The military rulers in Myanmar have resorted to brutal suppression after appearing to severely underestimate public hostility towards their takeover.
At first, sheets of paper featuring the face of Min Aung Hlaing were fixed on to the streets with sticky tape, ready to be stamped on by angry protesters in Myanmar’s main city, Yangon. Troops promptly removed the pages, only for resourceful demonstrators to return with stencils to paint the junta leader’s image on to the concrete.
The protest tactic offered some protection against charging soldiers, who were apparently forbidden from treading on an image of their commander-in-chief. It was also a chance for the public to express their deep disdain for the man who stole their democracy.
The decision by Min Aung Hlaing to seize power on 1 February brought an abrupt end to Myanmar’s transition, after decades of military rule, to a more democratic system, and prompted fury across the country. It also presented the military with one of the biggest challenges in its 80-year history, as protesters poured on to the streets of cities, towns and villages while vast numbers went on strike, bringing trade, banks and transport systems to a standstill.
“It was a massive strategic miscalculation on their part,” said Richard Horsey, an independent political analyst, who added that the military appeared to have severely underestimated the level of public opposition. “But I think they still believe they can win this.”
Faced with opposition across society, the military has been unleashing a campaign of terror and chaos. Protesters are being detained, brutally beaten and, increasingly, shot dead. After dark, trucks of troops swarm through residential areas, firing indiscriminately and setting off stun grenades. Every night homes are raided, with officers going door to door arresting protesters and anyone deemed to be sheltering them. About 1,800 people have been taken, although this is probably an underestimate.
“The level of violence and intimidation that they’re having to mete out is creating a wellspring of hatred and opposition that is unifying much of the country,” added Horsey. “They will be able to deploy the violence that’s necessary to impose their will, but then what?” The military will be left presiding over a country with deep, multiple crises, he added, with far less domestic or international support.
More at: The Guardian Reuters
Video Briefing: Watch Dr Jason Hubbard’s prayer briefing video on Myanmar
There are reports of 'anti-China' riots as Beijing is being accused of thinly-veiled support for the Junta. China has significant interests in the country including a proposed hydropower dam to generate electricity for China and a part-built natural gas pipeline to give them access to the Indian Ocean.
More at: https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2021/03/10/will-myanmars-coup-help-china-influence-asean/
Pray for the violence and extra-judicial killings of peaceful protestors to stop.
Pray that the international diplomacy and sanctions along with the strong will of the people of Burma will bring the Junta to stand down and free the democratically elected leaders.
Pray that Beijing does not take advantage of this instability.
Pray in more depth using these resources: Prayer Guide | Operation World | Joshua Project | Open Doors
While Communist China moves aggressively to spread its influence throughout the Pacific region and around the world, the government is expanding a crackdown against people of faith at home.
In its effort to assure that all its citizens comply with the edicts and beliefs of the state, the Chinese Communist Party is targeting Christians for persecution and ethnic Muslims for genocide.
On February 1, 2021, China's Public Security Bureau (PSB) police stormed onto the property of a government-sanctioned church in China's Wenzhou City. Their mission? Toppling a cross from the roof of a church building for a second time. They had removed the cross seven years earlier, but church members replaced it.
Bob Fu is the Founder and Director of China Aid, a Midland, Texas-based group that helps China's persecuted Christians. "In that city alone we have documented over 1,600 churches where their crosses were being burnt, destroyed, and destructed. And many pastors you know were even detained, imprisoned," he said. China's Christians say it is the worst persecution against them since Chairman Mao Zedong. "To use ambassador Sam Brownback's word, 'it's a war against the faith,'" Fu explained. "I think it's a war against the independent faith."
And it's no longer limited to certain regions of China. VOM Radio Host Todd Nettleton says this massive wave of Christian persecution is widespread and it's coming from the national government.
"What we say in 2021 is that everywhere in China there is intense persecution of Christians. There are intense efforts to control the church, to bring the church under Communist Party control," he explained.
The crackdown is affecting every Christian in China said Nettleton - Protestants, Catholics, government registered churches, and unregistered house churches. And Fu said the CCP has a new excuse for targeting Christians. "Now under this pretext of Covid-19 coronavirus, the Chinese Communist Party has intensified its persecution by banning all the church activities – even those worship services, prayer meetings in believer's own homes with their own family members."
Meanwhile, despite the suffering, Bob Fu is expressing optimism about the country's spiritual future. He says when the CCP seized government control in 1947, only about one million people in China claimed to be Christian. But today – after 70-years of unrelenting persecution – their numbers have grown to as many as 130-million.
Fu sees a glimmer of hope in the suffering. "So, I think at the end of the day maybe we should call President Xi Jin Ping as God's you know, faithful servant to revive His church."
Coverage by Gary Lane / CBN
MORE: https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2021/february/unrelenting-china-expands-crackdown-against-christians-muslims
Pray for our dear brothers and sisters in the persecuted Church in China, for divine strength and resolve as they continue to minister and pastor their congregations.
Pray for those in authority in China (1 Tim 2:2) that they will find the true and living God.
Pray for those who are suffering for their faith, that you will pour out your grace into their lives and their hearts.
Pray for the continued success of the many networks who are working to equip and encourage believers in China.
More prayers:
Hundreds executed, thousands homeless - the human cost of fighting in Tigray
The breadth and depth of human suffering in the Ethiopian region of Tigray is perfectly clear to humanitarian workers, human rights groups and the international diplomatic community.
After four months of warfare between Ethiopia's national defence force and fighters from the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), observers are collecting a worrying selection of data.
More than 500,000 Tigrayans have lost their homes. Almost 60,000 have sought refugee status in neighbouring Sudan. Two refugee camps in Tigray have been obliterated by military force. Nearly 70% of 106 health facilities have been looted. Only 13% are functioning normally.
Allegations and stories about atrocities and human rights abuses have also surfaced, despite a government-imposed communications blackout.
Amnesty International has issued a report about the deaths of hundreds of people in the ancient Tigrayan city of Axum. Drawing on testimony from refugees in Sudan - and evidence given by phone in Ethiopia - the human rights group says Eritrean troops, who are allied with Ethiopian government forces, "carried out systematic house-to-house searches, extra judicially executing men and boys".
Read this shocking report from Sky News as they visit some of the villages and communities affected by the war and meet some of the people and hear their stories.
Responding to the Sky News report, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said he was "deeply concerned" and highlighted his trip to both Ethiopia and Sudan earlier this year.
"I think there's a number of things we need to do," Mr Raab said. "First of all, as I made it clear to the Ethiopian government when I was there, we need to see unfettered access for humanitarian purposes into Tigray so we get some proper facts we can verify, but also so we can support the vulnerable. "There's a risk of famine as well as the human rights abuses your correspondent was looking into.
Citing evidence of serious human rights violations in Tigray, the UN Human Rights Commissioner, Michelle Bachelet - and organisations like Amnesty International - have called for an immediate and independent investigation.
If the truth is not revealed, thousands more will lose their lives.
Pray: for doors to open so that the necessary humanitarian assistance will be made accessible for the millions of people whose lives have been impacted – the victims, the refugees, the bereaved.
Pray: for an end to the hostilities and for a path to peace to be brokered in what is a complex and deep-rooted situation.
Pray: for those who have committed war crimes to be brought to justice.
Pray: for peaceful and safe elections to take place.
More: PrayerCast | Operation World | Joshua Project
Hundreds of thousands have fled their homes as a conflict involving an Islamic State-linked group continues to grow dramatically.
Children as young as 11 are being beheaded in Mozambique, Save the Children has said, in the latest country to be affected by an Islamist insurgency.
The UK-based charity said it had spoken to families who have described "horrifying scenes" of murder, including mothers whose young sons were killed.
Thousands are dead and many magnitudes more have been forced from their homes, as a result of dramatically escalating fighting that has been linked to Islamic State (IS).
In one case, a woman hid with three children as her other 12-year-old was murdered nearby, Save the Children said. The 28-year-old, who the charity calls Elsa, is quoted as saying: "We tried to escape to the woods, but they took my eldest son and beheaded him. "We couldn't do anything because we would be killed too."
The Biden administration declared Mozambique's Islamist group a foreign terrorist organisation last week, in part because of its links to IS. The US said the group reportedly pledged allegiance to IS as long ago as 2018.
The first attack in Mozambique claimed by IS was in Cabo Delgado in June 2019. The region, in the country's far north, has been plagued by insurgency since 2017. Throughout 2020, the insurgents repeatedly engaged the military to capture and hold key towns.
While beheadings have always been a hallmark of the attacks, the brutality and mass killings have worsened, with the murder of around 52 people at once in the village of Xitaxi in April last year among them. So far, almost 2,700 people on all sides have died in the violence, according to consultancy Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED). Nearly 670,000 people have been displaced, according to Save the Children.
The US embassy in Mozambique said on Monday that American special forces will train Mozambican marines and provide medical and communications equipment to help Mozambique defeat the insurgency. It comes just a few months after the US military said all its troops had been pulled out of Somalia, further north in east Africa, where the government has been fighting al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab militants.
Amnesty International said earlier in March that all sides in the Mozambique conflict were committing war crimes, with government forces also responsible for abuses against civilians - a charge the government has denied.
The insurgency comes in the wake of a COVID pandemic that has hit the country hard and a devastating cyclone, in 2019, that rendered tens of thousands homeless.
Reporter: Philip Whiteside
More: https://news.sky.com/story/children-as-young-as-11-being-beheaded-amid-islamist-insurgency-in-mozambique-12247985
Pray: for the government of Mozambique, with the help of international partners, to restore security so that the huge numbers of displaced people can return to their homes in safety.
Pray: for the lives scarred by these horrendous attacks, for healing of memories and minds.
Pray: for the bereaved – that God will comfort them in their sorrow.
More Prayers: PrayerCast | Operation World | Joshua Project
Sri Lanka’s government should immediately withdraw an order that allows two-years of detention without trial for causing “religious, racial, or communal disharmony,” Human Rights Watch said today. The Prevention of Terrorism (De-radicalization from holding violent extremist religious ideology) Regulations No. 01 of 2021, issued on March 9, 2021, expands the draconian and abusive Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA).
The regulation will allow the government of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to more easily target religious and racial minorities, in violation of their basic rights. The United Nations Human Rights Council is considering a resolution to strengthen monitoring and promote accountability for human rights violations in Sri Lanka, after the UN high commissioner on human rights identified “clear early warning signs … of future violations.”
“The Sri Lankan government has added a new weapon to its arsenal of abusive laws, putting religious and racial minorities at greater risk of torture and prolonged detention without trial,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Instead of addressing the UN’s concerns by repealing the notorious Prevention of Terrorism Act, the Rajapaksa administration is embracing it with a vengeance.”
The regulation broadly allows the authorities to detain and “rehabilitate” anyone who “by words either spoken or intended to be read or by signs or by visible representations” causes the commission of violence or “religious, racial or communal disharmony or feelings of ill will or hostility between different communities or racial or religious groups.” Instead of being tried, the suspect faces detention in a “reintegration center” for up to one year. The defense minister, currently President Rajapaksa, is empowered to extend the detention for a second year.
Sri Lanka’s relatively small Christian community has also been targeted. “You can’t even write anything on Facebook,” a Christian activist told Human Rights Watch. “Anything could happen. We don’t feel safe to express ourselves. They could lock you up under any pretext.”
The United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva is considering a resolution that would strengthen monitoring of Sri Lanka’s deteriorating human rights situation and create a mechanism to collect and analyze evidence of violations for use in future prosecutions. Several senior members of the current government are implicated in alleged war crimes and other grave abuses during Sri Lanka’s civil war.
Source: https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/03/16/sri-lanka-religious-disharmony-order-threatens-minorities
More: Read Stephen Kinnocks speech in the UK House of Commons, March 20th 2021 which raises a number of concerns surrounding the Sri Lanka government’s law-making and alleged ‘militarisation of the government’:
https://www.ukpol.co.uk/stephen-kinnock-2021-speech-on-sri-lanka/
Pray: that the Sri Lankan government will revoke this regulation and preserve and respect the rights of its people to practice their religion freely.
Pray: for those who seek to broker reconciliation of the ‘wounds’ from civil war and ethnic & cultural differences.
Pray: for the Church in Sri Lanka, that it will continue to grow and flourish despite the persecution.
Open Doors - Easter Prayers for the persecuted church. These are pertinent, just 2 years on from the 2019 church and hotel attacks: http://media.opendoorsuk.org/document/pdf/Easter-Prayers.pdf?_ga=2.241067648.2088753248.1586161764-492872149.1560337581
More Prayer: Operation World | Joshua Project | PrayerCast Video | Gospel for Asia
Learn more about the Muslim world, the month of Ramadan, and how you can pray.
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30 Days of Prayer begins April 13th, 2021.
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The is a one-week, online course, run by All Nations focused on training for intercessory prayer for the nations, with teaching and facilitation by prayer leaders from different countries.
Do you want to grow in your prayer life and learn to partner with God in what He is doing in the nations through prayer? Would you like to be better equipped to respond to world events, and engage in intercessory prayer to see God's Kingdom established “on earth as it is in heaven”? Come be part of an online learning community for a week, as we engage in God’s heart for the world through intercessory prayer!
Course Delivery:
This course is run via Zoom where participants will learn through online lectures, breakout group discussions, and corporate worship and intercession times. Hours of engagement include a two and a half session in the mornings (9:30am - 12 noon, UK Time), followed by another hour and a half session in the afternoons (2:30pm - 4pm, UK Time) from Monday through to the Friday. On Saturday, 24th April, there is the “Prayer Ignite” seminar for the month of April that has been integrated into this week-long course.
Topics covered for the week include:
The Character and Ways of God in Intercession
Listening to God in Corporate Intercession
Engaging in Prayer for our Covid-Plagued World
Biblical Worldview in Prayer & Missions
Worship, Prayer & Missions in the Global South
Prayer Ignite: History Belongs to the Intercessors
More info and sign up at: https://www.allnations.ac.uk/courses/short-courses/prayer-nations-course
World Vision reaches 59 million
18 Mar 2021
More than a year has passed since the coronavirus pandemic was declared. World Vision, a leading evangelical interdenominational aid organisation, has partnered with tens of thousands of faith leaders and communities worldwide to reach 59 million people through relief and virus prevention efforts. As the world was shutting down, World Vision kept working, fulfilling the purpose God has bestowed on the organisation and its staff. ‘Covid-19 has been our largest domestic and international response that we’ve ever organised. It’s been a remarkable amount of work and just a wonderful opportunity to be the hands and feet of Jesus in this really, really challenging time’, said a World Vision representative.