Christian Persecution

Papua (Irian Jaya) is a former Dutch colony of Melanesian peoples on the western half of the island of New Guinea. Today, over 90% of all indigenous Papuans are officially reckoned as Christians. Papua was annexed by Indonesia in 1963. In December 2001 President Megawati Sukarnoputri signed a Special Autonomy law into effect. Church leaders were involved in writing the law, but Papuans in the Organisasi Papua Merdeka (OPM) or Free Papua Movement, continue their low-level resistance to Indonesian rule, whilst the Papua Presidium Council seeks independence by peaceful means.

Given the climate of increasing violence against Christians and other religious minorities and recent laws that infringe their constitutional rights, church leaders in India have expressed regret over the United States government’s refusal to designate India a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC), according to a report from Compass Direct.

The Thu Thiem congregation in District 2 of Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) has persisted in finishing construction of its new church building despite a police order in early June halting work at the site. Pastor Truong Van Nganh and his congregation began worshipping in the attractive sanctuary in early July.

A Lao-American pastor and two European journalists have been freed by the Laos government less than two weeks after being sentenced to 15 years in jail amid international pressure.

The kidnapping of the Bengali evangelist known as “Moses” the last week of May confirms a worrying trend of violence against Christians in Bangladesh. An evangelist with Gospel for Asia (GFA), Moses was taken hostage by a Muslim terrorist group which then demanded a large ransom. GFA has not released the real names of the evangelist or the terrorist group for security reasons.

Judges have handed down a three-year sentence to Rev. Rinaldy Damanik, an Indonesian pastor accused of illegal weapons possession. Damanik and his defense team now have a week to decide whether they will accept the sentence or appeal the judge’s decision.

The government of India’s Gujarat state has again started gathering community-based information in villages of the Patan district in northern Gujarat, heightening suspicions among local Christians that census information will be misused by fundamentalist Hindu organizations to stir up trouble in an area that suffered 443 major clashes between religious groups between 1970 and 2002.

A 9-year-old Pakistani Christian girl has been severely beaten — the result of a religious hate crime inflicted upon her because of the war in Iraq.

Communist regimes like Vietnam have never been known for their tolerance of religion but recently in 2003 Hanoi has escalated the persecution of its “hill tribe” Christians to an unprecedented level. In the Central Highlands of Vietnam the indigenous Montagnards or Degar Peoples are facing arrest, beatings, torture and even murder at the hands of Vietnamese security forces. This persecution did not go unnoticed this month in a damming report released by the US International Commission For Religious Freedom that stated, “the increased repression of religious freedom has been reportedly sanctioned at the highest levels of the Vietnamese government.”

Vietnamese authorities continue their clampdown on house churches in their country. A Vietnam observer who wishes to remain anonymous names 12 ways authorities are persecuting Christians: