Tag Archives: warns
Taliban in Pakistan warns Christian leaders to convert to Islam
International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that on October 6, members of the Taliban sent threatening letters in Sargodha, Pakistan warning Christian leaders to convert to Islam or face dire consequences, reports Dan Wooding, founder of ASSIST Ministries.
A copy of the letter obtained by ICC warns Christians to convert to Islam, pay Jizya tax (an Islamic tax imposed on religious minorities) or leave the country. If Christians refuse to accept the choices given to them, the letter explains that they “would be killed, their property and homes would be burnt to ashes and their women would be treated as sex slaves. And they themselves would be responsible for this.”
Rev. Zaheer Khan, pastor of Maghoo Memorial Church, Rev. Aamir Azeem, pastor of United Christians Church and Rev. Zafar Akhter, pastor of United Presbyterian Church each received a copy of threatening letter.
“The Islamists sent the letters to the following Christian institutions: St Peter’s Middle School, Sargodha Institute of Technology, Sargodha Catholic High School, St John’s Primary School and Fatima Hospital,” said an ICC spokesperson.
“Besides the Christian institutions, the letter was also sent to the main Immam-Bar-Gha (Shiite Muslim’s gathering hall). Shiites are a minority Muslim group in Pakistan where the majority of the population is Sunni Muslim.”
ICC’s Jonathan Racho said, “Christians in Pakistan are soft targets for attacks by Islamic extremists. Over the past four months alone, 12 Christians have been killed by Muslims due to their faith. We are alarmed by the increase in attacks against Christians in Pakistan. We urge Pakistani officials to take the threatening letters seriously and take measures to protect the Christians and their institutions from attacks.”
Note: ICC is a Washington-DC based human rights organization that exists to help persecuted Christians worldwide. ICC provides Awareness, Advocacy, and Assistance to the worldwide persecuted Church.
Report from the Christian Telegraph
LAOS: OFFICIALS ANNOUNCE BAN ON CHRISTIANITY IN VILLAGE
Chief warns Christians to worship only local spirits or lose homes.
DUBLIN, July 16 (Compass Direct News) – Following the confiscation of livestock from Christian families earlier this month, officials in a village in Laos on Saturday (July 11) called a special meeting for all residents and announced that they had “banned the Christian faith in our village.”
The chief of Katin village, along with village security, social and religious affairs officials, warned all 53 Christian residents that they should revert to worshiping local spirits in accordance with Lao tradition or risk losing all village rights and privileges – including their livestock and homes, according to advocacy group Human Rights Watch for Lao Religious Freedom (HRWLRF).
The Katin village leader also declared that spirit worship was the only acceptable form of worship in the community, HRWLRF reported. Katin village is in Ta Oih district, Saravan Province.
The previous Sunday (July 5), officials and residents confiscated one pig each from nine Christian families and slaughtered the animals in an effort to force them to renounce their faith. Officials said the seizure of the pigs – each worth the equivalent of six weeks’ salary for an average laborer in the area – was punishment for ignoring the order to abandon Christianity. (See “Officials Seize, Slaughter Christians’ Livestock,” July 10.)
According to HRWLRF, the chief’s order clearly contravened Article 6 and Article 30 of the Lao Constitution, which guarantees the right of Christians and other religious minorities to practice the religion of their choice without discrimination or penalty.
In addition, HRWLRF stated that Katin officials had violated Article 53 of the 2003 Law on Local Administration, which requires them to abide by the constitution and other laws and to provide for the safety and well-being of all people living under their care.
Officials in Katin have a history of ignoring constitutional religious freedoms. On July 21, 2008, officials detained 80 Christians in the village after residents seized a Christian identified only as Pew and poured rice wine down his throat, killing him by asphyxiation.
When family members buried Pew and placed a wooden cross on his grave, officials accused them of “practicing the rituals of the enemy of the state” and seized a buffalo and pig from them as a fine.
On July 25, 2008, officials rounded up 17 of the 20 Christian families then living in the village – a total of 80 men, women and children – and detained them in a school compound, denying them food in an effort to force the adults to sign documents renouncing their faith. The other three Christian families in the village at that time had already signed the documents under duress.
As their children grew weaker, 10 families signed the documents and were permitted to return home. The remaining seven families were evicted from the village and settled in an open field nearby, surviving on whatever food sources they could find in the jungle.
Suffering from the loss of their property and livelihoods, however, the seven families eventually recanted their faith and moved back into the village. But over time, some of the Christians began gathering again for prayer and worship.
On Sept. 8, 2008, provincial and district authorities called a meeting in Katin village and asked local officials and residents to respect the religious laws of the nation.
Four days later, however, village officials seized a buffalo worth approximately US$350 from a Christian resident identified only as Bounchu, telling him the animal would be returned only if he renounced his faith. When he refused, they slaughtered the animal in the village square and distributed the meat to non-Christian residents.
Report from Compass Direct News
Conclusive scientific evidence: homosexuality is treatable
The U.S.-based National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) has just released its long-awaited comprehensive review of over 125 years of scientific research on homosexuality, reports Family Watch International.
This groundbreaking report, “What Research Shows,” dispels the myths that are commonly used to promote the legalization of same-sex marriage and the mainstreaming of homosexuality throughout society and in the public schools by force of law.
NARTH is a professional association of scientists and mental health professionals whose stated mission is to conduct and disseminate scientific research on homosexuality, promote effective treatment, and to protect the right of individuals with unwanted same-sex attraction to receive effective care.
While one might think that such a mission would be viewed as both commendable and relatively non-controversial, the reality is just the opposite. Homosexual activists try to suppress research on same-sex attraction because one of the pillars of homosexual advocacy is the falsehood that homosexuals are “born that way” and cannot change their orientation. Since the NARTH report proves that homosexuality can be changed through therapy in the same way conditions like alcoholism and other addictions can be changed, the whole case for mainstreaming homosexuality into society crumbles. Another myth the NARTH report disproves is that therapy to help people with unwanted same-sex attraction is ineffective and even harmful.
The extensive research and clinical experience reviewed by NARTH makes it clear even to a layman that these claims are false. Homosexual activists spread these misconceptions about homosexuality and even persecute their own who seek treatment because they know that public opinion polls show that people who believe homosexuals are born that way are more likely to support the homosexual agenda. NARTH is one of the very few credible, professional organizations anywhere in the world that is successfully challenging this propaganda.
Specifically, the NARTH report substantiates the following conclusions:
1. There is substantial evidence that sexual orientation may be changed through reorientation therapy.
“Treatment success for clients seeking to change unwanted homosexuality and develop their heterosexual potential has been documented in the professional and research literature since the late 19th century. …125 years of clinical and scientific reports which document those professionally-assisted and other attempts at volitional change from homosexuality toward heterosexuality has been successful for many and that such change continues to be possible for those who are motivated to try.”
2. Efforts to change sexual orientation have not been shown to be consistently harmful or to regularly lead to greater self-hatred, depression, and other self-destructive behaviors.
“We acknowledge that change in sexual orientation may be difficult to attain. As with other difficult challenges and behavioral patterns—such as low-self-esteem, abuse of alcohol, social phobias, eating disorders, or borderline personality disorder, as well as sexual compulsions and addictions—change through therapy does not come easily.”
“We conclude that the documented benefits of reorientation therapy—and the lack of its documented general harmfulness—support its continued availability to clients who exercise their right of therapeutic autonomy and self-determination through ethically informed consent.”
The NARTH report warns that “The limited body of clinical reports that claim that harm is possible—if not probable— if a person simply attempts to change typically were written by gay activist professionals.”
3. There is significantly greater medical, psychological, and relational pathology in the homosexual population than the general population.
“Researchers have shown that medical, psychological and relationship pathology within the homosexual community is more prevalent than within the general population. …In some cases, homosexual men are at greater risk than homosexual women and heterosexual men, while in other cases homosexual women are more at risk than homosexual men and heterosexual women. …Overall, many of these problematic behaviors and psychological dysfunctions are experienced among homosexuals at about three times the prevalence found in the general population—and sometimes much more. …We believe that no other group of comparable size in society experiences such intense and widespread pathology.”
You can read NARTH’s executive summary of the report on our Web site here.
Report from the Christian Telegraph
RUSSIAN CHURCH WARNS EUROPEANS OF EFFECTS OF CHRISTIAN PHOBIA
The Russian Orthodox Church believes that the European community should take urgent measures to combat Christian phobia in today’s Europe, reports Interfax-Religion.
“We should become aware that Christian phobia was generated by Christian civilization, or whatever we call European civilization now. Christian phobia is nothing else but malignant cancer which threatens European civilization with fatal effects,” Russian Church representative at the European Council Hegumen Filaret (Bulekov) said at the Dialogue of Civilizations World Public Forum in Prague.
He urged “not only Christians, but also all bearers of traditional European culture formed by Christianity to consider carefully their cultural survival in today’s globalizing world and ask themselves why so many of them feel no concern about the present and the future of their culture and their religious traditions.”
“We need to acknowledge that it is impossible to put the blame for Christian phobia displays on Muslims, immigrants or the so-called “Civilization Clash”. It is the essential and primary fault of successors to European Christian culture, that is, our fault,” Fr. Filaret said.
Report from the Christian Telegraph
INDIAN BISHOP WARNS OF ‘SECRET AGENDA’ TO REMOVE CHRISTIANS
As India conducts its month-long national elections, a leading Indian bishop has accused Hindu nationalists of threatening Orissa state voters with violence and pursuing a “secret agenda” to flush Christians out of the region, reports Catholic News Agency.
Archbishop Raphael Cheenath of the Archdiocese of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar, speaking in an interview with the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), claimed that leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have made death threats against people unwilling to vote for them. He said the BJP was determined to eliminate Christianity from Orissa state’s Kandhamal district, where the vast majority of the state’s churchgoers live. Catholic priests in Orissa report that the BJP has warned Christians in Kandhamal district that if they voted for other candidates, the party would bully them into leaving the area, ACN says.
Nearly 30,000 people fled the district in 2007 and 2008 during anti-Christian attacks on nearly 300 villages in Kandhamal. Eighty people, including a Catholic priest, were killed. About 270 churches and chapels were desecrated while 6,000 homes were destroyed.
Archbishop Cheenath told ACN that people in relief camps in Kandhamal were generally able to vote. However, he said “several thousands” who fled the district during the violence were denied the vote because they were prevented from registering.
“The BJP party officials have threatened to attack the Christians and chase them away. The threats were very serious and there has been a great fear among the people,” the archbishop said, speaking from Bangalore.
“The problem for the people was made worse because the authorities in Orissa took no tangible steps to prevent such things from happening.”
“The secret agenda of the [BJP politicians] is to remove the Christians from Kandhamal,” Archbishop Cheenath said. “It was clear that this was what they wanted to do before the elections and if they win again there is no doubt that they will continue in that way.”
A Catholic priest in Kandhamal on election day reported that trees had been felled to block access to villages in order to prevent people from voting. The same tactic was used during the anti-Christian violence.
The priest said there was hardly any movement of the people.
“My colleagues and I were scared… I reached the polling booth of my village but after only two hours [of voting] the booth was literally empty. We were the first ones to cast our votes.”
The priest told ACN it was important to remember that thousands of people are still living outside the district and had not exercised their vote.
“Are these not citizens?” he asked.
The priest also alleged that four Hindus gang-raped a girl after learning that her uncle had refused to abandon his Christian faith.
In the run-up to the elections, BJP Kandhamal candidate Ashok Sahu was arrested for making an anti-Christian speech in the village of Raikia. He has since been released.
According to ACN, Sahu was closely linked to Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, the militant anti-Christian Hindu leader whose murder last August, allegedly by Maoists, sparked widespread violence against churchgoers.
Report from the Christian Telegraph
US INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM WARNS ABOUT YEMEN
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom has issued a warning about the status of religious prisoners in Yemen, and cited the cases of Baha’is and Christians, who have been imprisoned for months without charge, reports Ecumenical News International.
In a 16 October statement, the commission said that some of the Baha’i prisoners could be deported to Iran, where, according to the commission, the Iranian government has imprisoned and tortured followers of the Baha’i faith. The Christian prisoners, who are converts from Islam, could face the death penalty in Yemen if charged with apostasy.
Report from the Christian Telegraph
INDONESIA: LAND DISPUTE LEADS TO ATTACKS ON CHRISTIAN HUB
Public Order officer warns ministry chairman to be ‘careful of your life.’
JAKARTA, September 3 (Compass Direct News) – A land dispute led to two attacks on the headquarters of the Indonesian Christian Students’ Movement (GMKI) and its parent ministry, the Alliance of Indonesian Churches (PGI), last week (August 26 and 28).
Sources said an illegal land deal in Jakarta has created the bitter dispute between the GMKI and a private company that claims it has the legal right to build on land previously occupied by GMKI.
GMKI and PGI share an office on the disputed land. Sources said that on August 26 volunteer Public Order officials – who normally mediate local disputes, but who in this case have sided with the private company laying claim to the land, Kencana Indotama Persada Co. (KIP) – threw stones at the Christian organizations’ offices and damaged doors, windows and student motorbikes.
On Thursday (Aug. 28), according to sources, the Public Order officers again attacked the premises, this time using heavy implements to break glass panes and damage other property. Students present fled to a nearby office of the Indonesia Bible Institute (LAI). Policemen standing nearby on the street made no attempt to intervene.
Mysterious Appropriation
The disputed property is a large piece of land originally granted by the Dutch colonial government to the Vereneging Christian School (VCS) Foundation. The VCS then gave the land to the Christian School Association, which in turn passed it on to a branch of its own association, the Christian Education Foundation (YBPK).
Although occupied by many Christian ministries and associations, including the Christian University of Indonesia and LAI, sources said the land belonged to YBPK.
Under the terms of the land grant, the land could not legally be sold to business entities, according to GMKI lawyer Nikson Lalu. In August 2006, however, a board member of YBPK, acting independently of the board, sold a small plot of land to KIP. An old office belonging to GMKI was still standing on the plot of land, adjacent to a newer building shared by GMKI and PGI.
Compass sources noted that a gas station and business offices had replaced other ministry offices on the granted land. It was not clear, however, how the businesses had appropriated the land from YBPK.
Dispute Escalates
Sources said that on August 23, at around 5 p.m., Public Order officer Simanjuntak, who has only a single name, visited the GMKI office and informed staff members that a boundary wall would be built between their current building and the old building, which was now considered the property of KIP.
KIP then erected a boundary wall between the two buildings, sources said, and KIP construction workers also used a bulldozer to partially demolish the old GMKI office despite protests from GMKI Chairman Charles Hutahaean. On August 26, GMKI students demolished the boundary wall that KIP had erected.
GMKI had filed a complaint against KIP in the district court, according to sources, but the court ruled in favor of KIP. GMKI’s lawyer then took the case to the Supreme Court, which at press time had yet to announce a decision.
Sources said that KIP claimed it had a previous letter of decision from the Supreme Court stating that KIP was the owner of the disputed land, despite the fact that the land could not legally be sold to a business enterprise.
A day before the first attack, Public Order officers had a confrontation with GMKI students. On August 25, Public Order officers noted that GMKI students had erected a banner inside their own boundary fence, facing the street, protesting against a new bylaw forbidding the sale of fruit, cigarettes and other goods by street vendors in the area.
When officers tried to remove the banner, according to sources, the students protested, claiming that since the banner was on their own property, they did not require a permit from the district office to display it.
Attacks, Threat
At around 4 p.m. on August 26, a large group of Public Order officers returned to the shared GMKI and PGI premises and began to throw stones at the building, breaking glass window and door panes and damaging motorbikes owned by GMKI students.
Sources said the students threw stones back at the officers, who then scaled the fence and tried to break into the PGI building itself; a PGI security guard managed to stop them.
The following day, Jakarta Vice-Governor Prijanto, who has only a single name, met with PGI Chairman Andreas Yewangoe and other PGI leaders. He apologized for the disturbance and promised compensation for the damaged property.
Additionally, Engkartiasto Lukito of the Golkar party and Ara Sirait of the Indonesian Democratic Struggle Party (PdiP) came to offer condolences, as did Hasyim Muzadi, leader of Nahdatul Ulama, the largest Muslim organization in Indonesia.
Nevertheless, on Thursday (Aug. 28), Public Order officers returned to carry out the second attack.
A Public Order officer involved in the dispute also warned GMKI Chairman Hutahaean to be “careful with your life.”
Compass sources explained that Public Order officers would likely benefit financially from protecting the business interests of KIP.
KIP construction workers on Friday (August 29) erected a sign on the disputed plot of land adjacent to the GMKI and PGI building, declaring that the land belonged to KIP.
Report from Compass Direct News
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