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Persecution Report for Tuesday, 04-Feb-2003

Mission Network News reports the following incidents of Christians being persecuted.

Vietnam:

Government's new anti-religion law passed.

Vietnam is announcing new measures to control religion. According to Open Doors , this is the first time the Central Committee has passed a resolution specifically on religion.It calls for Communist Party cells to be set up within the six approved religious organizations. Open Doors' Terry Madison believes the government wants to control the active church growth in the Central Highlands. Many observers believe this law will create zealous government persecution.

Rwanda:

Short term missionaries mistakenly expelled.

A short-term mission team from Teen Missions International has been expelled from Rwanda. Teen Missions' Steve Peterson says mistaken identity caused the expulsion of the 20 team members from Kenya, Uganda and Sudan. "When the team came in some people looked and saw the luggage, the cooking equipment, and started to spread rumours that perhaps the team might be part of a military group and eventually there was pressure put to bear on the team to leave the country. They were surrounded by armed soldiers and told to leave the country. All of their belongings were searched thoroughly at the border and they were sent out." Peterson says while hearts are open to the Gospel, fear of another genocide lingers." It's a barrier that anyone wishing to take the Gospel into Rwanda has to overcome. It's just the distrust and the fear that is still gripping people's hearts. We need to pray that even as the Lord has opened people's hearts to the Gospel that there will be enough stability in the country that outreach will be able to continue."

Please check http://www.mnnonline.org to learn about missions news and to hear a weekday audio newscast.

The Voice Of The Martyrs presents these examples of believers suffering for Christ.

Nigeria:

Four Christians Killed by Police.

Nigerian federal police officers killed four Catholics and injured eight others for refusing to pay a bribe, according to a report from Compass Direct received on January 27. A group was returning from a crusade and prayer vigil on December 14 when police stopped their bus. According to one of the passengers who escaped, the bus driver refused to pay a bribe because of his faith and was then shot point-blank. When others in the group intervened, they were also shot while the rest fled on foot.

In response to the killings, the governor of Enugu, Chinwoke Mbadinuju, ordered all federal police units to leave the state and is calling for the federal government to address the issue of violence by security forces. Bribery of officials in Nigeria is extremely common.

China:

House Church Leader Sentenced to Labour Camp.

The Voice of the Martyrs has learned that a well-known evangelical Chinese house church leader Xu Guoxing (Philip Xu) has been recently sentenced to 18 months of "re-education through labour" after his arrest on December 8 for leading a house church service.Xu has previously served six years in a labour camp and was last released in July 2000. He is reported to be quite frail, so there are concerns for his health.

Please go to http://www.persecution.net to learn more about the suffering of the saints and how to write to various officials on their behalf.

ASSIST Ministries has these incidents to report.

Jordan:

Christian widow's choice: imprisonment or hand over her children.

Only King Abdullah II of Jordan can save Siham Qandah, a Christian widow in Jordan, from facing the choice between going to jail or handing over her two children to an estranged Muslim brother.

The choice must be made on Wednesday, February 5, the Jordanian Intelligence Department said in a phone call today, according to Middle East Concern (MEC).

The woman and her children have always considered themselves and worshipped regularly as Christians. However, Jordanian law regards the children as Muslims because their father allegedly converted to Islam before his death in 1994.

The brother was awarded custody in June 2001, a decision upheld by the Supreme Court in February 2002. However to-date this decision has not been enforced. The brother went to court again on January 16, 2003 seeking that Mrs. Qandah be imprisoned until she handed over her children. Such an order was granted. An appeal was lodged and she was granted a reprieve expiring on Wednesday , February 5. Two prominent lawyers approached on behalf of Mrs. Qandah say that nothing can be done. The only hope is for King Abdullah II himself to intervene.

International attention to the case in 2002 resulted in Jordanian intelligence officials reassuring Mrs. Qandah in May and August 2002 that they would do their best to resolve her situation. A few months later Prince Hassan made a similar promise. Now the Prince and the intelligence officials state that they have been unable to resolve the case because the Jordanian judiciary system is constitutionally independent..

Georgia:

Church leaders write open alarm letter to president Shevardnadze.

Christian leaders have urged Georgia's President Eduard Shevardnadze to end the "intolerable religious situation in the country which represents a threat to the state," after an attack against a church in the capital Tbilisi, last week.

In an open letter to the president received by ASSIST News Service Wednesday, January 29, they expressed outrage about violence at the Evangelical Baptist Church of Georgia which was hosting the Day of Ecumenical Prayer on Friday, January 24. When all the bishops, clergymen, the faithful, representatives of different layers of our society and representatives of embassies accredited in Tbilisi started to gather at the Cathedral Baptist church, they were attacked by a well organized group of hooligans," the church leaders said.

The letter was signed by Evangelical Baptist Church Bishop Malkhaz Songulashvili, Orthodox Archpriest Basil Kobakhidze, Catholic Bishop Giuseppe Pasotto as well as Bishop Gert Hummel of the Evangelical Lutheran Church and Achmandrite Vaszgen Mizahranian of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

India:

"Neo-Nazi" Hindu groups receiving huge amounts of money from the west.

Western money is being sent to "neo-Nazi" groups in India who use the money to persecute Christians and other minority groups. That's the view of Dr. Joseph D'Souza, President of the All India Christian Council, who told the ASSIST News Service, "Recently Channel 4 in UK did a full story on how many gathered through an outfit called Sewa Dal in the UK raised millions of pounds and sent it to neo Nazi outfits of the Hindu Extremists. An enquiry has been launched on the same?" "The bulk of the money is used to spread neo-Nazi ideology that demonizes the minorities especially the Christians. The main accusation against the Christians which has never been proved in one single court is that Christians use "force and allurement" to convert the people. Today "force and allurement " is interpreted to mean messages on divine judgment, divine healing, educational institutions and health work." "Just as Western dollars have been used by the Al-Qaida to finance their terrorist network and attacks the neo-Nazi Hindu outfits rake in millions of dollars in the USA through the extremely wealthy Indians who support their work in India. The terrorizing network that the Neo-Nazi groups have built in India is awesome. They are spread everywhere. They also operate in over 60 nations in the world."

D'souza added, "Their attack on Christianity is directly an assault on the Christian civilization of the West. They do not agree with democracy. They do not believe in fundamental human rights. They want a "Hindu nation" under their control. And their use of violence and ethnic terrorism has been exposed in the carnage against the Muslims in Gujarat. There has been open celebration of the carnage by the neo-Nazi groups. "It is through the use of foreign funds that the tribals, children and even some Dalits have been thoroughly communalized by these people.

The All India Christian Council website can be found at http://www.aiccindia.org/ and Dr. D'souza can be reached at his cell phone which is (706) 888-5924 (this is a US number that will be transferred to India.

For more information on this topic, go to http://www.littleindia.com to read FOLLOW THE MONEY by Vijay Prashad.

India:

All India CHRISTIAN Council condemns brutal attack on American missionary who survives violence and then ordered to leave India.

The All India Christian Council (AICC) has condemned a brutal attack on Joseph Cooper, 68, a bishop from the New Jerusalem Universal Church in New Castle, Pennsylvania, who sustained a serious hand injury, as well as severe bruising all over his body.

Cooper was returning home from a church meeting on January 13 with a number of Indian Christians when radical Hindus on the outskirts of Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala State attacked the group. Cooper sustained a deep cut to his right palm as well as other injuries after being beaten and attacked with a machete. Pastor Benson, an Indian pastor, and several others, received minor injuries,

The AICC has now demanded an international ban on the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, RSS, whose cadres, they say, attacked Cooper and the Kerala pastor.

According to a press statement, AICC said that Bishop Cooper was taken to the Medical Intensive care unit of the Kerala Institute of Medical Sciences with stab wounds, together with Pastor Benson K Sam, a priest of the Friends Bible Church at Pulium in Killimanur in Trivandrum, the capital of Kerala which has a sizable Christian population.

"The police have reportedly arrested one of about half a dozen men involved in the murderous assault," said the AICC statement. Eyewitnesses have reportedly identified them as members of the local RSS unit led by an auto rickshaw driver.

The police were interviewing Mr. Cooper in the ICU this morning when AICC Secretary general Dr John Dayal talked with the victims. Stephen K Sam, a brother of Pastor Benson K Sam, told the AICC that there were several also injured included the pastor's wife, Mrs. Sali Benson and two small children, Joy and Judith, apart from three others.

The Pastor and Bishop Cooper had come to the area for a Protestant Convention in the village. They had parked their vehicles on the road as the convention site was about 2 km away and was not connected by road. The meeting lasted till late evening.

"In retrospect, witnesses said they had seen half a dozen strangers in the meeting. When Pastor Sam and Bishop Cooper were walking back to their vehicles, they were suddenly ambushed and attacked by the gang, armed with knives and bombs, Sam said. Both Pastor Sam and Bishop Cooper were brutally beaten up and then left for dead. The people later took them to the hospital.

The All India Christian Council has repeatedly warned of the increasing violent activities of the RSS and its sister organizations of the Hindutva Parivar in several parts of Kerala, as also in other states of India. It is high time the international community woke up to the real menace of the neo Nazi Sangh Parivar, which has been fully exposed and indicted in the massacre of Muslims in Gujarat and in the wave of anti- Christian violence between 1998-2002.

Recent events and the support that the Central leadership of the country has given to the Sangh Parivar has emboldened these thugs, who are now openly confronting, and attacking, church personnel in several parts of the country. While in Kerala, the state government has acted to arrest the culprits, in some other states, including Orissa, the state machinery has in fact been targeting the Christian church personnel. In Orissa, there are reports of a church worker being harassed and arrested. The Christian Council demands that state machinery identify those who disturb the peace and the secular character of the country, instead of targeting minority groups.

According to Dr. Joseph D'souza, President of the All India Christian Council, was "a well planned conspiracy." D'souza went on, "The people arrested by the police have been positively identified as members of the local RSS unit."

Please see http://www.assistnews.net for full versions of these articles as well as many other interesting stories.

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