Sudan: Christian converts arrested and tortured
16 Nov 2018
Sudanese security agents raided a house in the city of Nyala, and arrested 13 people when they admitted to being Christians. Two believers were released, but ten converts from Islam and their pastor, Tajdeen Yousif, were detained. The pastor refused to deny Christ despite being beaten by the agents, and the ten were later released after reportedly being tortured into recanting their faith. Pastor Tajdeen, also a convert from Islam,was held for several more days before being released. All eleven have now gone into hiding for their safety. Under sharia law, Muslims who abandon their religion face severe punishment. Sudan’s constitution gives judicial discretion to courts in the application of sharia.
India: Christian families persecuted
16 Nov 2018
Five Christian families in eastern India were at a service in October when they received a phone call telling them to return to their homes immediately. They rushed back, but found that the villagers had been incited by a tribal group (themselves influenced by Hindu extremists) to destroy one of their houses. The villagers were also told that they must drive out all the families. Threatened with expulsion from the village and with seizure of their farmland, three of the five families converted back to the tribal religion. This is just a sample of persecution in Hindu strongholds in India. Police appear to do little or nothing when Christians make a report.
Radical Muslims left a 12-year-old Christian boy unconscious recently, after threatening to strangle him unless he converted to Islam. Emmanuel Nyaiti was walking to his grandmother’s house 200 metres from his home in Moru village when four men ambushed him and took him to a plantation less than a mile away. The boy said he was able to identify two of the attackers. ‘Ali Lukuman tried to persuade me to become a Muslim, which I refused, and he slapped me and I started screaming’, Emmanuel said from his bed at Budaka Health Centre, his speech made difficult from strangulation. He was told, ‘If you want to stay with us in our village, then you have to become a Muslim. If not, then you have to leave.’ The assault was the latest of many which have been reported in eastern Uganda in the past six years. The country’s constitution and other laws provide for religious freedom, including the right to propagate one’s faith and convert from one faith to another. Muslims make up no more than 12 percent of the population.
Australia: needles in fruit
16 Nov 2018
On 13 November Clare Bonser, a make-up artist with ABC News Breakfast, was driving when she casually bit into her pear. She happened to look down before taking the next bite and spotted a needle, so that she avoided injury. Two days earlier, a Vietnamese woman was arrested and charged with seven incidents of contaminating strawberries with needles in Queensland. She had acted out of ‘spite or revenge’ against her Australian ex-boss at a Woolworths store. This was a massive hit to Australia’s strawberry industry, as many brands had to get rid of their stock way before the end of season due to reports of needles being found in the red fruits. Up to 230 incidents have been reported nationwide.
The UN has raised the alarm over fighting in eastern DRC, warning that the violence could hamper next month's elections. Leila Zerrougui, a UN special representative, said that three provinces were most at risk. ‘There is a potential for armed group interference in the elections’, she said at a UN security council meeting. The area has been troubled for decades by inter-ethnic bloodshed and militia violence, a crisis that has escalated this year. DRC is also battling the worst Ebola outbreak in its history. These factors cast a shadow over the country's ability to stage elections on 23 December to succeed President Joseph Kabila.
Aasia Bibi out of prison but not yet safe?
09 Nov 2018
Pakistani Christian mother Aasia Bibi has finally been freed from prison after spending over eight years on death row for allegedly committing ‘blasphemy’ against Islam, but she is not yet free. Government officials confirmed on 8 November that she had been flown to Islamabad under tight security due to radical Muslim death threats against her and her family following the news of her acquittal. While some reports stated that she had left the country, a foreign ministry spokesman said that this was not true. It is unclear what might happen to her, given that Imran Khan’s government has seemingly given way to the huge protests caused by her acquittal on 31 October, and made a deal with the party responsible for organising them. According to that agreement, Aasia would be re-tried by a new supreme court, not including the original three judges.
An eye surgeon from the Diocese of Peshawar, Khushbakht Peters, celebrates the work of the Christian hospital at Tank in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. She writes: ‘Tank is a city in the south of our province. The war against terrorism has been going on for a long time here; many people, both soldiers and civilians, have lost their lives. Yet even when things were at their worst, the dedicated staff at the Christian Hospital persisted in providing healthcare services. A few years ago, even the Taliban refused to attack the hospital, as this is where all their women and children go for treatment. For the past 150 years the hospital has been following the footsteps of the Good Samaritan, providing a healing touch for those in need. They have been helping the poorest of the poor, the underprivileged of society, giving them their only chance to better health. Following the living example of the hospital, let us be obedient to our calling to the Lord, and become a blessing for many.’
Cameroon: kidnapped students freed
08 Nov 2018
Students kidnapped from a Christian boarding school in Cameroon's restive North-West region have been reunited with their parents amid joyful scenes. The 78 boys and girls and three others were seized early on 5 November in the region's capital, Bamenda. A driver was also freed, but the principal and a teacher are still being held. After being released, the students were taken in army vehicles back to the school, where their parents were waiting. One of those kidnapped, a 15-year-old girl, said she had been treated well, and that they had all had been given fruit, food and warm water to wash with. A separatist group which is fighting for independence for the two English-speaking regions, in a country where French is the most widely-spoken official language, has denied that it was responsible for the kidnapping.