Steel On Steel Persecution Update
April 28, 2010
Edited by: Donald McElvaney, www.missionbarnabas.org
Top Stories:
1. Messianic Jews in Israel Seek Public Apology for Attack
2. Buddhist Extremists in Bangladesh Beat, Take Christians Captive
3. ‘Pinpricks’ of Truth Making Way into North Korea
4. Theology Student Dies in Attack in Madhya Pradesh, India
5. Two Church of Christ in Nigeria Journalists Killed in Jos
6. Pakistani Muslims Severely Beat, Sodomize Christian Barber
1. Messianic Jews in Israel Seek Public Apology for Attack
Christians await court decision on assaults on services by ultra-orthodox Jews.
By Wayne King
ISTANBUL, April 23 (Compass Direct News) – After a final court hearing in Israel last week, a church of Messianic Jews awaits a judge’s decision that could force an ultra-orthodox Jewish organization to publicly apologize to them for starting a riot and ransacking a baptismal service. In 2006 Howard Bass, pastor of Yeshua’s Inheritance church, filed suit against Yehuda Deri, chief Sephardic rabbi in the city of Beer Sheva, and Yad L’Achim, an organization that fights against Messianic Jews, for allegedly inciting a riot at a December 2005 service that Bass was leading. Bass has demanded either a public apology for the attack or 1.5 million shekels (US$401,040) from the rabbi and Yad L’Achim. The case, Bass said, was ultimately about “defending the name of Yeshua ” and making sure that Deri, the leadership of Yad L’Achim and those that support them know they have to obey the law and respect the right of people to worship. “They are trying to get away from having any responsibility,” Bass said. The 2005 incident wasn’t the first time the church had to deal with a riotous attack after Yad L’Achim disseminated false information about their activities. On Nov. 28, 1998, a crowd of roughly 1,000 protestors broke up a Yeshua’s Inheritance service after the anti-Christian group spread a rumor that three busloads of kidnapped Jewish minors were being brought in for baptism. The assailants threw rocks, spit on parishioners and attempted to seize some of their children, Bass said.
2. Buddhist Extremists in Bangladesh Beat, Take Christians Captive
Pastor, two others held in pagoda in attempt to force them back to Buddhism.
By Aenon Shalom
DHAKA, Bangladesh, April 23 (Compass Direct News) – Buddhist members of an armed rebel group and their sympathizers are holding three tribal Christians captive in a pagoda in southeastern Bangladesh after severely beating them in an attempt to force them to return to Buddhism, Christian sources said. Held captive since April 16 are Pastor Shushil Jibon Talukder, 55; Bimol Kanti Chakma, 50; and Laksmi Bilas Chakma, 40, of Maddha Lemuchari Baptist Church in Lemuchari village, in Mohalchari sub-district of the mountainous Khagrachari district, some 300 kilometers (186 miles) southeast of Dhaka. They are to be kept in the pagoda for 15 to 20 days as punishment for having left the Buddhist religion, the sources said. Local Buddhists are considered powerful as they have ties with the United Peoples Democratic Front (UPDF), an armed group in the hill districts. After taking the Christians captive on April 16, the sources said, the next day the armed Buddhist extremists forced other Christians of Maddha Lemuchari Baptist Church to demolish their church building by their own hands. The sources said Pastor Talukder was bludgeoned nearly to death and had to be taken by wooden stretcher to the pagoda. Regional Sub-district Chairman Sona Ratan Chakma told Compass that the “three renegade Buddhists” are being kept in the pagoda for religious indoctrination. “They became Christian, and they were breaking the rules and customs of the Buddhist society, so elders of the society were angry with them,” Chakma said. “That is why they were sent to a pagoda for 15 to 20 days for their spiritual enlightenment, so that they can come back to their previous place .”
3. ‘Pinpricks’ of Truth Making Way into North Korea
Citizens increasingly enlightened about world’s worst violator of religious freedom.
By Sarah Page
DUBLIN, April 26 (Compass Direct News) – As refugees from North Korea and activists from Non-Governmental Organizations gather in Seoul, South Korea this week to highlight human rights violations in the hermit kingdom, there are signs that North Korean citizens are accessing more truth than was previously thought. A recent survey by the Peterson Institute found that a startling 60 percent of North Koreans now have access to information outside of government propaganda. “North Koreans are increasingly finding out that their misery is a direct result of the Kim Jong-Il regime, not South Korea and America as we were brainwashed from birth to believe,” Kim Seung Min of Free North Korea Radio said in a press statement. The radio station is a partner in the North Korea Freedom Coalition (NKFC), which is holding its annual North Korea Freedom Week in Seoul rather than Washington, D.C. for the first time in the seven-year history of the event. “We set out to double the radio listenership of 8 or 9 percent, and we’ve seen a dramatic increase in the number of people who have access to information,” said NKFC Co-Chair Suzanne Scholte. She described the flow of information as “pinpricks in a dark veil over North Korea. Now those pinpricks are becoming huge holes.” The radio station now air-drops radios into North Korea and broadcasts into the country for five hours a day, adding to information gleamed by refugees and merchants who cross the border regularly to buy Chinese goods. “This is a spiritual conflict as well as a physical one – some people didn’t want us to call it freedom week,” she said. “But we’re making a statement … God gives us freedom by the very nature of being human and North Koreans are entitled to that too.”
4. Theology Student Dies in Attack in Madhya Pradesh, India
Hindu extremists raid revival meeting in one area, while others attack gospel event in another.
By Shireen Bhatia
NEW DELHI, April 27 (Compass Direct News) – Hindu extremists raided Christian events in India’s Madhya Pradesh state this month, leaving a visiting theology student dead and several other Christians injured. The body of 23-year-old Amit Gilbert was recovered from a water well 25 feet from the site of a Christian revival meeting that 15 to 20 Hindu extremists attacked on April 17 in Gram Fallaiya, Post Pathakheda, Betul district. With covered heads and carrying iron rods and bamboo clubs, members of the Hindu extremist Dharam Sena and Bajrang Dal cut electricity at the night-time event and began striking, sending the more than 400 in attendance running, Christian leaders said. Eyewitnesses said the assailants chased Gilbert, of Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh state, and beat him mainly on his legs. Police in the state controlled by the Hindu extremist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said that for the moment they believe Gilbert accidentally fell into the well amid the chaos, but Christians present said that is unlikely. His body was found with his head and legs submerged in the 1.5-meter deep water of the well, yet he had no water in his lungs or stomach when Christians drew him out, said Pastor Santwan Lal, organizer of the April 15-17 revival event, suggesting that Gilbert was dead before being thrown in. In Balaghat on April 14 and 15, Hindu extremists attacked a three-day gospel meeting with fuel-bombs in spite of the presence of police summoned beforehand to provide security. Police increased security for the April 15 meeting, but as it was drawing to a close about 150 BJP and Bajrang Dal members surrounded the stadium. “Christians who were returning from the meeting and attempting to get away from Balaghat as soon as possible were attacked and beaten with sticks and pelted with stones,” said Dr. Amos Singh of Jeevan Jyoti Ministries.
5. Two Church of Christ in Nigeria Journalists Killed in Jos
Other Christians murdered in area that continues to be wracked by violence.
By Lekan Otufodunrin
LAGOS, Nigeria, April 27 (Compass Direct News) – The killing of Christians in Jos, Plateau state in Nigeria continued over the weekend with two journalists and five other persons falling victim to Muslim youth gangs. Nathan S. Dabak, an assistant editor at a newspaper of the Church of Christ in Nigeria (COCIN) called The Light Bearer, and Sunday Gyang Bwede, a reporter at the publication, were stabbed to death on Saturday (April 24) at Gado-Bako in Jos North Local Government Area along with an unidentified motorcyclist. “The staff of the church were murdered in cold blood by some Hausa Muslim youths,” the Rev. Pandang Yamsat, president of COCIN, told Compass today. “This is clear because they have been using the hand phones of the deceased journalists and boasting that they are the ones that killed them.” The young Muslim men have been boldly answering calls to the cell phones of the deceased journalists, he said; when a friend of Dabak called his cell phone number, an unknown voice responded, “We have killed all of them – you can do your worst!” Four other Christians also were killed on Saturday (April 24) in the Dutse Uku district of Jos’ Nasarawa Gwom area in a revenge attack following the discovery of the corpse of a teenager Muslim who had been declared missing. Their names were not released at press time. The four Christians reportedly died, three of them stabbed to death, when hundreds of Muslim youths rampaged throughout the area in protest.
6. Pakistani Muslims Severely Beat, Sodomize Christian Barber
Brother of Muslim who insisted on having beard cut, seven others, break hair-cutter’s bones.
By Jawad Mazhar
SARGODHA, Pakistan, April 28 (Compass Direct News) – A Christian barber in this Punjab Province city is still recovering from broken bones and other injuries sustained earlier this month after eight Muslims allegedly beat and sodomized him for cutting the beard of a Muslim. Marwat Masih, 29, initially refused the request of 19-year-old Qandeel Cheema to cut his beard in Sargodha’s Gulshan-e-Bashir town on April 13, knowing that area Sunni Muslims believe the Quran prohibits it. But Cheema, a high school student, told Masih that he had lived and studied in Lahore and therefore wanted a more modern look, the bed-ridden and feeble Masih told Compass. As Masih was cutting Cheema’s beard, the client’s older brother – local radical Muslim land owner Shakeel Cheema – discovered them and began ransacking his barbershop and beating him with his shoes, Masih said. Ordering his younger brother to go to Lahore, Cheema and his companions blindfolded Masih, and he later found himself in a locked room, where they broke his ribs, as well as bones in his wrist and legs. “Shakeel Cheema said, ‘Now we are going to teach you a real lesson for shaving the beard of a Muslim man,” Masih said, and after a long, pained pause he related how Cheema and the seven others sodomized him. “I started bleeding and fell unconscious.” Police have refused family requests to file a First Information Report against Cheema and his accomplices, who all remained at large at press time.
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