Christian Persecution – Asia

Carrollton, TX—June 17, 2002— Risking his own safety to help fleeing refugees at the Pakistan/India border, a Gospel for Asia (GFA) missionary trainee in Kashmir was found murdered earlier this month. The Indian-born student was training for pioneer evangelism ministry at a GFA Bible school located five kilometers from the Pakistan border. GFA leaders in India believe that Muslim extremists are responsible for his death.

HANOI, VIETNAM(ANS) — A group of Hmong Christians living in the highlands of Vietnam have filed a complaint about violent incidents that they say took place amongst this tribal group last year.

Christians in Indonesia are outraged over the arrest of one of their leaders, Renaldy Damanik, General Secretary of the Christian Synod in Central Sulawesi and a hard-working, long-time peace advocate.

Indonesian Christians are learning the hard way what it means to “forsake all and follow Christ.”

Christian Aid’s contact in Indonesia said Sunday that Christians in some villages that have been taken over by Laskar Jihad militant Muslims are being offered the opportunity to leave their villages, but on one condition: They must relinquish all right to their homes, businesses and properties, and never return to their villages again.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, June 5 (Compass) — Dr. Christy Munir was discharged from an Islamabad hospital yesterday, 10 weeks after a deadly church attack in Pakistan’s capital city almost took his life.

HO CHI MINH CITY (Compass) — In April, 26 years after the communist takeover of Vietnam, authorities granted legal status to Protestants of the southern Evangelical Church of Vietnam (ECVN). Optimists felt this might signal a change in the oppressive religious policy that has long marked Vietnamese communism, especially with the rise of “moderate” Nong Duc Manh to general secretary of the Communist Party.

HO CHI MINH CITY, August 21 (Compass) — A pastor and lawyer who has been regularly harassed for exposing religious liberty abuses in Vietnam was arrested on August 17 along with his wife and another man in the capital city of this Southeast Asian country.

Christians in Vietnam face oppressive, often brutal, persecution from authorities. Despite official measures to kill Christianity, the church of Jesus Christ continues to grow.

ZAMBOANGA CITY, PHILIPPINES (ANS) — The American missionary couple Martin and Gracia Burnham turns one year old today under the captive of the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), a terrorist group operating in the Southern Philippines and believed to have links to the Al Qa’ida network in Afghanistan.

SANTA ANA, CA (ANS) — Christian prisoner Ayub Masih fled his native Pakistan and arrived in an undisclosed country in the West on Wednesday after being imprisoned for six years on blasphemy charges. Despite being acquitted and released on August 15 by Pakistan’s Supreme Court, Masih’s life remains under constant threat from Muslim extremists.

Three Gospel for Asia Bible school students in Bangladesh were sharing Christ in the village of Vasu during a six-month ministry assignment. Muslim extremists, angry to see a Gospel witness in their village, went to the police with false claims that the young men were terrorists.

Two well-known Baptist ministers from Dagon North Township were arrested by the military junta on 5th April. They are currently detained in Burma’s notorious Insein prison.

A three-day Baptist convention for 100,000 people, which was due to be held in Burma, has been cancelled on the orders of the junta.