Bulletin of Christian Persecution June 22-July 22, 2011

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

June 22, 2011-July 21, 2011

June 22, 2011
Sudan
The Bishop of Kadugli is calling upon Christians worldwide to pray and fast ahead of South Sudan's secession next month. He has warned of a possible "genocide" in the Nuba Mountains region, where violence has broken out in recent weeks. The region, home to many Christians, will remain under the control of Khartoum and the Muslim North when South Sudan gains its independence on July 9.

As Sudanese tanks and artillery move in, hundreds of thousands of Nuba are fleeing their homes and development agencies have withdrawn their staff. UN officials and eyewitnesses escaping the bloodshed tell of elders being executed by the Sudanese Army and bombing campaigns that have destroyed churches and homes.
More HERE.

June 24, 2011
Egypt
Hundreds of Muslims surrounded the church of St George today in the village of Beni Ahmed West, 7 KM south of Minya, vowing to kill its priest Father George Thabet, who was serving the morning mass and was locked in the church with a number of parishioners. Security forces arrived five hours later and escorted Father George in a police car to the Coptic Diocese in Minya. "Father George looked as if he was the criminal, leaving his church in a police car." said one of the eye-witnesses.

The Coptic youth who were attending mass remained inside church to defend it from Muslim attacks. Eyewitnesses reported the Muslim mob, in their white dresses and long beards, chanted "We will kill the priest, we will kill him and no one will prevent us." One of their leaders said that they will "…cut him to pieces."

June 26, 2011
Egypt
A mob of nearly 200 Muslims torched eight Christian homes on Saturday morning in the Upper Egyptian village of Awlad Khalaf. The attack was initiated by a rumor that a house which is being built by Wahib Halim Attia will be turned into a church. Two Christians and one Muslim were injured, no fatalities were reported.

June 27, 2011
Senegal
Hundreds of Muslim protesters descended on a Jehovah's Witness temple and a bar in a conservative Muslim neighbourhood of the Senegalese capital on Sunday, setting the buildings on fire in a rare instance of religious extremism in the predominantly Muslim nation.

Thierno Mbeugne, spokesman for the local imam association, said the head imam in the conservative Yoff district of Dakar had asked the youths to march on Sunday against what they considered "acts of aggression against their faith." They were targeting the temple because they claim its members were proselytizing, and the bar because it was selling alcohol.

June 28, 2011
Egypt
Egypt's school curriculum, laden with anti-Semitic and anti-Christian sentiment, must undergo drastic reform to comply with international standards, according to a new report to be presented this week at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

"Egypt has to conduct fundamental reforms in its curricula, which present a national identity based solely on the Islamic religion," said Yohanan Manor, chairman and co-founder of the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education the Jerusalembased think-tank that compiled the report.

July 1, 2011
Iran (hat tip to JihadWatch )
An Iranian pastor, convicted of apostasy and sentenced to death, may have only hours or days to live, according to a US-based Christian ministry acquainted with the facts of his case. Jason DeMars, of www.presenttruthmn.com, told ANS: "We have been notified that the conviction of brother Youcef Nadarkhani for apostasy, as well as the sentence of death, has been upheld and confirmed by the Iranian Supreme Court. "The way that this situation is typically handled is that at any time, and without advance notice, they will carry out the death sentence. First, they will ask him to recant, and if he does not, then he will be executed." His death sentence was reportedly overturned, update HERE. But the preacher is under pressure to recant his Christian faith, update HERE. An unofficial translation of the pastor's death sentence HERE.

Egypt (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Eyewitnesses said fighting began in the village of Qolosna in Upper Egypt's Minya Governorate after several Muslim taxi drivers reportedly bothered a group of Christian girls. Shots were fired in the air and the injured - four Christians and three Muslims, according to security sources - were taken to hospital in the nearby town of Samalout. Security sources said 10 people were arrested over the clashes and are being investigated. Eyewitnesses said the military had imposed a local curfew starting after Friday afternoon prayers.

Ethopia (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
An Ethiopian court has sentenced 558 people to jail terms ranging from six months to 25 years for attacks on Christians that displaced thousands and led 69 churches to be burned to the ground. More than 4,000 members of local Protestant denominations were forced to flee near the town of Asendabo, some 300 kilometres (186 miles) west of the capital, in March during a rare bout of religious violence.
Mobs of Muslim youths carried out week-long attacks on Protestants after rumours that desecrated pages from the Koran had been found at a church construction site. Authorities reported a single death from the attacks.

Egypt
On Thursday evening, June 30, Muslims looted and torched Christian homes and businesses in the village of western Kolosna in Samalut, Minya province. It was reported that some 10 Christians were injured, but none went to hospital and first aid was administered at home. Muslim violence broke out when a Coptic couple was returning to Kolosna by bus when the wife was severely sexually harassed by Muslims at the bus terminal. The husband tried to defend his wife but was severely beaten.

Coptic witnesses said that shortly after the altercation thousands of Muslims from the predominantly Muslim east side of Kolosna roamed the western side of Kolosna, which is about 75% Coptic, and started looting and torching Christian property. Christians hid in their homes for fear of attacks by the Muslim mob.

Several calls were made to CTV, Coptic TV Channel, asking for help and besieged resident reported on live television the horror of the mob attacks, saying Muslims surrounded Christian homes and chanted "Allahu Akbar" and shouted "Get their weapons." "They were cursing the cross and taunting us that we will stay inside and never be allowed in the streets again," said one caller to the television program. Copts reported that Muslims were armed with swords, batons and guns and they shot into the air.

July 5, 2011
Pakistan (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
A group of Muslims tries to seize forcibly a Christian hospital near Islamabad by making false claims with police. The intervention of Christian leaders and Bishop Rufin Anthony stops the threat.

Nigeria (Hat tip to Tony Collins)
Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), has described the proposal by the Central Bank of Nigeria to introduce Islamic Banking as part of the hidden agenda by Muslims to Islamise Nigeria, warning that the implementation of such divisive policy will break the country along religious lines.

Pakistan (Hat tip to FrontPage Mag)
Pakistan's Christian Sex-Slaves: A Case Study.

July 6, 2011
Egypt (Hat tip to Frontpage Mag)
If growing numbers of Muslims in Egypt have an intrinsic hatred for all things Christian- demonstrated days ago by the torching of eight Christian homes on the rumor that a church was being built-let us not forget that this hate has instrumental, that is, economic benefits: the extortion of money from the non-believer-tribute from the conquered infidels to their Islamic overlords-otherwise known as jizya.

July 11, 2011
Nigeria
The post-presidential election violence which took place in most part of the North and which resulted in the death of many innocent Nigerians, including 10 youth corps members has been said to be premeditated. This was disclosed to journalists by the Ndigbo community leader in Kano, Chief Tobias Michael Idika, during the conferment of distinguished leadership merit award on him by the Christian Democratic Journalists, in Lagos, on Saturday. In his address on the occasion, Chief Idika, who had lived in Kano for the past 30 years, said "I stand here to affirm that the violence which trailed President Goodluck Jonathan's victory was premeditated and a calculated attempt to debase and smear the southerners living in the North.

Indonesia [Java] (hat tip to JihadWatch)
The faithful still have to pray by the roadside after their church was shut down. Radical Muslim groups continue to disrupt their activities and issue threats against them. The mayor of Bogor still refuses to accept a ruling by the country's Supreme Court upholding the Church's right to build its own places of worship. More HERE.

Bangladesh
Police claim a foreign doctor's Christian literature offended Muslims. Police in Bangladesh have charged two Christians "hurting religious sensibility" just three days after they were cleared of any wrongdoing. The accused will appear in court tomorrow to face the charges, which were filed against them three days after they were exonerated on April 10. They had been arrested on March 24, under Section 54 of the penal code, which provides a special power to police to arrest anyone on any suspicion. They were released on bail three days later.

Kazakhstan
Pastor Yerzhan Ushanov of New Life Protestant Church is looking at two years' imprisonment if criminal charges for injuring an individual's health ever come to court, Christian rights investigators said.
Ushanov is facing prosecution under Criminal Code Article 111 - "causing severe damage to health due to negligence" - for allegedly hurting the health of Aleksandr Kereyev by praying for him. Article 111 carries a very large fine, or community service of up to 200 hours, or up to two years' imprisonment.

July 12, 2011
Nigeria (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Thousands have fled the Nigerian city of Maiduguri over the past two days fearing more Islamist attacks and after soldiers were accused of shooting civilians, residents said Tuesday. Residents piled into the backs of trucks with personal belongings stuffed in sacks or packed up cars to leave the northeastern city, which has seen the brunt of the violence blamed on the Islamist sect known as Boko Haram.
Another blast targeted at a patrol team hit the city Tuesday, the military said, wounding two soldiers and killing three alleged attackers. A hospital nurse said four people were killed from what appeared to be stray bullets.

Hundreds of troops have been deployed in a bid to stop the sect, blamed for a raft of deadly bomb attacks and shootings, and last weekend a shootout between soldiers and suspected sect members left at least 11 dead. More HERE.

Canada (Hat tip to InfidelsAreCool)
A majority-Muslim public school in Toronto is defending its policy of allowing an imam to lead Friday prayers in the cafeteria, saying students who leave school for prayers at a mosque typically don't return to school. Christian and other prayers are disallowed in the public school system.

July 15, 2011
Iraq (Hat tip to AtlasShrugs)
The year 2010 was the worst year to date for the Christian community in Iraq, it has been revealed by the organization for human rights in Iraq, Hammurabi. Many Christians were forced to leave the country in fear of killings and violence of all kinds. The death toll among Christians over the past seven years, according to Hammurabi exceeds 822 people.

July 16, 2011
Iraq
Here's a short film that documents the near-genocide of Iraq's ancient Assyrian Christian civilization "Defying Deletion: The Fight Over Iraq's Nineveh Plains."

July 20, 2011
Egypt (Hat tip to Grendel and his mom)
The incidences of Muslim men using violence and sex to convert Christian girls has gone up since the January revolution.

Turkey
A group of Protestants in Van have finally succeeded in opening a house church in the eastern province after seven years of grappling with local governments, yet many in the congregation remain concerned by hostile rhetoric from officials.

July 21, 2011
USA/Egypt
Raymond Ibrahim reports on the 2nd Annual Coptic Solidarity Conference titled, "Will Religious and Ethnic Minorities Pay the Price of the 'Arab Spring'?"

Pakistan
The religious intolerance that is destroying Pakistan continues unabated. The latest case in point is that of a couple comprising a Christian and a Muslim, who married without the consent of the families of origin and are now forced to live on the run from one place to another for fear of violence.

Saudi Arabia
Facing a possible death sentence, Eyob Mussie, a Christian refugee living in Saudi Arabia, was instead informed that he will be returned to Eritrea, a nation where returnees often face imprisonment, torture and even death. Mussie was arrested in Saudi Arabia last February for proselytizing, a crime that carries the death penalty, but though he will be spared that sentence in Saudi, he will certainly suffer mistreatment or worse should he be returned to Eritrea.

July 22 2011
Pakistan
Three Muslims convicted of killing a Christian in Pakistan's Punjab Province for refusing to convert to Islam last year have been given life sentences, according to attorneys for the European Centre for Law and Justice in Pakistan.

Produced by Political Islam.com
Publisher: Bill Warner; Edited by Asma Marwan
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