RLPB 341. January Update, Incl. Burkina Faso, Mali, China, Cuba, Iran, Northern Ireland (UK), Sudan, Mesopotamia (Iraq-Syria)

Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin | RLPB 341 | Wed 27 Jan 2016

By Elizabeth Kendal

We start the year with dozens of faithful believers incarcerated and 'disappeared', hundreds of thousands dispossessed and traumatised and millions repressed and persecuted. But the promises of God are eternal: such as 'I am with you always' (Matthew 28:20).  And so we pray.

JANUARY 2016 ROUND-UP -- this month ...

BURKINA FASO AND MALI: TERRORISM THREAT ESCALATES

As Islamic State (IS) consolidates in Libya (its African beach-head into Europe), AQIM (led by Algerians) is pressing south into the Sahel. Stratfor Global Intelligence reports: 'Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is entering 2016 stronger than it was at the beginning of 2015... [The] group can be expected to continue to conduct kidnappings and armed assaults across a wide expanse of the Sahel, both to raise funds and to attract attention and recruits' Accordingly, the risk to Christians, especially to foreign Christian workers, could escalate markedly, as it did in 2012.

* BURKINA FASO: FOREIGN CHRISTIANS KILLED AND KIDNAPPED

On Friday 15 January six militants (including two females) from AQIM's al-Murabitoon attacked Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. After detonating car bombs, they laid siege to the Splendid Hotel and nearby Cappuccino cafe -- sites frequented by elites and foreigners. The security forces regained control on 16 January, killing four jihadists. By that time the jihadists had killed 29 civilians, including seven foreign Christian workers -- one American, and six Canadian short-term aid workers (four from one family). The American, Michael Riddering (45, and a father of four) had, along with his wife Amy, been running an orphanage and women's refuge in the West African country since 2011. AQIM claimed responsibility for the attack, calling it 'a new message ... to the slaves of the cross' and 'a reminder to the worshippers of the cross ...'

On 16 January, as the siege was under way, another AQIM-linked group, Ansar al Dine, crossed into Burkina Faso from Mali and kidnapped Australian missionaries Dr Ken Elliot (81) and his wife Jocelyn from their home in Baraboule. The Elliots, who built and ran a 120-bed clinic in nearby Djibo, had been providing medical services to the poorest of the poor in Burkina Faso's remote north since 1972. Dr Elliot has been praying for God to provide a successor, a surgeon who would take over the work of the hospital. 'We really are getting on a little bit in years,' he notes in his Youtube appeal. 'We fully believe that this hospital is here because God loves people.'

'The wounds inflicted on people are felt by the whole nation,' said a statement of the Bishops' Conference of Burkina Faso and Niger. 'We invite you to remember and pray for the victims, the injured, their families and their friends. Our only weapon is prayer. May all believers increase the ardour of prayer as we have done in other circumstances.'

* MALI: SWISS MISSIONARY KIDNAPPED

On 15 January, al-Qaeda's Ansar al-Dine kidnapped Swiss Christian missionary Beatrice Stockly from her home in Timbuktu, Mali. This is the second time in four years that Stockly has been kidnapped by jihadis. Kidnapped in April 2012, after Ansar al-Dine seized control of Timbuktu, she was accused of proselytising for Christianity, held for ten days, and warned that she would be executed if she tried to return to Timbuktu. Despite the threat, Stockly returned to Timbuktu in 2013 after French troops liberated the city. AQIM has released a VIDEO showing Stockly in full Islamic dress with  an English-speaking jihadi proposing a prisoner swap.

Grave fears are held for the safety of Ken and Jocelyn Elliot and Beatrice Stockly, and for the future of foreign mission and aid work in Burkina Faso and Mali. Please pray.

* CHINA: PERSECUTION HEATS UP

In August 2015 Chinese security personnel seized Zhang Kai, Christian attorney and defender of the cross, and Liu Peng, his legal assistant, taking them from a church in Wenzhou into China's secretive 'black jail' system [see RLPB 325 (1 Sep 2015)]. In December, reports emerged that Zhang and Liu had dismissed their legal representation, presumably under duress, having been threatened or coerced. ‘Why else,’ asked the dismissed attorneys, would two human rights lawyers, detained in isolation and in separate locations, suddenly both dismiss their own lawyers? Please pray for Zhang and Liu.

Meanwhile, government-ordered church and cross demolitions continue as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) advances its 'Sinicisation of Christianity' [putting Christianity at the service of the CCP] with censorship of all that is seen and heard. On 28 December 2015 authorities forcibly removed the cross from atop the Xialing church in Wenzhou, in the southern coastal province of Zhejiang. On 6 January 2016 officials in Fuqing, in the neighbouring southern coastal province of Fujian, demolished Yulin Furen Christian Church for its failure to register with the local government. On 7 January crosses were forcibly removed from Nanhu Church and Wutian Dongzhuang Church in Wenzhou. Also in January, the CCP-approved Three Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) and China Christian Council (CCC) dismissed Pastor Gu Yuese, the senior pastor of China's largest TSPM church, the Chongyi Church in the Zhejiang capital, Hangzhou. Pastor Gu had openly criticised the CCP policy of cross removals in Zhejiang. Pastor Gu had to be sacrificed so as to preserve the TSPM's and CCC's relationship with the CCP. The persecution is escalating.

* CUBA: RELIGIOUS FREEDOM TAKES A TURN FOR THE WORSE.

In December 2014 US President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro announced the restoration of full diplomatic ties. In May 2015 the US removed Cuba from its list of state sponsors of terrorism. In July embassies were re-opened in both Washington and Havana. But while Raul Castro has introduced economic reforms, religious freedom remains a mirage -- and in fact has taken a turn for the worse. A new report by Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) released 15 January 2016 describes 2015 as the year of 'crackdown', and reveals 'unprecedented levels of threats on the Cuban Church'. According to CSW, more than 2000 Assemblies of God churches have been deemed illegal, 15 Methodist churches have been confiscated by the state and over 100 churches have been designated for demolition. Pastor Carbelleda (45) of an unregistered church in Havana spent six months of 2015 in prison (without trial) reportedly for holding 'illegal religious services', the first such arrest since 2011. It seems that Cuba has chosen to follow the China model: granting rights and privileges to selected churches which then act as a smokescreen covering pervasive repression. Expect to see persecution escalate as Cuban authorities 'test the waters' to see what they can get away with and what they can afford to do.

* IRAN: USING THE PRISON SYSTEM AS AN INSTRUMENT OF PERSECUTION

While we thank the Lord for the release of Iranian pastor Farshid Fathi (released on 20 December) and US-Iranian prisoner Pastor Saeed Abedini (released in a prisoner swap on 16 January), we remember the dozens of Persian believers who continue to suffer for the name of Christ in Iranian prisons. On 1 February, Amin Khaki, Hossein Barounzadeh, Mohammad Bahrami and Rahman Bahmani -- all of whom are affiliated with the 'Church of Iran' network -- will appear in Ahvaz Revolutionary Court. They were amongst eight believers arrested at a picnic in Shush on 5 March 2014. Though four were later released, these four were imprisoned and later released on bail. Tried on 19 May, the men were each sentenced on 4 October to one year in prison for holding illegal meetings, spreading Christianity and attempting to convert Muslims. The ruling was appealed and the 1 February hearing is a re-trial. Please pray, recalling the promise: 'What you are to say will be given to you in that hour.' (Matthew 10:19)

* NORTHERN IRELAND (UK): PREACHER 'NOT GUILTY'

Update to RLPBs 320 and 340 (28 July and 16 Dec 2015). On 5 January 2016 the Belfast Magistrates Court concluded that, though Pastor James McConnell's remarks about Islam were offensive, they did not reach the high threshold of being 'grossly offensive'. McConnell was therefore found to be not guilty. However, the law used against McConnell will continue to be used against critics of Islam or same-sex marriage, etc. As rulings are arbitrary, freedom of speech is not guaranteed. It is a deeply flawed, subjective law that the intolerant can exploit to silence their critics.

* SUDAN: MORE ARRESTS AS PERSECUTION ESCALATES

Rev Hassan Abdelrahim
Morning Star News

Christian activist Talahon Nigosi Kassa Ratta (36), a member of the Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church (SPEC), was arrested on 14 December 2015. Detained without charge, reportedly he has been questioned extensively about his relationship with a foreign missionary, although Christians suspect he was targeted for protesting against government persecution of the Khartoum Bahri Evangelical Church. On 18 December 2015 authorities from the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) arrested Rev Kowa Shamaal at his home in Khartoum Bahri (north) and Rev Hassan Abdelrahim at his home in Omdurman. Both men are associated with the Sudan Church of Christ (SCOC), of which Shamaal is the head of mission and Abdelrahim is vice-moderator. Both men are ethnic Nuba (from the Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan) and had objected to government demolitions of SCOC church properties. Though Kowa Shamaal has been conditionally released, Hassan Abdelrahim (a Muslim name) remains detained. Please pray.

THE MESOPOTAMIAN BATTLE FIELD

US soldiers join in a pre-dawn
Easter service, 2010
images: AINA

* IRAQ: Islamic State has demolished St Elijah's Monastery (known to the Assyrians as Dair Mar Elia) on the outskirts of Mosul. Built by Assyrian Christian monk, St Elijah, between AD 582 and 590, it was Iraq's most ancient monastery and one of the earliest Christian settlements in the wider region. The crime is irreversible and the Assyrians are inconsolable. IS believes that it is here to stay and that the Christian/Assyrian era is over. Of course, that is not what the Bible says:

In that day Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, whom the Lord of hosts has blessed, saying, 'Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my inheritance.' (Isaiah 19:23-25 ESV).

* SYRIA: A number of Assyrian businesses have been bombed in Qamishli, which is near the Turkish border in the north-east corner the country, where Christians face threats from IS, and tensions are building between Assyrian and Kurdish militias. The IS bombing of three Assyrian properties, including two restaurants, on the evening of 30 December was particularly heinous, killing 16 and wounding 45. Meanwhile, with Russian air support, the Syrian Arab Army has liberated strategic areas in Latakia formerly held by jihadist forces. Referred to in the media as an 'Assad stronghold', Latakia -- which is majority Alawite -- is also hosting hundreds of thousands of mostly displaced Christians. Latakia had been seriously threatened during 2015 by the advance of the Turkey-Saudi funded Jaysh el-Fateh, a rebel coalition led by al-Qaeda's al-Nusra Front but including US-armed and sponsored 'moderate rebels'. To the existentially imperilled Alawites and Christians of Latakia, these al-Qaeda-aligned 'rebels' are anything but moderate. May the Lord protect and preserve his people.

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Elizabeth Kendal is the author of
Turn Back the Battle: Isaiah Speaks to Christians Today 
(Deror Books, Dec 2012).

Her second book, After Saturday Comes Sunday: Understanding the Christian Crisis in the Middle East, will be published by Wipf and Stock (Eugene, OR, USA) in early 2016.

RLPB 340. December Update, Includes Ireland, Pakistan, Uganda, UK, UK-Northern Ireland, Vietnam, Yemen

Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin | RLPB 340 | Wed 16 Dec 2015

By Elizabeth Kendal

This is the final RLPB for 2015. Regular RLPBs will resume on 27 January 2016. However, brief alerts will be issued for urgent prayer needs as required.

It is a great honour for me to serve not only the Lord's precious persecuted church, but the Lord's vast global army of faithful intercessors through the weekly provision of these Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletins. So until 2016:

'Come, behold the works of the Lord, how he has brought desolations on the earth. He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the chariots with fire. "Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!" The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.' (Psalm 46:8-11 ESV)

DECEMBER 2015 UPDATE -- During December we prayed concerning ...

ADVENT (RLPB 338), noting that Christmas is a time of elevated risk of terrorism. Please continue to pray that plots will be thwarted, that would-be terrorists seeking divine empowerment will instead find the Lord and that God will prepare us for whatever lies ahead, working all things together for good 'for those who are called according to his purpose' (Romans 8:28 ESV).

WHAT THE PERSECUTED MIGHT HOPE FOR THIS CHRISTMAS (RLPB 339), noting that, while celebrating the coming of Christ, millions of believers will be hoping not for mince tarts and new gadgets, but for peace, security, religious freedom and the return of captive and imprisoned loved ones. Give the persecuted a gift: recruit another intercessor who will join us in prayer for those things hoped-for.

DECEMBER 2015 ROUND-UP -- also this month ...

* IRELAND: NO MORE RELIGIOUS EXEMPTIONS
On Tuesday 1 December the Dail (Irish parliament) voted unanimously to pass the new Equality (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill which replaces the Employment Equality Act, and which comes without religious exemptions.  Previously, specific exemptions gave 'religious, educational or medical institutions' the right to act 'in order to maintain the religious ethos of the institution'. Without these exemptions, religious, educational and medical institutions will be obliged, by law, to respect and advance 'diversity'. The move is profoundly discriminatory, for while political institutions will be permitted to act to preserve their ethos, religious institutions will not. Whilst LGBTI employees in religious institutions will be able to 'come out' without fear of retrenchment, religious institutions will not be able to preserve their own values without fear of a law suit. As well as being anti-religion, the law is also anti-diversity, for it will ultimately result in the loss of distinctively Christian schools and hospitals. According to Ireland's equality minister, this measure will not be the last, and is but one of many reforms to come. The move is indicative of rising hostility against Biblical Christianity in Ireland.

* PAKISTAN: CLEANSING ISLAMABAD OF POOR CHRISTIANS
Between 2007 and 2012 some 100,000 settlers arrived in Islamabad from Taliban-infested, war-ravaged Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), as well as from Balochistan and Punjab. This pushed Islamabad's population to two million, with the growth occurring predominantly in slums. In July Pakistan's Capital Development Authority (CDA) launched a demolition campaign. Citing the threat of terrorism, the CDA demolished a mostly Pashtun [Muslim] slum, triggering an outcry. In August, the Supreme Court issued a stay order, stopping the demolitions. Since then the CDA has changed its strategy.

On 4 December the CDA told Pakistan's Supreme Court, 'Most of these katchi abadis [slums] are under the occupation of the Christian community. It seems this pace of occupation of land by the Christian community may increase. Removal of katchi abadis is very urgent to provide a better environment to the citizens of Islamabad and to protect the beauty of Islam.'

Impoverished and persecuted, Christian families migrate to Islamabad in search of work and security.  Some 80,000 Christians live in Islamabad's Christian colonies/slums, comprising 4 percent of Islamabad's population. Many of these colonies have existed for 15 to 50 years. As the CDA presents its case for demolition to the Supreme Court, residents of about 30 Christian colonies have been issued with eviction notices. Should the demolitions proceed, these many tens of thousands of poor Christians will have nowhere else to go. Please pray for the Christians of Islamabad. Pray that the Supreme Court will rule justly and wisely and that Muslims will not respond to any incitement to take matters into their own hands.

* UGANDA: YET MORE MARTYRS IN EASTERN PROVINCE
'We need prayers,' a source tells Morning Star News (MSN), 'as the Muslims are out to destroy people who converted to Christ in this area, especially those of us who have sacrificed to share the love of Christ to our fellow Muslims.' Patrick Ojangole (43), a Christian convert from Islam, cared not only for his own five children, but for ten convert children rejected and abandoned by their Muslim families. On the night of Wednesday 2 December Ojangole and a companion went to the aid of two burka-clad women only to find it was a trap. The women drew swords and handed them to the Muslim attackers who killed Ojangole. His companion who escaped said one of the attackers was berating Ojangole for his refusal to stop his Christian activities. On Tuesday 8 December a mob of more than 20 Muslims similarly entrapped, ambushed and murdered Ismail Kuloba (43), a policeman who had left Islam for Christianity and was leading other Muslims to Christ. On 9 December a group of Muslims kidnapped three children aged five, seven and ten  from the home of Madengho Badir (42), another Christian convert from Islam. Unable to trace his children, Badir is distraught. 'I know the Muslims are doing this to frustrate my hope in Christ and to make me return to Islam ... my only hope is in Jesus.'

* UNITED KINGDOM (UK): GOVERNMENT PROPOSES REGULATING RELIGION
Ofsted (the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills) is a non-ministerial government department responsible for inspecting schools and regulating services to ensure they conform to 'British values' (by which is meant the Equality Act, which equates British values with moral and cultural relativism). Ofsted inspections have threatened a number of Jewish and Christian schools which, despite their academic excellence, have been deemed to be failing to promote 'British values'. Now the UK government has proposed that Ofsted be given powers to investigate non-school settings, i.e. anywhere children are taught or trained, including church camps, Sunday schools and youth programs. All out-of-school educational settings would have to register with the authorities and submit to routine inspections. 'Undesirable teaching' that 'undermines or is incompatible with fundamental British values' would be banned and those guilty of undermining 'British values' would be sanctioned. As the Christian Institute notes, this would turn Ofsted into a 'state regulator of religion'.

Though designed to rein in the promotion of 'extremism' in fundamentalist Islamic schools and youth programs (which is a serious problem), rabid secularists with their own agendas are exploiting the inspection regime to attack Christianity. This is exactly what we observe in Central Asian states like Uzbekistan, where laws designed to rein in militant and revolutionary Islam are exploited to suppress evangelical Christianity. The UK Department of Education has launched a consultation (which closes on 11 January) and the Christian Institute is spearheading the response (click here for details). Pray for revival in the UK, and that religious freedom will be preserved.

* UK: NORTHERN IRELAND

Rev. James and Margaret McConnell

Update to RLPB 320 (28 July). The trial of Pastor James McConnell (78) began on Monday 14 December and is expected to last three days. McConnell was charged with improper use of a public electronic communications network and causing a grossly offensive message to be sent by means of a public electronic communications network, after a sermon in which he criticised Islam was broadcast on the internet. McConnell had been responding to the death sentence for apostasy handed down in Khartoum to Christian convert Meriam Ibrahim. The case revolves around McConnell's words: 'I don't trust them [Muslims],' which the judge asserts is akin to vilifying all Muslims as liars, something McConnell strongly rejects. McConnell's accuser, Dr Raied Al-Wazzan of the Belfast Islamic Centre, was not called on to give evidence, for he has since discredited himself by commending Islamic State's rule in Mosul.

* VIETNAM: CAMPAIGN OF INTIMIDATION AGAINST CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE

Nguyen Van Dai, 6 Dec 2015
Radio Free Asia

On Sunday 6 December internationally acclaimed Christian advocate Nguyen Van Dai was attacked while returning to Hanoi after running a human rights information session in Nghe An Province.  Some ten masked assailants -- security personnel on motorbikes -- ambushed Dai's taxi. Dai, his three colleagues and the driver were dragged out of the car and beaten with clubs. Though his colleagues managed to escape and make their way back to Hanoi, Dai (the main target) was beaten severely, robbed and left on a bench. A passerby lent Dai his phone so he could call for help. Friends collected him and provided first aid. After being alerted that police were lying in wait to ambush Dai yet again, his friends drove him back to Hanoi by an alternative route.  In May 2014 Dai was beaten by plain-clothed security personnel while he was meeting with colleagues and students. A courageous religious liberty advocate and devout Protestant Christian, Nguyen Van Dai has already spent five years in prison for 'propagandising against the state of Vietnam'.

* YEMEN: CHURCH GRAVELY IMPERILLED

Church of the Immaculate Conception,
Aden, in better days.
 Independent Catholic News

Two Christian converts from Islam have been murdered in Taiz, south-west Yemen, both of whom had reportedly been professing Christ openly. One of the Christians was assassinated, shot multiple times by an AQAP (al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula) operative. Details surrounding the killing of the other Christian, who was shot to death in his home, are as yet unconfirmed. The martyrs' names have not been released. Yemen has grown increasingly lawless due to war and is essentially a failed state. The killings, which occurred in September and October, have shaken the convert community in Yemen, contributing to a growing sense of vulnerability and insecurity. In September masked assailants believed to be linked to AQAP torched St Joseph's Catholic Church (built 1855) in Aden. On Wednesday 9 December militants detonated explosives in the Church of the Immaculate Conception (built 1960s) in the Al-Ma'ala area of Aden. The church and adjoining priests' residence were totally destroyed. Christians in Yemen are mostly foreign aid workers, African refugees (many Eritreans) and converts from Islam. Pray for this gravely imperilled Church.

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Elizabeth Kendal is the author of
Turn Back the Battle: Isaiah Speaks to Christians Today
(Deror Books, Dec 2012).

Her second book, ‘After Saturday Comes Sunday’: Understanding the Christian Crisis in the Middle East, will be published by Wipf and Stock (Eugene, OR, USA) in early 2016.