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Subject: Persecution report for July 8, 2003.

Date: Sun, 6 Jul 2003 20:34:23 -0600

From: "Bruce Atchison" <ve6xtc@telusplanet.net>

To: "Ted" <thilts@help-for-you.com>

CC: "John M. Lindner" <jml@christianaid.org>

PERSECUTION REPORT FOR JULY 8, 2003.

Mission Network News reports the following incidents of Christians suffering persecution.

India:

Persecution makes the secular news

Two major newspapers in India are now revealing escalating persecution of Christians in that predominately Hindu nation. According to Mission India of Grand Rapids, Michigan, this is important because until now this has gone mostly unreported in the secular press. They're reporting at least 50 attacks against Christians in Karnataka alone. Mission India supports more than 500 workers, and they're being attacked at a rate of one or two each month.

India:

Christians fear activist activities.

The Hindu extremists, Bajrang Dal, appear to be in military training, according to news reports. Many Christians believe they could be the targeted by such activity, because anti-Christian violence is on the rise. This is especially true in the Indian states where anti-conversion laws exist. Most recently, police say Bajrang Dal activists were involved in an attack on a group of Christians in Central Gujarat early this week.

Please see http://www.mnnonline.org for missions news and a weekday audio broadcast.

Christian Aid Mission presents these persecution reports.

Vietnam:

Another church destroyed; believers defend parsonage

Vietnam authorities have again destroyed a local church building, but courageous believers, placing their lives on the line, prevented the destruction of their pastor's house.

In a report received on July 1, Christian Aid learned that local authorities of Phuoc Hau village in the Ninh Phuoc district of Ninh Thbuan province came and removed the roof of the Phuoc Dong Evangelical Church in mid-June. They returned with a bulldozer on June 22 and destroyed the remaining walls and structure of the 200-member church meeting hall.

They came back again the next day to destroy the parsonage of the pastor, Luong Vinh Quoc. The believers, who belong to the Cham tribe, resisted the police and formed a human ring around the parsonage saying, "If you want to destroy this house you will have to kill us first."

There has been no word on what has happened since. However, on May 25 the police confiscated a motorcycle and a sewing machine from Pastor Huong's house in Eakar village of Dac Lac province in the Central Highlands as a fine for his having Bibles and Christian literature in his house.

On May 26 police in Dong Nai province near Ho Chi Minh City sentenced pastor Than Van Trung of Long Khanh village to four months in prison because they found Bibles in his church meeting place.

India:

Kashmir Protestant school attacked (update)

A school attacked in Kashmir in late May, said to be a Catholic School, was in fact a Protestant school, according to recent reports received by Christian Aid.

In early June various media reported the attack that occurred on May 22 near the main entrance of Saint Luke's Convent School in Nai Basti, 50 km. from Srinagar. The explosion killed one of the female teachers and seriously wounded another. The report called the victims "nuns."

But Christian Aid has learned that the school was indeed a private school run by the son of one of the converts of an evangelical ministry assisted by Christian Aid. The leader, who now directs his ministry from a location in Uttar Pradesh state, for years worked out of Udhampur in Kashmir, and was, in fact, in Kashmir when the attack occurred.

"It was a private school run by one of our boys named Luke who was the son of one of our believers near Doda," he told Christian Aid last week. "The father was converted through the ministry of WEC missionaries, and when they left, the family fellowshipped with us. He had four sons, whom he named Mathi, Marcus, Luka and Youhanna [Mattthew, Mark, Luke and John].

"Luka got a teaching job in an Anglican mission school in Srinagar and then left there to start his own school in Ananthanag, about 60 km. from Srinagar. He named it St. Luke's Convent School."

He went on to explain: "Christian schools have always had a high standard of education in our country. It has become a fashion now in India that even Hindu schools use the name `convent' and `mission' in their schools, and also all sorts of `saints,' to show that it is a good school.

"The school was coming up fairly well when this incident happened. The teachers who were wounded and killed were not Catholic sisters; they were single, Protestant girls.

"It was a big shock and loss for all of them and all Christians, but now the school continues functioning as before."

And now you know "the rest of the story."

The leader who provided that information has an extensive church-planting ministry all across the Himalaya Range from Kashmir in the West to Myanmar in the East and celebrates 50 years of personal ministry this year. Persons wishing to know more information about that ministry may write to insider@christianaid.org and put MI-426 660-HEM on the subject line.

Please go to www.christianaid.org.to read fascinating missions reports.

Forum 18 news reports these persecution incidents.

Georgia:

Baptists deny they burnt down own church

Baptist leader Malkhaz Songulashvili has described as "silly" a suggestion to Forum 18 News Service by district governor Timur Berianidze that Baptists in the village of Akhalsopeli burnt down their own church. Berianidze described as "a lie" the widely-held view that the local Orthodox priest Bessarion Zurabashvili was involved. Songulashvili said Fr Bessarion keeps visiting families and "stirs them up against our people". Villagers have threatened the Baptists that they will never be allowed to rebuild their church and if they do so, they warn that it will be burnt down again. Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams and Pope John Paul II are among those who have condemned ongoing religious violence in Georgia.

Kosovo:

Further attacks on Orthodox sites

An Orthodox church in Pristina attacked in May was again stoned late on 26 June, while tombstones in an Orthodox graveyard in Kosovska Vitina have been destroyed. "This latest wave of attacks is further proof that Albanian extremists are using all means to intimidate and throw out of Kosovo the remaining Serbian population, while the international community is doing little to prevent it," Fr Sava (Janjic), deputy abbot of the Decani Monastery, told Forum 18 News Service. After the May attack on St Nicholas' Church, KFOR spokesman Garry Bannister-Green told Forum 18 that "KFOR deplores all such acts of mindless vandalism". He denied that removing the KFOR guard had threatened the church's security.

Russia:

State opposition to Kostroma Pentecostals continues

In the latest incident of what Pastor Andrei Danilov regards as continuing state pressure, the regional justice department in Kostroma near Moscow ordered a "check-up" on the Family of God Pentecostal church in June. The church was given just days - three of which were public holidays - to provide documentation on church funds, church activity, congregation membership records and minutes of meetings. "Other churches haven't been asked," Danilov pointed out to Forum 18 News Service. But local religious affairs official Marina Smirnova defended such action against the church, which included a failed court case on accusations of conducting hypnosis. "This concerns the lives of OUR people... hopefully we caused Danilov to think twice, I call that a result."

Russia:

Is Kostroma missionary black spot?

At the same time as five US citizens working with the evangelical Kostroma Christian Church were denied Russian visas last summer, Forum 18 News Service has learnt that another US cion with a threat to national security".

Slovakia:

Why can't smaller Protestant churches or muslims gain legal status?

Leaders of smaller Protestant Churches, Muslims and Hare Krishna devotees have complained about a bizarre provision of the country's law that renders new religious communities with fewer than 20,000 members ineligible to gain legal status as religious communities. "Unregistered communities have no legal status and cannot build places of worship," Jan Juran, director of the Culture Ministry's church affairs office, explained to Forum 18 News Service. "We want to register. This is not freedom," Pastor Gabriel Minarik, leader of the Christian Fellowships, told Forum 18. Bratislava imam Mohamad Safwan Hasna complained that the denial of registration and the inability of the community to build mosques is "very humiliating".

Please check http://www.forum18.org to learn about religious rights violations in communist and post- communist lands.

ASSIST News Service provides this persecution report.

Kenya:

Muslim tensions rise and churches burn

On 13 June, Muslims rioting over the arrest of one of their clerics torched five churches in Bura, Tana River district, not far from Mombasa in Kenya. The churches razed were the Anglican Church of Kenya (ACK) in Bura, the Bethel Church, and churches belonging to the Pentecostal Evangelism Fellowship of Africa (PEFA), the East African Pentecostal Church (EAPC), and the Full Gospel Church of Kenya (FGCK).

Of great concern to Christians in Kenya is the fact that no one has been charged over the burning of the churches. Christian leaders are still waiting to see if the arsonists will receive justice or impunity. As impunity equals permission, this is a serious issue of national significance at a time when Muslim tensions are rising to boiling point.

Church burnings in Bura

The Reverend Simon K. Mungumba, the Assistant Chairman of the Bura Pastors' Fellowship, has written a report of the incident. Rev. Mungumba writes (14 June) that on the evening of Thursday 12 June 2003, the Divisional Officer (DO) was passing through Manyatta with some security officers in his vehicle. When they stopped in Manyatta and alighted from their vehicle, some Orma and Somali youths started stoning them, forcing them to retreat into the vehicle and drive away.

According to Rev. Mungumba's account, the DO returned the following morning to inquire of the local Imam as to why they had been attacked. The Imam told the DO that the local Muslim youths had a visiting preacher in town and feared he may be arrested.

This `visiting preacher', Sheikh Khalifa Mutiso, is a former Christian pastor who converted to Islam and now preaches aggressively against Christianity and Christians, with offensive and obscene messages that, according to Rev. Mungumba, "border on incitement".

Rev. Mungumba reports that at that point the DO decided to take Sheikh Khalifa Mutiso in for questioning. Once again the DO and his accompanying security officers were pelted with stones and abused by Muslim youths and women. The attack became so violent that the police fired their weapons into the air in the hope of dispersing the rioters. When that did not help, so the DO arrested Sheikh Khalifa Mutiso and took him away for police questioning.

At that point the Muslim rioters stoned the police station and commenced burning and looting the churches, while others chanted, "release our sheikh, we want him to continue preaching".

The rioting lasted from the arrest at 9:00 am until Sheikh Khalifa Mutiso was released at the intervention of a local MP.

There is little shade in Bura, so in an act of great solidarity and generosity, the Catholic Church provided tents for all of the churches that were burned down.

At a subsequent meeting of Christian leaders, Ibrahim Ormondi of the Evangelical Fellowship of Kenya spoke with Bishop Kinnogah, who told him that he had met with the Provincial Commissioner, who promised to order the arrest of the Islamic preacher who incited Muslims in Bura. So far, however, he has not been arrested.

The local Imams say they do not know Sheikh Mutiso, however Christian leaders know him as a preacher from Mwingi who has been preaching the same way in Mombasa and the administration are aware of the threats and inflammatory statements he has been issuing. Sheik Mutiso usually directs his attentions to youths, most of them of school age children and teenagers.

The Bura Pastor' Fellowship is calling on the Kenyan government to investigate the incident and compensate the churches that have lost their buildings.

"Also," says Rev. Mungumba, "as Bura leaders we feel the security in Bura needs boosting. The Muslim youths need to know the worth and authority of the government. This occurrence should be addressed with the decisiveness it deserves." (Please see the web site for more details.)

Mysterious killings in Embu

The Catholic Diocese of Embu wrote to the Officer Commanding Police Division (OCPD) in Embu, Eastern Province, recently, requesting an investigation into a series of killings. Since March this year, at least 12 church watchmen and one church cook have been killed. The victims all had their throats cut or were decapitated and only churches and church related institutions were being targeted. There are no clues however as to the culprits or their motives (other than theft). It is quite mysterious and unsettling. (Link 2)

Kadhi courts

Kenyan Muslims are pushing to increase the power and influence of Kenya's Kadhi (Islamic) Courts. Muslims want the Kadhi courts to be fully entrenched in the new Constitution with national rather than just local jurisdiction. Christians maintain that the entrenchment of Kadhi Courts in the constitution, elevating them to national level and giving them authority equal to the state's secular courts, will compromise Article 10 which states that, "The State shall treat all religions equally". Muslims maintain that they will accept nothing less than the entrenchment of the courts in the constitution and some Muslims unfortunately, have made inflammatory threats to establish a separate Islamic state if the Kadhi Courts are not accepted -- this has not helped the debate. (Link 3)

Terror arrests

On Monday 23 June, four Kenyan residents were brought before Chief Magistrate Aggrey Mchelule in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, to face murder charges. They have been in detention since March 2003 on suspicion of harbouring the terrorists who carried out the car-bomb attack on the Israeli-owned beach front Paradise Hotel near Mombasa in November 2002 that killed 18 people. They were remanded in custody and will appear before court again on 8 August.

The charges against the four - Kenyan father and son Mohamed Kubwa and Mohamed Kubwa Seif, and Said Saggar Ahmed and Aboud Rogo Mohamed, whose nationalities were not known - were the latest in a string of anti-terror measures.

Some 80 Muslims are currently detained on suspicion of terror links. Muslims are outraged by the arrests, saying that they are being used as scapegoats and that the cases are unduly influenced by foreign (USA, CIA) interference, pressure and funding.

Kenyan Muslim politicians and clerics believe that Kenya's proposed Anti-terrorism Bill abuses the rights of Kenyan Muslims. (Three MPs from the ruling NARC party have crossed the floor to support the opposition in this, and several lawyers are saying that it violates the constitution.)

Muslim leaders, led by the Council of Imams and Preachers of Kenya (CIPK) secretary-general Sheikh Mohammed Dor, and the chairman of unregistered Islamic Party of Kenya (IPK) Sheikh Mohammed Khalifa, have threatened to form their own political party. At a public rally in Mombasa on Sunday 29 June, Islamic speakers "blasted the Government for what they termed harassment of Muslims after branding them terror suspects on the whims of America and Israel." Sheikh Dor comments, "The way things are going on today, civil strife is looming." Dor also branded "America, Israel and the (ruling Kenyan) NARC Government as enemy number one of Muslims." (Link 4)

Please go to www.assistnews.net to find many fascinating Christian news stories.

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