July 2015 Persecution Magazine (1 of 4) by International Christian Concern

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JULY 2015

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The

Plight of Pakistani

Christians

A mother and father remember their son who saved hundreds by detaining a suicide bomber

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INTERNATIONAL CHRISTIAN CONCERN

President’s Letter

Pakistan. . . It truly is “Persecution Central.” There are other bloodier spots currently, but year-in, year-out, this country is the poster boy for Islamic persecution of Christians. I have been to almost 60 countries, and it is the only place I’ve visited where I walked around in fear. I was on edge the whole time. You could feel something in the air … a presence. It was the opposite of what you encounter when you walk into a room or church and the presence of God is there. The Word talks about the evil spirits controlling large regions of the earth. I am convinced the presence I and others have sensed is that controlling spirit of the region.

Jeff King, President International Christian Concern

Christians have been brutalized there for 1,000 years, ever since the Muslim kings traveled eastward in their campaigns starting around the year 1,000. Reaching India and Pakistan, their firsthand accounts tell of mind-boggling numbers of deaths as they slashed their way through these lands. Reputable historians have estimated they may have killed as many as 70,000,000 people in an attempt to subjugate these lands. It is hard to describe the culture of extreme oppression and subjugation that Christians live under in Pakistan. Think of the old South on steroids, with the hatred fueled by religious zeal, and you will begin to get a feel for the place. This is why we work extensively in Pakistan, and you should target it in prayer and with your giving. I can tell you that there are some very exciting large-scale developments going on there that must stay private. Let me just say that I feel “Aslan is on the move” there. Until He comes, let us take up the sword of righteousness on behalf of those behind enemy lines. We will bandage the victims and attack the gates of Hell with the Gospel because … They will fall!!! Your donations will be used efficiently, effectively, and ethically. I promise!

Jeff King President, International Christian Concern www.persecution.org

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INTERNATIONAL CHRISTIAN CONCERN

Impact Report

low

WHERE MOST NEEDED

SUFFERING WIVES and CHILDREN

COMMUNITY REBUILD

FUND BALANCE:

medium

high

low

•

high

low

medium

2015 Q2

ICC Assisted:

20,000

•

medium

high

INDIVIDUALS

187

INDIVIDUALS

1,630

IN 3 COUNTRIES

IN 4 COUNTRIES

IN 3 COUNTRIES

PROJECTS

ICC participated in a joint initiative with Amnesty International that led to calls by 67 members of Congress for King Salman to improve human rights and religious freedom in Saudi Arabia. ICC sent staff to Pakistan using funds from the Where Most Needed fund. ICC staff spent three weeks in Pakistan meeting with dozens of persecuted Christians across the country, recording their testimonies and developing projects to meet their needs. ICC held high-level talks with U.S. Embassy officials in Cairo on behalf of Bishoy Armia Boulous, an Egyptian Christian jailed on blasphemy charges, and delivered a letter from 18 human rights organizations calling for the Egyptian government to release Bishoy.

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ICC partnered with China Aid to support 10 families of church pastors or human rights lawyers working on behalf of persecuted Christians in China.

INDIVIDUALS

•

Ten families of imprisoned church leaders in Vietnam were each given a drove of piglets to start a small business. ICC provided vital food aid to 28 Christian families affected by the bombings of Christ Church and St. John’s Catholic Church in Youhanabad, Pakistan. ICC is planning on following up this initial aid with other projects aimed at assisting these families in the long term. Children who lost a parent in the All Saints Church bombing in Pakistan received assistance to attend school.

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For the Christian communities of Iraq and Syria, the growth of Islamic jihadists has forced them from their homes and left them in need of everything — from basic needs like food, water and shelter to seasonal needs like warm coats in the winter or increased access to water and cool shelter as the summer heat sets in on the region. Your donations continue to help us care for these suffering brothers and sisters as they struggle to survive as people displaced from their homes. Using funds from its Community Rebuild fund, ICC was able to help repair two churches in India damaged in attacks by Hindu radicals. With these funds, ICC was able to replace many of the items damaged by the radicals, including sound systems, musical instruments and chairs.

JULY 2015

Impact Report

low

BROADCASTS

UNDERGROUND PASTORS

BIBLES

FUND BALANCE:

medium

low

high

low

medium

high

2015 Q2

32,000

1,700

ICC Assisted:

INDIVIDUALS

9,000

IN MANY COUNTRIES

IN 13 COUNTRIES

IN 6 COUNTRIES

PROJECTS

ICC Assisted:

INDIVIDUALS

•

high

2015 Q2

•

medium

Through supporting follow-up teams working with evangelistic satellite ministries, ICC is helping to see true transformation happen across the Middle East. Every day, people from some of the world’s most difficult to reach places, including Saudi Arabia, Iran and Yemen, are hearing the Gospel preached over television and radio, and, with your help, have someone they can call and talk to who is able to explain to them what it means. ICC has continued to fulfill its commitment to spreading the Gospel to all corners of the earth by using funds from its Broadcast fund. ICC support to various radio and television ministries in South Asia continues to bring many to Christ who would otherwise have no access to Christianity.

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INTERNATIONAL CHRISTIAN CONCERN

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Through your donations, ICC continues to support Pastor Yoel for his ministry with other pastors of Christian congregations facing persecution by bands of radical Muslims. Pastor Yoel is now working as a part-time representative in Indonesia and receives support to continue his ministry. ICC supports Yayasan Terang Nusa, a church-planting ministry in eastern Indonesia’s Sulawesi. Donations to ICC’s Underground Pastors fund support five church planters with food assistance, housing and other necessities. ICC has continued to support many pastors facing persecution across South Asia. In Bangladesh, ICC has continued to fund four pastors willing to reach out to the country’s Muslim-majority population.

INDIVIDUALS

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ICC partnered with Autumn Rain International, based in Hong Kong, for their delivery of Bibles and teaching materials primarily into China, as well as Vietnam and Laos. ARI has reported the continued need for Bibles in China, despite official pronouncements to the contrary. ICC’s project to provide a printing press to produce the Scriptures in a closed North African country is producing great results. More than 25,000 copies of the Gospels have been printed and distributed to churches across the country. ICC provided 50 Urdu Bibles to persecuted Christians in Pakistan. Many of these Christians are unable to afford purchasing a Bible of their own due to poverty caused by persecution and discrimination.

News

Religious Conflict in Southeast Asia

Assyrian Christians protest, demanding the release of 230 Christians held captive by ISIS.

ISIS Continues to Hold Hundreds of Christians Hostage in Syria 1 | SYRIA More than 230 Christians in northeastern Syria are still being held captive by ISIS militants. Abducted in February, negotiations for their release between church leaders, local Muslim leaders and the jihadist group are ongoing, but ISIS has rejected an offer of more than $1.1 million for their freedom. The jihadist group is demanding more than $23 million for their release, an average of more than $100,000 USD per person. ISIS says that the demand is the jizya, a tax required of religious minorities if they are to live under Islamic control. The war in Syria has been ongoing for nearly four and a half years, and Islamic jihadists, especially ISIS, have capitalized on the chaos and gained control of large portions of the country. When ISIS militants swept into the Khabour River region of Tel-Tamar, they captured dozens of villages, sending more than 3,000 of the remaining residents fleeing and abducting at least 230 more.

2 | SOUTHEAST ASIA A study conducted last year in all 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) found that blurred lines between religion and nationalism, weak rule of law and politicization of religion have fueled religious persecution in 8 of the 10 ASEAN countries. The report specifically noted that violent religious conflicts had been documented in Malaysia, Myanmar and Indonesia, where persecution often manifests in the form of bodily attacks, forced conversions and arbitrary detention. Lead researcher Jaclyn Neo, assistant professor at the National University of Singapore’s law faculty, noted that conflation of national identity with one religion in certain states had reinforced animosity toward minority groups, who are seen as “national traitors” or “outside the nation.” In Myanmar, a Buddhist nationalist movement is responsible for promoting legislation against religious conversion, while in Indonesia, democratization and corresponding weakening of the state have been exploited by religious majorities to exert violence against minorities. In Malaysia, coercive practices have been used against religious minorities under the guise of protecting Islam. The Court of Appeals has upheld the government’s decision to prohibit the use of the word “Allah” in publications released by Christians.

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Sudanese Pastors Could Face Death Penalty 3 | SUDAN Two South Sudanese pastors who have been imprisoned in Khartoum, Sudan, since December and January, respectively, could face the death penalty for charges related to their Christian faith. Yat Michael Ruot and Peter Yein Reith have been charged with undermining the constitutional code, waging war against the state, and spying. Under Sudanese law, these offenses carry the possibility of the death penalty or life in prison, according to their attorney. They also stand charged with inciting organized forces to complain and assaulting religious beliefs, charges that also carry prison sentences, if convicted. Rev. Ruot was arrested on December 21 when he left Juba to visit Khartoum to preach at the Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church. Rev. Reith was detained the following month while returning from a prayer meeting at the El Jereif West Bible school in Khartoum.

JULY 2015

ISIS Releases Video Depicting the Beheading and Execution of 30 Ethiopian Christians 4 | ETHIOPIA Militant Islamic terror group ISIS released a shocking video April 19, reportedly showing the gruesome murder of 30 men ISIS claimed were Ethiopian Christians in Libya. The footage alternates between two scenes: one in northern Libya on a Mediterranean beach, where 15 men were beheaded, and one in the desert in southern Libya, where another 15 men were shot in the head, execution style.

Released Christian in Eritrea Still Suffers in Silence, Trapped in Home

5 | ERITREA “Alice” spent more than six years locked in an Eritrean prison for her faith in Christ under one of the most repressive regimes against Christians on the globe. She was arrested in January 2009 and held without charge. She was finally released this February, but her voice has been silenced, her mind has been traumatized, and she is left trapped in her own home under the ever-present eyes of the government that jailed her. “When she came out, she said everything was wonderful and good, because she’s being controlled. Now she can’t say anything,” said “Jane,” an Eritrean friend of Alice who now lives in the United States.

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Assyrian Christian Refugees Continue to Lose Hope 6 | SYRIA “We are searching for the quickest way to go to Europe or Canada, maybe America,” said Jack Zayya, an Assyrian Christian refugee from Syria who arrived in Beirut in February. As many as half a million Christians are believed to be living as refugees across the region, but now many of them are seeking not just to escape the country, but to leave the region entirely. They are losing hope of ever being able to return home.

Egyptian Christian Convicted of Blasphemy Over Facebook Video

7 | EGYPT On May 5, Michael Mounir Beshay was convicted of blasphemy for “ridiculing or insulting a heavenly religion” in violation of Article 98 (f) of the Egyptian penal code. In November 2014, he shared a video on Facebook of two Islamic scholars debating a controversial passage in the Islamic Hadith. Some of his neighbors discovered the post and became upset. They set fire to his motorcycle and demonstrated, demanding his arrest. The local officials gave in, and Michael was arrested in February, charged with blasphemy and convicted.

News

Children rescued from Boko Haram were described by witnesses as “little skeletons.”

Hundreds of Hostages Rescued 1 | NIGERIA During the last few weeks of April, the Nigerian military rescued nearly 700 hostages from the clutches of Islamic terror group Boko Haram (BH). Most of the people rescued were girls and women, but none of them were identified as the girls kidnapped from Chibok in April 2014. Soldiers stumbled upon groups of females during military raids against some of the last strongholds of BH in the Sambisa Forest in Borno State, northern Nigeria. Most of the women rescued were pregnant because of the repeated gang rape they endured, in addition to beatings, forced marriage and pressure to recant their faith. The women were then taken to a refugee camp in Yola, Nigeria, where they were tested for sexually-transmitted diseases, provided prenatal care and given emergency food aid. The initial images emerging from Yola were shocking. Many of the children rescued from Sambisa were so emaciated that witnesses described them as “little skel-

etons.” Scores of kids and their traumatized mothers packed into trucks to embark on the three-day journey to Yola, where many required urgent medical care. For many BH victims, the psychological scars of their experience in captivity are even more severe than the physical pain they endured. BH has reportedly kidnapped more than 2,000 women over the last 18 months. Over the last several years, the group has terrorized northern Nigeria, ransacking towns and targeting Christians in their quest to establish an Islamic state in Africa. Their barbarism is extreme, especially toward women. The group has used women as human shields and employed them as suicide bombers to attack northern Nigerian cities. Some former BH hostages reported that fighters murdered their wives before engaging in battle so they would not marry non-Muslims if the militants died during battle.

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“[Violations] are systematic, egregious and ongoing.” Four African Nations Named CRCs 2 | COUNTRIES OF PARTICULAR CONCERN The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) listed Eritrea, Nigeria, Sudan and the Central African Republic (CAR) as “Countries of Particular Concern” in its 2015 Annual Report. This means that these nations exhibit conditions “where particularly severe violations of religious freedom are tolerated or perpetrated” and where violations are “systematic, egregious, and ongoing.” In Eritrea, the authoritarian state considers anyone who practices faith outside of the country’s four government-sanctioned religions to be a spy and an enemy of the state. Christians are regularly jailed for their faith without charge and for indefinite periods of time. In jail, they face torture and coercion to deny Christ. In Sudan, the Islamist government led by President Omar al-Bashir oppresses Christians, detaining pastors and threatening them with the death penalty for trumped-up “crimes against the state.” Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court for genocide and crimes against humanity perpetrated against Christians in Darfur. In Nigeria, while the government itself does not perpetuate religious persecution, it has not displayed the will or the capacity to stop it. Christians in Nigeria face violence from militant Islamists, like Boko Haram, all across the country’s north, and Christian farmers in central Nigeria are routinely killed by Muslim Fulani herdsmen. In CAR, warring factions of both Christian and Muslim majorities have targeted civilians because of their faith. JULY 2015

Laotian Christians to Appeal Conviction of “Practicing Medicine Without a License” 3 | LAOS Five Laotian Christians convicted of practicing medicine without a license after they prayed for a new Christian convert have confirmed that they will appeal the court’s decision. A false document was submitted to the Appeals Court without their knowledge stating that the five had decided to withdraw their appeal. However, on April 24, they confirmed with the prosecutors’ office in Savannakhet province that they intended to move ahead with the appeal, asserting that the signatures on the document were not theirs. The prosecutors’ office accepted that the document was false. The five were originally accused of murdering the Christian convert, but they had not used any material remedy. They had only prayed for her healing, in accordance with the woman’s request.

USCIRF calls for the full recognition of religious freedom.

Churches in China continue to face raids and persecution.

Religious Conflicts Continue to Sweep Nations

Raided Church to Have Sentence Reconsidered

4 | WORLD Across the world, millions of people have fled conflicts fueled by religion. From Syria and Iraq to Nigeria, Central African Republic, Eritrea and Burma, religious identity can prove deadly as both governments and non-state actors are pursuing agendas of religious cleansing. “Humanitarian crises fueled by waves of terror, intimidation, and violence have engulfed an alarming number of countries over the past year,” said Katrina Lantos Swett, chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. “In the long run, there is only one permanent guarantor of the safety, security and survival of the persecuted and vulnerable. It is the full recognition of religious freedom.”

5 | CHINA Members of the Candlelight Church in China’s far western Xinjiang Province recently won an administrative reconsideration lodged against the Hami Public Security Bureau. The municipal government decision said the original punishment issued after the conflict in January must be revoked, but also gave 60 days for a new punishment to be invoked, provided it followed all legal stipulations. On January 10, more than 20 officers from the local Religious Affairs and Public Security Bureaus disrupted a gathering at Candlelight Church, without showing identification or producing a warrant. Agents have now interrogated the pastor of the church on several occasions.

Egyptian Court Sentences 71 Persecutors to Life in Prison 6 | EGYPT In August 2013, Egypt witnessed the most intense period of persecution in the last 1,400 years. Dozens of churches were torched in attacks across the country. Hundreds of homes, schools, businesses and vehicles were destroyed. After more than a year and a half, an Egyptian court in April convicted and sentenced 71 people to life in prison for their role in attacks on the St. Mary Church in Giza, Egypt. Two minors were also convicted, fined and sentenced to a ten year period in prison. The attacks on churches came after public protests forced Muslim Brotherhood-backed President Mohammed Morsi out of office in June 2013. Egyptian police forces had cracked down on protests in Cairo when attacks were launched against churches across the country. Christians are still rebuilding from the destruction of these attacks.

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Standing in the aftermath of a bombed church.

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