Amid Colombia’s rising tide of violence between rebels, paramilitaries and the nation’s army, its people need help and encouragement more than ever. But the danger has forced many international ministries working in the country to re-think plans or even consider pulling out.
A growing body of evidence confirms reports that Christians in Indonesia’s Maluku Islands have been forced to convert to Islam under threat of death, although Muslim clerics deny the claims.
A sizeable Christian community is among the Karen people group in Myanmar (formerly Burma) facing abuse at the hands of the country’s military regime, according to Newsroom-Online, an Internet news service based in London.
Members of the radical Hindu group the Bajrang Dal beat two Christian workers, David Massey and Simon Sakria, for more than two hours on January 4 for showing a “Jesus” film in Jehra, a remote village on the Rajasthan-Gujarat border in western India. Church leaders said the two Christians had gone to visit the house of a local pastor when they were attacked.
A prominent Indian church leader is warning of a possible bloodbath against Christians by Hindu fundamentalists.
Indonesia’s Christian and political leaders are convinced that the widespread Christmas Eve church bombings were meant to provoke all-out war between the Muslim and Christian communities in the country.
Nigeria came into the international limelight in the year 2000 as the country began a full year of democratic government following prolonged military rule. It also saw the rise of Islamic fundamentalism as several northern Nigerian states have moved to implement Islamic (sharia) law. The resulting Christian-Muslim conflicts have threatened to permanently divide Africa’s most populous nation.
Authorities Urged to Determine Whether Cults are ‘Harmful to Society’ by Alex Buchan LONDON (Compass) — The Chinese government sponsored an International Symposium on Evil Cults in Beijing November 8-10 that urged local authorities not to inquire too closely into the beliefs of accused cults. Instead, authorities were encouraged to assess whether they are “harmful to society” — a catch-all criterion that some house church leaders fear could lead to their own movements being classed as cults. Nearly 60 academics from all over the world attended the Beijing Symposium, and it was full of predictable denunciation of the Chinese folk … Read more
The Russian-made MU2 Antonov aircraft, with Sudanese government markings, made six bombing runs on Thursday, March 23, over the grounds of the Christian Liberty Academy of Southern Sudan in Western Equatoria, dropping one or two 250-pound-shrapnel bombs at a time. This bombing mission by the Islamic-led government forces of Sudan inflicted numerous injuries on students and their parents.
Turkmenistan’s political police evicted a Protestant Christian pastor with his wife and two children from their home near Ashgabad on December 9, confiscating their personal deed of ownership and sealing the gate to prevent their return.
During the past two weeks, Turkmenistan’s political police have launched another harsh crackdown against its Protestant Christian citizens.
At least four known believers in the capital of Ashgabad have been subjected to repeated beatings, electric shocks, partial suffocation and other forms of torture while under interrogation, prosecution and ongoing harassment.
Maluku’s head of police admitted that authorities cannot dislodge the hundreds of Muslim jihad fighters scattered throughout eastern Indonesia’s Maluku province and who have escalated the inter-religious conflict as Christmas approaches. More than 100 Christians were reported killed in November fighting.
On 20 November, the day after US Assistant Secretary of State Susan Rice’s arrival in Marial Bai to meet with victims of slavery, the armed forces of the Government of Sudan executed seven black African school boys following a mid-morning slave raid on the nearby Guong Nowh Community Elementary School, according to Simon Wol, the Civil Commissioner of Aweil West County. Government soldiers also enslaved 24 other children, including six girls.
Nazareth, Israel (November 24, 2000) – Even amidst the turmoil in Israel, construction has started on the grounds of what will be the largest monument to peace on earth. The STAR OF PEACE, an international peace project located in Nazareth, Israel is designed to commemorate the 2000th anniversary of the birth of Jesus Christ. To celebrate this occasion a universal monument to peace is being created. People from around the world will have the opportunity to have their name and message engraved in the memorial for the next millennium.
“If you want to save your lives, don’t show this film again.” This was the warning made to the Great Commission team after they had shown the Jesus film in Birnin Kebbi, capital of Nigeria’s Kebbi state. Kebbi, along with several other northern Nigerian states, has adopted “sharia” (Islamic law) to operate above the local and national legal systems.
The head of the Nigerian Bible Society recently released the casualty figures of Christians killed and churches destroyed during the February and May religious clashes between Muslims and Christians in Kaduna, the capital city of northern Nigeria’s Kaduna state.
The violent October protests that rocked Bolivia, causing 12 deaths, scores of injuries and millions of dollars in damages, embodied one more local clash in the international drug war. The conflict has pitted the government, which is implementing a plan to eradicate the coca plant, the raw material from which cocaine is produced, against peasant farmers from the tropical Chapare region, where 90 percent of the country’s illicit coca crop is grown.
SANTA ANA, CA (November 13, 2000) — Terry Madison, President and CEO of Open Doors With Brother Andrew, USA, has urged the thousands of Christians throughout the United States who prayed for persecuted believers on the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church on Sunday, November 12, to “keep on praying daily for our suffering brothers and sisters around the world that are persecuted for their faith.”
“It is disappointing that the suffering of the Christians due to the conflict in the Malukus has been insufficiently exposed in various reports on a national and international level,” stated the U.S. Consul General Robert Pollard.
Armed men overpowered a night guard at the Peace and Hope Association’s Lima, Peru, office and left with four computers, each containing sensitive data on cases defended by the evangelical legal aid and human rights organization.