into paying for alcohol-drenched Catholic festivals or gain a toe-hold on religious rights.

“This will be an historic precedent, because in all the communities this news is going to run that the local officials signed the accord,” said Esdras Alonso Gutierrez, an attorney representing the 65 evangelicals that make up almost the entire Alas de Aguila (Eagle’s Wings) church in Los Pozos. “Other caciques [local autocratic rulers] in other communities are saying, ‘If we lose this one in Los Pozos, we’re not going to be able to impose on them in other communities.’”

Alas de Aguila Pastor Reynaldo Gomez Ton told Compass that the caciques originally threatened the church members with expulsion at a town council meeting last December 23. The town bosses gave the evangelicals two weeks to pay their share of the costs for the December 12 Virgin of Guadalupe festival or face expulsion, he said.

The evangelicals vow not to budge from their homes. They hope, Alonso told Compass, that the state and federal government intervention that led to the verbal agreement between the caciques and the Christians in February will carry over to government action regardless of whether the Los Pozos officials sign the accord: protection of the evangelicals if the political bosses fail to sign, enforcement of the accord if they do.

“If on the 23rd they don’t sign the accord, or if they condition it by making the evangelicals pay a fine, we’re simply not going to accept it, and we’re going to demand that the government do its job of protecting them and their rights,” Alonso said. “If something happens on the 23rd, it’s the responsibility of the government – the brothers are not going to leave, and whatever aggression the caciques mete out, the government is responsible.”

The agreement calls for local authorities to restore the evangelicals’ water lines, electrical service and firewood rights and resume distributing federal food aid and fertilizers they have diverted from the Christians. The Tzotzil Christians told Compass they have been walking more than a kilometer to wash clothes in muddy well water or puddles since the caciques cut their services on January 30.

The church members are skeptical of the caciques’ decision to wait two months to sign an agreement reached verbally on February 28. At that time, the Los Pozos officials told them that they could only draw up the documents for signing at their next regular meeting on April 23.

“Up till now, because they’ve cut this children’s food aid program from us, we’ve been suffering trying to buy food as at times the money comes up short,” said Carmela Santis Lopez, 38, who has four children ages 18 months, 4, 6 and 8. “When we went to get the food assistance from the authorities, they threatened us saying, ‘Your children are not at fault, you are at fault for accepting Christ and not wanting to contribute to the Catholic festivals, so you’re not going to get your grocery food anymore.’”

Surviving

As local officials prohibit outsiders from visiting evangelicals in the hamlet – caciques surround arriving pastors and threaten them with jail time and fines – several church families walked more than two kilometers (1.2 miles) out of Los Pozos to talk with Compass in a pine tree-strewn ravine.

“We are asking the authorities that they reconnect the water, because the children are suffering,” the Tzotzil-speaking Santis said through an interpreter. “They’ve gotten sick from lack of bathing because there’s not much water, and they’ve also gotten sick because the water’s dirty – when you drop the bucket down, it stirs up the mud and dirties the water.”

Santis said she was raped by two traditionalist Catholics – Aldelfino Ton Peche and Alejandro Morales Mendez – on May 3, 2005 because she was a Christian. While her husband was out working, she said, they entered her home when she opened the door thinking winds were striking it.

“I was alone and began screaming, but nobody heard me or defended me, and these two men raped me on the floor of my house,” she said. “When this was over, I went to talk to the rural security agent here in the community to ask for help, but I didn’t find him because he was drunk.”

The local security agent’s wife told her to return in two days, Santis said. “So day after tomorrow came, and he didn’t pay me any attention, because he was – how shall I say, in agreement with the rapists. Because I am an evangelical, he defended the rapists.”

She filed a complaint with the state attorney general’s office, where it has sat unattended in an archive for nearly two years, she said.

Maria Elena Gomez Ton, a 27-year-old mother of four also allegedly raped by traditionalist Catholics, told Compass she walks a kilometer and a half three times a day for water.

“To wash my clothes I have to go far to bring water from an arroyo, or if there’s puddles of water I go there to wash our clothes,” she said.

Evangelical leaders said Los Pozos rulers are diverting federal food aid of a program called SEDESOL from 21 children (up from 16 previously reported), including Gomez Ton’s four little ones ages 10 months, 4, 6 and 8.

“The authorities’ wives say we didn’t show up to collect the food assistance, but this is a lie,” Gomez Ton said. “When we went to pick it up, when the Los Pozos authorities were distributing this food, they told us that they didn’t want to give it to us, and that if we returned we would again not be given our turn. We went home with our children.”

Cacique Collusion

Los Pozos belongs to the municipality of Huistan, which has its own set of caciques who traditionally have supported the local town bosses. Compass did not question Los Pozos authorities given the jail terms and/or fines they slap on visiting Christians, but Huistan Municipal President Manuel Alvarez Martinez did permit a brief interview.

Alvarez Martinez declined to explain to Compass why the pact to restore water and other services couldn’t be signed soon after the February 28 verbal agreement. Oddly, he said that “at no time” did any authorities threaten the evangelicals with expulsion, even as he noted that this issue was at the heart of the agreement.

“We had a talk with the state government at city hall, with the authorities of Los Pozos and the evangelicals, in which we arrived at an agreement that, for starters, there would be no expulsion,” Alvarez Martinez said. “The only thing lacking is the document. Both parties have to sign, and we the authorities will be present to witness this matter.”

cont'd

[Soldier4Christ]

Alvarez Martinez’s assistant, Alejandro Bautista Jimenez, at first declined to grant Compass an audience with the Huistan municipal president, claiming that the matter of the threatened expulsion of the Los Pozos evangelicals “was already resolved.”

“It was in all the newspapers and on the radio,” Bautista Jimenez said, and indeed the Chiapas press – which evangelical leaders believe is more than 90 percent controlled by pay-outs from the governor elected last year, Juan Sabines – has widely promoted the impression that the state government has already obtained a solution, Christian leaders said.

Alonso, a pastor who earned a criminal law degree in the course of defending indigenous religious rights for nearly two decades, said wearily that he has seen it all before: State and federal government officials announce they have brokered an accord, the press hails the achievement, and just before the agreement is signed, an unforeseen event arises to stall it indefinitely. The matter fades from public memory.

“Just as we’re about to definitively seal an agreement, something happens,” Alonso told Compass. “They kill someone or create some kind of problem, because there are people who don’t want the problem to be resolved.”

Until state authorities threatened to withdraw resources from Huistan, Alonso said, Huistan authorities supported the Los Pozos bosses’ intentions to ignore the February 28 agreement and expel the evangelicals. Now Huistan authorities like Alvarez Martinez support the agreement, but Alonso said the Los Pozos caciques’ stance remains to be seen.

“We have information that there have been private meetings of the caciques, that they want to make the evangelicals pay 20,000 pesos [US$1,818] in fines to get their services restored,” Alonso said. “But if they can’t even pay the 100 pesos [US$8] per family for each Catholic festival, how are they going to pay that fine?”

Gov. Sabines, a deeply committed Roman Catholic, has insisted that he will guarantee religious freedom and not allow the Catholic/evangelical conflicts of the past four decades to continue to besmirch Chiapas’ image. Evangelicals supported his election, Alonso said, adding that the Los Pozos case will be the first indicator of the new governor’s commitment to protect evangelicals and their constitutional right to religious freedom.

Holding Ground

The Los Pozos caciques tore down the Alas de Aguila church building in 2003 and jailed 19 of their members for 24 hours to keep them from reporting the incident.

The pastor of the church, Gomez Ton, told Compass that the evangelicals plan to continue bearing up under the traditionalist Catholics’ abuses even if they fail to sign the agreement.

“The Lord says, ‘Vengeance is mine,’ so we don’t respond by paying back their abuses,” Gomez Ton said. “Rather, we respond with patience, faith and love – because we hope that some day they’ll change their ideas about us. They act against us out of ignorance, and if Jesus Christ had not entered into us, we would be doing the same things. Our only weapon is prayer.”

If the caciques attempt to expel them by force, however, Gomez Ton hinted that the Christians would defend themselves.

“We’re not leaving,” he said. “And there arrives a point where one is forced to defend oneself. If that’s the case, the Old Testament examples of David’s victories in battle inspire us.”

Miguel Ton Cruz, a 63-year-old resident of Los Pozos with six of his eight adult children living at home, said the evangelicals will not allow the caciques to intimidate them.

“How is it that we’re going to let them drive us out?” he told Compass. “If they’re going to drive us out, we’re going to defend ourselves and our rights, because there’s nowhere else to go. We’re organizing ourselves to defend our rights.”

[Soldier4Christ]

Nigeria Christians On Edge As Muslim Wins Presidential Ballot

ABUJA, NIGERIA (BosNewsLife) -- Christians in Nigeria were on high alert Monday, April 23, as election officials confirmed that the outgoing Christian president of Nigeria will be succeeded by a controversial Muslim candidate following Saturday's election.

Independent National Electoral Commission Chairman Maurice Iwu said Umaru Yar'Adua had won the vote, which observers said was marred by fraud and violence.

"Candidate Atiku Abubakar, party AC, 2,637,848 votes; Major General Muhammadu Buhari, ANPP, 6,605,299 votes; Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, PDP, 24,638,063. I will like to further affirm that Umar Musa Yar'Adua of PDP, having satisfied the requirement of the law, and scored the highest number of votes, is declared winner," he announced in comments aired by the Voice Of America (VOA).

Shortly before the announcement Christians in Nigeria and abroad have raised concern about the impact a new Muslim president would have on religious freedom in Africa's most populous nation.

MORE SUFFERING?

"If there's a Muslim-elected president – and the two leading candidates are both Muslim - Christian rights in that country will continue to suffer,” Open Doors USA president Car Moeller told Mission Network News. “We know that Nigeria is the home to some of the largest and fastest growing churches in Africa. However, there's also a great deal of persecution going on in the northern states."

A Christian teacher was recently brutally beaten and burned alive by her students in a Muslim dominated northern town. Two days later in the same town, an evangelical church was burned, Christian officials and human rights watchers said.

Nigeria's outgoing President Olusegun Obasanjo urged those opposing the outcome to take advantage of constitutional and legal mechanisms to seek redress.

"Elections are a process which allow for dissent and have in-built mechanism for redress," he said. "Our constitutional and legal system anticipates that participants in elections may feel aggrieved and therefore provide remedies. Our elections could not have been said to have been perfect. My advice to all those who feel aggrieved by the outcome of the elections, is that they should avail themselves of the laid-down procedure for seeking redress in electoral matters."

OPPOSITION CHALLENGE

Some opposition candidates have reportedly vowed to challenge the elections at election tribunals. Obasanjo was scheduled to step down next month, when his second four-year term ends. The process is meant to set up Nigeria's first-ever handover of power between elected heads of state.

However dozens of Nigerians have died in violence related to the elections. The new president is expected to deal with corruption and grinding poverty and religious and ethnic violence which has killed thousands since military rule ended in 1999.

Yar'Adua reportedly assured Anglican Archbishop Peter Akinola in a special meeting last month that he would respect "all religions" should he be sworn in as president on May 29.

"I would like to see that I have a government that is trusted and credible and that can be so, if we have proper respect for law and order - in other words the rule of law is placed in an exulted position," he said in an interview. However Christians in especially Muslim dominated regions have heard this rhetoric before and Nigerian churches on Monday, April 23, were anxiously watching whether the political intentions would become reality. (With reports from Nigeria).

[Shammu]

It's time this thread was updated!!

China Closes Christian-Linked Businesses

5 days ago

BEIJING (AP) — China has closed two businesses whose owners allegedly sought Christian converts in a traditionally Muslim region and also revoked the visa of an American citizen for illegal proselytizing, a rights group said Wednesday.

The companies' business licenses were pulled last month by authorities in the Xinjiang region of western China after they were accused of distributing religious material, converting Muslims and conducting "infiltration activities," the U.S.-based China Aid Association said in a news release.

The group did not identify the American citizen whose visa was revoked, citing ongoing legal issues within China. It was not immediately clear whether the individual had been deported.

Efforts to contact the companies cited by the association were unsuccessful. At one, a branch of Xinjiang Pacific Agricultural Resources Development Company, Ltd., no one answered the phone. The other company, Xinjiang Jiaerhao Foodstuff Company Limited reportedly owned by a Muslim convert, had no listed number.

A woman who answered the phone at the regional government's religious affairs bureau said she had no information about the companies or the accused American.

The report follows word this summer that China had kicked out more than 100 suspected foreign missionaries, including many in Xinjiang, in a campaign to prevent proselytizing ahead of next year's Beijing Summer Olympics.

Christian mission groups from around the world say they plan to quietly defy the Chinese ban on foreign missionaries and send thousands of volunteer evangelists to Beijing next year.

Evangelicals worked the crowds at the Olympics in Athens, Sydney and Atlanta but the groups say the Beijing Games offer an opening like no other in the communist country.

China bans open proselytizing and worship outside the Communist Party-controlled official church. However, foreign faithful who live in China are often able to evangelize privately while working as English teachers, humanitarian workers or in business.

China Closes Christian-Linked Businesses

[Shammu]

Persecution of Degar Montagnards Continues
One Man Beaten Up; Another Has Hand Chopped Off

By Jeremy Reynalds
Correspondent for ASSIST News Service

SPARTANBURG, S.C. (ANS) -- The indigenous Degar Montagnards continue to suffer persecution by the Vietnamese communist government.

A major advocacy group says that hundreds of Degar prisoners remain in prison for standing up for human rights, for spreading Christianity or for fleeing to Cambodia. Many have died from internal injuries caused by beatings. Indigenous rights are routinely violated, and racism and discrimination are serious problems in the Central Highlands of Vietnam.

According to a news release from the Montagnard Foundation, on Sept. 27 2007, a Degar Christian named Y-Mau Eban and four of his friends took a walk outside their village of Buon Dung. While walking, a group of Vietnamese civilians were waiting to attack Degars for no other reason than racism.

The Vietnamese civilians grabbed Y-Mau Eban and severely beat him up, damaging his right eye. The others fled back to their village as a crowd of Vietnamese villagers armed with sticks and knives ran at them.

Y-Mau Eban was left there seriously injured, but the villagers soon returned and took him to the hospital in the city of Buonmathuot.

The Montagnard Foundation is dedicated to helping the Degar peoples.

In another story of violence story a few days later, about 20 Vietnamese civilians carrying machetes, knives, iron bars and rocks from the same group that attacked Y-Mau Eban got ready to attack and kill Degars leaving the village of Buon Dung.

According to the Montagnard Foundation this is what happened.

On Oct. 5, three Christian left their village to buy ice cubes at the Vietnamese market close by. They all lived in Buon Dung village.

While they were talking to the ice seller, the Vietnamese civilians surrounded and attacked them. A Christian man called Y-Hat Mlo had a machete swung at his head, but his right hand was cut off as he tried to block it. He was hospitalized at Buonmathuot city. Another Christian man called Y-Cuen Eban was also cut by a knife, and his friend Y-Be Nie was knocked unconscious by a rock thrown at his head.

Then at about 8 p.m. on Oct. 5, the Montagnard Foundation reported, about 50 Vietnamese civilians carrying machetes, axes, knives and sticks entered the village of Buon Dung planning to kill some Degar people. However, villagers confronted them and the Vietnamese civilians left. Then at about 10 p.m. more Vietnamese civilians returned and broke in three Degar’s brick houses. They destroyed the houses and stole everything inside. This time, the Montagnard Foundation reported, the Degar villagers did not come out because the Vietnamese civilians carried rifles.

The Montagnard Foundation wrote, “These actions suggest the Vietnamese government and people are racist against the Degar people, and the government views our people as unequal citizens. It appears these actions are nothing less than racist hatred.”

The Montagnard Foundation pointed out that the Vietnamese government has voted in favor of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. The Foundation is calling on the 143 countries who voted for this declaration to put pressure on Vietnam government and its people to respect the rights of the Degars.

In addition, the Foundation said it is calling on the American government, the European Union, and other members of the international community to consider a permanent humanitarian presence in the Central Highlands. It would also like the international community to address the land rights issue and religious persecution facing the Degar Montagnards.

Persecution of Degar Montagnards Continues

[Shammu]

ISLAMISTS JOIN CASE AGAINST CONVERT TO CHRISTIANITY
Former Muslim sues Egypt for right to become Christian.

Hegazy

ISTANBUL, October 10 (Compass Direct News) – Conservative Islamic lawyers came out in support of the Egyptian government last week at the opening court hearing of a Muslim convert to Christianity.

In a move that has caused national uproar, former Muslim Mohammed Ahmed Hegazy is suing Egypt to change the religion listed on his identification papers to Christianity.

Islamist lawyers associated with radical cleric Youssef al-Badry attended the October 2 hearing in Cairo and legally joined the case on the government’s side, Hegazy told Compass.

Hegazy’s lawyers confirmed that Magdy al-Anany and at least three other fundamentalist Muslim attorneys filed to support the government.

Al-Badry was one of several clerics who called for Hegazy’s death in Egypt’s national media, following the announcement of the case in early August. The radical Islamist also filed charges of inciting sectarian strife against Hegazy’s original lawyer, Mamdouh Nakhla.

Under public criticism and death threats, Nakhla withdrew from Hegazy’s case days after it became public. Fanatics began harassing Hegazy and his pregnant wife, also a former Muslim, with angry telephone calls, forcing the couple into hiding.

“It’s quite sensitive,” Hegazy’s new lawyer, Rawda Ahmad, told Compass through a translator. “It would be the first time that someone who converted to Christianity would be able to change his ID card.”

Though Egyptian law does not forbid conversion from Islam to Christianity, it provides no legal means to make the change. Converts to Christianity usually hide their identity to avoid torture and forced recantation at the hands of family members and security police.

“I’m full of heartache that in my own country, society has been radicalized to such an extent that I can’t have the right to convert,” Hegazy told Compass this week.

Hegazy and his wife Zeinab hope that their first child, due in January, will be born with Christian papers. Forced to hold an Islamic wedding ceremony because of their legal status as Muslims, Hegazy and his wife know that a Christian ID card would allow their child to take Christian religion classes in school, marry in a church and openly attend services without fear of harassment.

For the moment, threats from Muslim fanatics have forced the couple to stay in hiding, with Hegazy not even able to attend his own hearing last week.

The convert told Compass that he and his wife were healthy but frustrated with having to stay indoors.

“It’s like we are in prison and have no way out,” the Christian said.

Hegazy said that he did not believe police were aware of his location. He told Compass that officials had detained a number of converts in the past two months, interrogating them about his whereabouts.

Egyptian media have criticized Hegazy in recent months, claiming that his conversion was motivated by money, blackmail, and foreign forces hoping to destabilize Egypt.

“The pro-government media is ferociously standing against Hegazy,” a representative for the Arab Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) said today. “This has definitely had a negative affect on his case, causing it to take a more politicized turn.”

By contrast, last week’s hearing received no coverage in the Egyptian press.

The administrative court hearing in Cairo’s al-Doqi district was brief. Judge Muhammad Husseini adjourned the case until November 13, giving Hegazy’s new lawyers time to legally take over from their predecessor.

Ahmad and Gamal Eid of ANHRI must either obtain official permission from Hegazy to represent his case or file a new complaint, an ANHRI spokesperson said.

In April, judge Husseini rejected the case of 45 Christian converts to Islam who wished to return to Christianity. Their appeal is pending.

Since 2004 several dozen Coptic converts to Islam have won the right to return to Christianity, but Hegazy is the first Muslim-born Egyptian to attempt the legal change.

Taught to Hate Christians

Now 24, Hegazy said he first made the decision to become a Christian when he was 16.

“My father was not a practicing Muslim, but he hated Christians and Jews as he believed Islam taught us to do so,” Hegazy said in a website statement. “As a child I was taught not to love or respect Christians, but rather treat them harshly because God hates them.”

As a teenager Hegazy enrolled in an institute to train as an Islamic preacher but said he did not like what he learned about Islam’s teaching on women and various subjects.

It was only at the age of 16, when he transferred to a class that had seven Christian students, that he began to think seriously about Christianity.

“It was the first time that I lived close to Christians, and their lives were like lights for me,” Hegazy said. One day he borrowed a Christian book from one of his classmates and read about the conversion of Saul. The story created a desire in him to know more about Christianity.

Hegazy said that he quickly became convinced of the truth of Christianity and wanted to convert.

“Christ appeared to me several times as I kept on reading the Bible,” the convert said. “My father was very angry [when] he found out that I was going to church and reading Christian material.”

State security police soon arrested the young man and tortured him for three days. Despite using a Coptic Orthodox priest to convince Hegazy to recant, the young convert said that police were unable to persuade him to revert to Islam. He eventually returned home, his father under the illusion that he was once again Muslim.

Hegazy said he continued to be active in his faith, writing and publishing some of his own poetry. Police again arrested the convert in 2002 and held him for 10 weeks at a “concentration camp,” where he said he met other converts.

Potential Repercussions

The convert is aware that much is riding on his case.

“I put my trust in God, and I feel I need to persevere,” Hegazy said. “This is my duty to myself, my family, all Muslims who converted to Christianity, and all Christians.”

But while his case may win rights for converts in Egypt, it also has the potential to backfire on Christians.

In order to make his conversion legitimate in the eyes of the state, the Christian may have to produce church documents in court. The repercussions could be dangerous for those involved in his conversion.

“I can only say that I have documents to show that my wife and I were baptized, and I can produce them if necessary in court,” the convert said. He refrained from naming the church that baptized him and provided the documents.

Though no official statistics are available, Copts are estimated to make up between 8 and 15 percent of Egypt’s population. The number of converts to Christianity is unknown.

ISLAMISTS JOIN CASE AGAINST CONVERT TO CHRISTIANITY

[Shammu]

MUSLIM THREAT TO ATTACK CHURCH RAISES TENSIONS
Militants drop letters on premises of 3,000-member congregation in Borno state.


MAIDUGURI, Nigeria, October 10 (Compass Direct News) – Militant Islamists in this city in the northern state of Borno have sent three letters to a church warning that members would be attacked in the next few days, raising tensions where 50 Christians were killed and 57 churches destroyed last year.

Leaders of the Christian Association of Nigeria told Compass that the letters were dropped onto the premises of the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria (EYN), in the Polo Area of Maiduguri, on separate days last week.

Mosque calls to prayer were sounded at 11 p.m. and 1 a.m. last night, hours when Muslims do not usually observe prayers, putting police and security agencies on alert. By 6 this morning, police armored tanks were patrolling the streets to thwart any plans to attack Christians.

The Rev. Daniel Mbaya of the Polo Area Church of the Brethren, which has about 3,000 members, had reported the threat to police and Christian leaders. Nigeria’s security agencies and Christian leaders held an emergency meeting yesterday on ways to protect Christians in the event of an Islamic strike on the church.

Rev. Mbaya is no stranger to Nigerian security agents, as Muslims in the city have long opposed the existence of his church.

The church was planted when members of the Church at Wulari EYN Church in Maiduguri encountered difficulties in getting to their sanctuary whenever there was energy crisis, as getting fuel for cars was nearly impossible. To solve the problem, a member of the church, Andrew Balami, then a public officer in the Borno state government, offered his home for worship services.

Balami’s residence became a home church where Bible studies and prayers were being held regularly. The emergence of this house church in the GRA Area of Maiduguri attracted other Christians in the vicinity, and area Muslims soon took their objections to the presence of the church to Borno officials. The Muslim-dominated state government ordered Balami to close the house church or face sanctions it.

Balami did not budge, and harassment of the house church continued. The Borno government ordered a halt to payment of Balami’s salary. He was threatened with dismissal. Eventually Balami was suspended from office for one year.

Balami had received 10 letters from the government warning him against using his house as a church. He was also threatened with legal prosecution, and Balami asked members of the church to relocate. The church members decided to raise funds to build a sanctuary.

They managed to raise 3.5 million naira (US$28,500), which they used to buy a night club property. Construction of the new sanctuary began soon after.

The Borno state government, however, ordered construction to stop. While church leaders pressed for building to continue, Muslims moved into the area in order to claim that a church would be too close to where they worship and hence not allowed. The Christians’ new neighbors told them to leave the property.

Church members resolved to die in the defence of the new sanctuary, Mbaya said. They continued construction while worshiping under makeshift shade on the property. Since its completion, various authorities have ordered Mbaya to report to security agencies almost monthly.

“I have been arrested, harassed and detained by the police, security services, and even soldiers were used to harass me,” Mbaya told Compass. “This year alone, I have been invited by the police more than three times.”

Sanctuary Set Ablaze

The sanctuary was set ablaze on February 18 last year, alongside other churches in the city, by Muslim militants protesting cartoons of the Islamic prophet Muhammad by a Danish newspaper.

On that day, Mbaya returned from a pastors’ conference outside the city. He entered Maiduguri and was able to get to his house before the violence erupted, but there he received a phone call that Muslims were heading toward his church to set it ablaze. He quickly phoned police.

“I drove to the church premises and discovered that already there were hundreds of Muslim militants who had congregated around the church and were setting the church building on fire,” he told Compass.

Mybaya was able to get six policemen to accompany him back to the church as it burned, he said, but the officers did not arrest any of the extremists.

“I and some members of my church who braved the crisis to defend our church building arrested eight of the Muslim militants and then handed them over to the police,” he said. “But they were released soon without trial.”

Besides the church fire, he said, five members of his church were attacked in their homes and critically injured.

“Our church building at the Church’s Farm Centre was also completely burned,” he said. “Mr. Misari, one of our church members at the Farm Centre Church, was stabbed with a knife and left to bleed to death. He was eventually rescued by other church members who took him to the hospital.”

On the whole, Mbaya says Muslim militants attacked Christians for a period of four hours. “They rioted from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. without restraint.”

Convert Dangers

Most of Muslim converts to Christianity in the city, Mbaya said, have been threatened with death from family members and other Muslims.

“Recently, we had one Muslim convert, Hussaini Mohammed. But, because of the threat to his life, we were forced to take him to another state in order to protect him,” he said. “We also have another convert by the name Musa Mohammed Tukur, who has been disciple and has to be taken into hiding because of the threat on his life.”

Whenever Muslims convert, the church takes them into hiding because it is not possible for them to return to their families, he said.

“Becoming Christians means permanent separation from their families if they must remain alive,” he said. “If they return to their families they would certainly be killed.”

The Church of the Brethren in Nigeria has about 10 converts from Islam hidden in different parts of the country.

The Rev. Yuguda Zibagai Ndurvwa, minister in charge of the EYN Church, Wulari area of Maiduguri, corroborated the threat to the local Polo Area church.

“It is not only that church that is facing tough times, but all Christian churches in the city of Maiduguri,” he said.

Ndurvwa said Christians also suffer discrimination in public service and in schools. Kidnapping of children was another problem common to EYN members as well as other Christians in Borno state.

“A member of our church here, Mama Asabe Ladagu, had her appointment terminated at the Ramat Polytechnic because she was seen speaking against discrimination of Christian staff and students of the institution,” Ndurvwa said.

He also cited the abduction of a Christian girl, Maryamu Bulus, a member of his EYN Church, who was forcefully married to a Muslim man.

For Mbaya, doing ministry among Muslims is a challenging task.

“Doing ministry among Muslims is very challenging and very difficult,” he said. “It takes the grace of God to save you, the pastor, as well as the convert.”

The imposition of sharia (Islamic) law, forceful relocation of churches, and lack of land for the building of new church buildings are other problems confronting Christians in this state, he said.

“Government resources are being used to propagate and promote Islam to the detriment of Christianity,” Mbaya said. “A ministry of religious affairs has been created to cater for the religious needs of Muslims, and yet, Christians do not have such privileges.”

MUSLIM THREAT TO ATTACK CHURCH RAISES TENSIONS

[Shammu]

Christians persecuted under Blasphemy laws in Pakistan

A Pakistan Christian who was previously acquitted of blasphemy is still in hiding almost a year after charges were dropped because Muslim militants are trying to kill him.

Posted: Wednesday, October 10, 2007, 12:48 (BST)

A Pakistan Christian who was previously acquitted of blasphemy is still in hiding almost a year after charges were dropped because Muslim militants are trying to kill him, a report from Release International has said.

In addition, a 16-year-old boy is now a fugitive in fear of his life after a squabble with another schoolboy led to accusations of blasphemy, Christian Today has been told.

Both cases highlight the reason Pakistan’s notorious blasphemy laws must be repealed, RI has urged.
 
"They can shoot me or burn me, they can kill me if they know that I am hiding here," Schoolboy Rashid Masih told Release International.
 
Hospital worker Ranjah Masih was jailed for life under Pakistan’s blasphemy laws simply for knocking over a sign – an offence which would be considered too trivial to bring to court in most countries. But the sign, which it turned out had a verse of Koran on it, belonged to a Muslim shopkeeper, and so the blasphemy charge was used.

‘I cannot go out of this room because my life is in danger. The Muslims know about my case. They want to kill me,’ said Ranjah Masih.
 
Despite his protested innocence, Ranjah was jailed for life, blindfolded and beaten daily with clubs and sticks until his health was all but broken. He had to bribe the police to give him medicine, and says they beat him to try force him to reveal the names of other Christians.

Many times the police told him that if he converted to Islam they would set him free, however, Ranjah refused.
 
One day a prison officer brought him a Koran and said that if he just recited an Islamic prayer he could go. Ranjah replied: "If release from prison means forsaking Jesus Christ, then I don't want to be released."
 
Meanwhile his wife had to bring up their six children on her meagre earnings as a domestic servant. She was supported by Release International's partners, CLAAS – the Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement - which helps many persecuted Christians in Pakistan.
 
After eight-and-a-half years behind bars the authorities finally acknowledged that Ranjah had been innocent all along and set him free.

Almost a year later, he remains separated from his family and in hiding from militants who have sworn to kill him.
 
Ranjah Masih told Release International's CEO Andy Dipper,"It is difficult to kill the time here, to live in a small room. It is my desire that I go back to my family and that I will live with them. I am praying to the Lord to let me live again with my family and my five sons."
 
For 16-year-old Rashid Masih it all started with a schoolboy squabble. Rashid’s was one of the few Christian families living in a predominantly Muslim town.

He explained some Muslims boys were beating up his younger brother so he stepped in to stop them. Other Muslim youths celebrating their prophet’s birthday nearby piled in.
 
During the quarrel they accused Rashid of snatching a religious sticker about the prophet Mohammed from another boy and ripping it up.
 
The schoolboy spat ended with Christians fleeing for their lives and Rashid, his father and three others being accused of blasphemy.  Rashid's father and cousin are still in jail.

Rashid is now a fugitive hiding in a safe house. He told Release International that he was afraid if the police came for him, they might kill him. "They can shoot me or burn me, they can kill me if they know that I am hiding here."
 
Muslims who change their faith in Pakistan are also at risk. The government is currently reviewing a proposal to impose the death penalty on Muslim men who become Christians and jail for life women who change their religion.
 
‘James’ – not his real name – was shot 11 times for changing his faith from Islam to Christianity. He was so badly wounded his left arm had to be amputated.
 
He told The Voice of the Martyrs, Canada: "The doctor was surprised I had survived. Because I only had one and a half pints of blood left. I told him, God’s power within me gives me life. God is providing me with a new arm. I am very thankful. I will work for the kingdom of God."
 
"Stories like these are all too common in Pakistan," says Andy Dipper. "With support from Release International, Christians in Pakistan have been campaigning to repeal the notorious blasphemy laws which can destroy the lives of even the innocent. Please pray for Ranjah, Rashid and James."

Christians persecuted under Blasphemy laws in Pakistan

[Shammu]

South African missionary viciously beaten during robbery in Mozambique

By Bill Dolack
Special to ASSIST News Service

GONDOLA, MOZAMBIQUE (ANS) -- A South African missionary working in Mozambique was attacked in his home on October 10 by a gang of machete-wielding robbers. Jimmy Meyer, 35, was admitted to a local hospital following the dreadful beating.

“Jimmy jumped out of bed to protect (his wife) Marlise when he was hit across the head and arm with the machete,” reports the Rev. Dewald van den Berg, leader of Evangelical Rural Mission, the ministry with whom the Meyers are working. “He was also beaten badly in the face.” There was reportedly so much blood on the floor from his wounds that the robbers slipped on it during the 2 A.M. attack.

Both husband and wife were tied up and left on their bed while the house was ransacked by the mob which numbered five.

Nearby South African farmers received the distress call and rushed to the aid of the Meyers. By late afternoon the day after the attack, three suspects had been arrested but none of the stolen goods have been recovered.

Among the items stolen were Rand 20,000 ($3,000) which had been withdrawn from the bank the day before to pay for building materials due to be delivered on October 11. Also taken were cellular phones, appliances, a camera, and more. When van de Berg heard about the robbery, he immediately called Marlise’s cell phone.

“Would you believe it was answered by one of the thieves,” said van de Berg. “The only reply he had after I laid into him, telling him what they had done to people who were helping their nation was simply, ‘I understand.’ ”
 
Jimmy and Marlise Meyer have been working at the mission station near Gondola, Mozambique, for more than a year. He will be flown back to South Africa for medical treatment as soon as he can be moved.

The Meyers have dedicated themselves to uplifting the lives of Christian widows from the churches served by the ministry and orphans in central Mozambique. The Children Harvest program provides a house for a widow, who then takes up to six orphans into her care. This “substitute family” takes children off the streets and allows the ministry to break the downward spiral of poverty-induced violence and crime that street children commit simply to survive.

The program trains the widows to disciple the children in their care.

The program is bearing much fruit for the kingdom… widows and orphans who previously had no hope for the future, now have hope for eternity as new believers.

South African missionary viciously beaten during robbery in Mozambique

[Shammu]

Christian couple flogged for attending “secret sermon” in Iran
Sun. 14 Oct 2007

Iran Focus

London, Oct. 14 - A Christian couple were flogged in Iran for participating in an “underground Church”, an Iranian Christian group said in a report on its website earlier this week.

The unnamed couple were arrested on September 21, 2005, the report said, adding that a Revolutionary Court reviewed their case in July 2007.

Even though the couple had decided to marry seven years ago, the country’s marriage laws - which prohibit the union of ex-Muslims and members of other religious minorities – prevented them from obtaining a certificate of marriage.

The report said that the woman was born a Christian in an Assyrian-Iranian family and the man was a convert to Christianity prior to getting married.

The court ruled that both the man and the woman were Mortad, a description of someone who has committed apostasy by leaving Islam.

Christian couple flogged for attending “secret sermon” in Iran

[Shammu]

Please remember to pray for our persecuted brothers and sister!!

[nChrist]

Hello Dreamweaver,

Brother, the times are getting harder by the day for Christians all over the world. The same will be true for our part of the world. We will keep standing with GOD'S help, and we all should pray for each other every day.

Love In Christ,
Tom

KEEP LOOKING UP!!

[Shammu]

Anti-Christian Rumor Helps Fuel Attacks
Added: Oct 17th, 2007 4:16 AM

Convinced that villagers are being paid to convert, Buddhists and Muslims lash out.

DHAKA, Bangladesh (Compass Direct News) -- As Christianity spreads in this Muslim-majority country, an increasingly frequent refrain is heard in various quarters: “People become Christians after getting huge amounts of money as a reward for conversion.”

The rumor is something more than mean; it has served as the rationale for violence against Christians not just from Muslims, but from Buddhists who make up less than 1 percent of the population.

Subash Mondol, a supervisor of the Christian Life Bangladesh (CLB) “Jesus Film” team in Khagrachori district, told Compass that in early September tribal villagers decided to kidnap a CLB worker after hearing a rumor that he had received money for converting. Not finding any money on 23-year-old Cinku Marma, who converted from Buddhism 14 months ago, they instead assaulted him on September 6 as he was en route to a village to show the film.

Marma and team leader Milton Boiragi were trudging up a hill laden with equipment for showing the film that evening when Boiragi pulled further ahead to relieve himself. As Marma was moving alone, two tribal people ambushed him and held him at gunpoint. Perceiving danger from a distance, Boiragi fled.

The attackers threatened Marma, saying, “Your skull will be riddled with fusillades of bullets if you shout,” Mondol said. Four other tribal people joined them as they took Marma deeper into the jungle.

“If we kidnap you, shall we get in touch with your boss?” asked the attackers. When Marma replied that he didn’t know, they told him, “You became Christian and you got a huge amount of money for the conversion. Where is that money?”

“I became Christian willingly, and I did not get any money,” said Marma.

One of them replied, “We will kill you like Jesus if you do not give us money.”

Mondol said Marma reiterated that he received nothing for becoming a Christian, and that it was impossible to give them money he did not have. The tribal Buddhists began slashing at him.

An attempt to slice his throat with a large knife used for cutting through jungle foliage instead cut off part of one ear lobe, as Marma jumped back, Mondol said. They stabbed Marma just above an eyebrow, wounding his forehead. He tried to fend off another slash with his hand, which was severely lacerated.

Another attacker, Mondol said, hit him on the head with log, knocking him unconscious. Thinking he was dead, the attackers threw him in a brook that ran through the hills. He spent the night in the water, unconscious.

Regaining consciousness the next morning, he hiked up to a nearby house, where one of the residents informed Boiragi, who took Marma to a nearby hospital. Because of the severity of Marma’s wounds, Mondol said, he was later transferred to the district’s main hospital.

As Marma’s parents walked long distances through the hills to visit their son in the hospital, Mondol said, tribal Buddhists frequently asked them, “Where is your son, and where is the money that your son got after becoming Christian?”

Convinced that he had received a huge amount of money from Christian leaders to convert, Mondol said, villagers angry with him for leaving Buddhism had schemed with an unidentified criminal to target him for extortion. Unable to persuade him to pay them, Mondol said, they had decided to ambush him.

Marma had baptized 22 tribal people in the area. Community anger over his evangelistic activities has spilled over to his parents, who have been told that their son became a Christian for money. Their repeated denials of that charge, Mondol said, have fallen on deaf ears.

“He would not have been attacked if he had not been Christian,” said Mondol. “They attacked him to get money, as there is a common rumor that people become Christian for money.”

Muslim Misinformation

In Nilphamari district, where 42 former Muslims from 26 families were baptized as Christians in June, educated Muslim Tabligh Jamat missionaries from outside the country are helping to spread the conversion-for-pay rumor, said Abul Hossain, a recent convert in Nilphamari district.

The missionaries are going door-to-door in Nilphamari on a misinformation campaign, Hossain said.

“They tell people, ‘Christians will use you and afterward they will throw you in the dustbin – they dangle many temptations before Muslims to become Christian, and later they will destroy the country,’” Hossain said.

Other comments typical of the Muslim missionaries, according to Hossain: “They will destroy this country as they destroyed Afghanistan. They also destroyed Iraq and hanged Saddam extra-judicially.”

Following the baptisms on June 12, Muslim villagers armed with bricks and wooden clubs savagely beat 10 Christian converts in Nilphamari district on June 26 and threatened to burn down their homes. Within days, authorities at the mosque in Durbachari banned Christians from using the village tube-well, the area’s only source of potable water.

The village Muslims have issued death threats against Hossain and Barek Ali, who were appointed as leaders of the new converts.

Rich and Poor

Area Muslims automatically assume evangelists offer money to lure villagers away from Islam. This was the charge against Nilphamari district evangelist Sanjoy Roy, whom a local government official recently summoned.

“Sanjoy Roy is proselytizing local Muslims by offering money and other financial incentives, and in doing so he is attacking the sentiments of Muslims,” the district official told Compass.

Roy, who denied offering any financial incentives, told Compass that the district official asked him “whether I bring dollars from a foreign country to convert Muslims to Christianity.”

The official, whose name is being withheld to forestall adverse consequences, imposed restriction on Roy’s activities – allowing him to work as a pastor but ordering him not to evangelize. He also forced Roy to sign a statement that he would not go outside the locality and the district without permission, the evangelist said.

Roy asked the official why he had taken a written statement from him. “The commissioner answered that, ‘Everyday I have to listen to many things from the high-ups.’” The official did not elaborate.

The official denied to Compass that he had imposed any restrictions on Roy’s evangelical activities. The pastor, however, told Compass that the official told him, “Whatever you have done, jail is open for you as reward. We will file a sedition case against you for your activities. You will be left in the jail to rot.”

The bitter irony of being accused of receiving money for converting is not lost on the Christians in Nilphamari district, who are lacking in income and basic necessities since the villagers ostracized them in June.

Most of the Christians are farmers who sell fruits and vegetables on the street, but the local people no longer buy them.

“If we got money from the evangelists or missionaries, we would not live in such miserable conditions,” said Hossain, the new convert in Nilphamari.

In Bangladesh, where half of the population of 144 million earns less than a dollar a day, villagers have no economic incentive to leave Islam.

“We do not have money to make a small room to worship God,” Roy said. “Paradoxically, people spread rumors that we convert people by giving money.”

Anti-Christian Rumor Helps Fuel Attacks

[Shammu]

Pakistani Talibans attack Christian schools

Taliban extremists are calling for the firing of all Christians at a public high school in Sangota and demanded their replacement with Muslims. Suicide bombings are threatened.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007
By Asia News

The process of talebanisation of Pakistan continues despite formal pledges by the central government and local authorities. Islamic extremism has in fact reached the Swat Valley, once known as the Switzerland of the Orient, this according to a report by Minorities Concern of Pakistan, a local organisation which monitors the situation of minorities and violations of the human rights of the population.

One of the cases cited in the report involves a Catholic-run public high school in Sangota, in the Swat Valley. In a recent letter, a group calling itself Janisaran-i-Islam (Sacrifices of Islam) attacked the school administration for allegedly “forcibly converting students” and “encouraging un-Islamic behaviour.”

The fundamentalist group calls for the firing of all Christians employed by the school and their replacement with fervent Muslims. It also threatens suicide bombers “if its orders are not followed.”

Instead of finding out what the school had to say, the local government agreed with the letter, and issued an order that all female students cover their heads in the school to preserve local Islamic morality from conversion and atheism.

Extremists enthusiastically welcomed the order, citing the case of the three young Christian women in Indonesia who were decapitated for not wearing the veil.

Worried by the turn of events, many parents pulled their daughters from the school, which was forced to shut down till next week when local authorities will send security agents to enforce security. However, only half of all non Muslim students are planning to come back. Many are actually thinking about leaving the country to avoid further violence.

What is happening does not worry the Christian minority alone. In the Swat Valley, a region much loved by Pakistanis and one of the country’s richest areas, greater Islamist pressures show that the government has failed to stem the flow of Talibans from neighbouring Afghanistan.

In an editorial article, the Daily Time says that the “government seems unable to control the militant groups, who have been controlling the different areas in the province and making people’s lives miserable,” opposed to everything that makes Pakistan a modern country.

On September 26 various Christian and Muslim non-governmental organisations operating in the country demonstrated in Islamabad against the rising tide of violence. They warned the government that if Islamic extremism is not stopped, humanitarian aid of any kind will dry up.

Pakistani Talibans attack Christian schools

[Shammu]

Authorities Continue Hunt for "Wanted" Christian in Uzbekistan

by Staff
October 26, 2007

(christiansunite.com) - A Christian man named Makset Djabbarbergenov (27) is the subject of a nationwide manhunt by authorities because of his religious activity in Uzbekistan, according to an October 12 report from Forum 18.

According to a local police officer, Djabbarbergenov is being hunted because he held Christian meetings in his home without having an official religious community. Authorities issued a wanted poster for Djabbarbergenov more than seven weeks ago, after police raided his home in Nukus, confiscating Christian books, videos, CDs and his passport.

The poster accuses Djabbarbergenov of an offence under Article 229-2 of the Criminal Code, which punishes "violation of the procedure for teaching religion" and carries a maximum term of three years' imprisonment. There have been no reports of his whereabouts since he went into hiding on October 4 in order to evade arrest.

Djabbarbergenov has long faced harassment for his Christian work and he was among a group of Christians who faced administrative charges after a raid on a private home in Nukus in January.

Pray that Makset will find refuge beneath the wings of God during this time (Psalm 57:1). Pray that Christians in Uzbekistan will be free to worship without government control.

Authorities Continue Hunt for "Wanted" Christian in Uzbekistan