PRAY FOR THE PERSECUTED CHURCH - JUNE 2006

JUNE 4th - (Vietnam) - An estimated 50 police and other security forces and officials from Binh Khanh Ward in District 2 converged on the Mennonite church, office and residence of the Rev. Nguyen Hong Quang, demolishing new construction and arresting the pastor and 10 others.

5th - (India) - Animist worshipers of nature in a village in Jharkhand state this week humiliated and drove out a local family for becoming Christians. Santosh Karmali, 42, was forced to sign an agreement with followers of the Sarna religion in Dubalia village, Ranchi district, forfeiting his family’s land.

6th (Egypt) - Knife attacks on 3 churches on opposite sides of Alexandria left one Christian dead and more than a dozen wounded. The government promised to form a committee to investigate the attacks, but the committee has not yet been formed.

7th - (India) - The Rajasthan (state) legislature passed an anti-conversion law drafted by a Hindu extremist-backed political party. The bill targets “unlawful conversion from one religion to another” and specifically targets Christianity by defining conversion as the adopting of a religion other than that of one’s forefathers. The bill provides for the immediate arrest of the accused even before the investigation is done. Pratibha Patil, the Rajasthan Governor, refused to sign the bill into law, saying its provisions would violate religious freedom.

8th - (Iran) - An Iranian Christian, Ali Kaboli, is under arrest and interrogation in northern Iran, where secret police have held him incommunicado. No charges have been filed against Kaboli, who has been threatened in the past with legal prosecution for holding “illegal” religious meetings in his home. He could also be charged for converting to Christianity, which, under Iran’s apostasy laws, calls for the death penalty.

9th - (Eritrea) - The Eritrean government jailed three more leaders of the Orthodox Church’s Medhane Alem renewal movement, a long- established Sunday School movement within the church. Nine months ago, the church was put under de facto government control and in March, 65 key leaders of the church were excommunicated.

10th - (Eritrea) - Two days after Ghenet Gebremariam, an evangelical Christian mother, was arrested from her home and jailed by Eritrean police, her 6-month-old son died on his sickbed. She was arrested with two other Protestant mothers with children and members of the government-banned Full Gospel Church. They were detained on accusations of “actively witnessing about Christ.”

11th - (Sudan) - Shirakh Abdallah, a 23-year old university student, has been forced out of hiding when the government began arresting religious leaders for kidnapping her. Adballah sought shelter from churches, saying that her father was beating her because she had been spending time with Christians and wanted to convert to Christianity. Though religious freedom is theoretically enshrined in Sudan’s new constitution, conversion from Islam to another religion is against the law in northern Sudan.

12th - (Indonesia) - Police in Indonesia announced that suspected Islamic terrorists have confessed to beheading three Indonesian Christian girls in Poso, on the island of Sulawesi, in October 2005. The 3 girls were killed while walking to their Christian school.

13th - (Sri Lanka) - Unruly mobs have attacked three churches; in one incident they set car tires on fire in front of a Methodist church to prevent people from entering for Sunday worship - police declined to help. The police advised the church not to hold services in order to maintain the peace.

14th - (India) - Three local leaders of the Hindu nationalist BJP came to Pastor Mehboob Masih’s house and warned him not to hold the prayer meetings on Sundays under threats of being burned alive. Later that day, a senior officer of the Fateh Ganj police station came to Masih’s house and ordered him not to hold the prayer meeting the following day. The officer said that in the event of any resulting disturbances, police would arrest Masih.

15th - (India) - The House of Prayer, an independent house church, was attacked by 6 Hindu extremists during an Easter service. The extremists also warned the church not to hold further meetings. Pastor Francis, who goes by one name, said, “Initially, they stood outside my house and warned the Christians who were coming to attend the service not to enter the house. Later they came onto the terrace and started shouting, demanding that we stop the prayer right away.”

16th - (Eritrea) - 50 evangelical Christian students were put under harsh military punishment at Mai Nefhee Educational Institution, a military service center. The discovery of the 33 young women and 17 men was attributed to a Defense Ministry campaign to identify all students at the institution involved in “illegal” Protestant activities.

17th - (Turkmenistan) - Police in Turkmenistan’s capital city broke up a Christian house group meeting, confiscating personal belongings and subjecting the group to extensive interrogation. More than 15 officials busted the unregistered gathering of 13 members of the Soygi (Love) Church just hours after U.S. officials recommended that Turkmenistan be labeled one of the world’s worst violators of religious freedom.

18th - (Nigeria) -Traditional animists attacked churches, beating two Anglican priests into comas and destroying their church. Followers of native religions attacked the St. Christopher Anglican Church along with other nearby churches. The church’s priests, the Rev. Chris Adetula and the Rev. Oladejo Luji, nearly lost their lives. Members of the traditional religion believe that Christians, by worshiping in their churches during the a pagan religious festival, “were making the gods to be angry.”

19th - (India) - Members of a radical Hindu group attacked a 60-year- old pastor for distributing Christian literature near the town railway station.  An Independent Pentecostal church leader identified only as Pastor Soni was repeatedly slapped in the face. The police arrested Pastor Soni, claiming that he was offering money to people to become Christians.

20th - (Sudan) - Facing threats from a local Muslim militia leader, Christians in central Sudan have decided to leave their church half- built after it went up in flames. The Episcopal Church of Sudan congregation in the Nuba Mountains hopes that partial reconstruction will help prevent the church building from being burned for the fourth time.

21st - (Indonesia) - Radical Muslims forced three churches to cease services, claiming the meetings were disturbing Islamic communities. A mob of 150 people bullied Pastor Yoshua Sugiharto into ceasing worship activities of his Shining Christian Church in West Semper, North Jakarta.

22nd - (Uzbekistan) - Police officers from Uzbekistan’s criminal investigation department burst into the home of a Protestant pastor in northwest Uzbekistan, disrupting 12 people as they were having lunch together. Pastor Lunkin Serget and another believer were charged with “breaking the laws on teaching religion.”

23rd - (Malaysia) - The Federal Court granted permission to Lina Joy, a Malaysian Muslim convert to Christianity, to appeal the government’s refusal to remove her Muslim status from her identity card. Besides religious rights for Joy, at issue is whether Islamic courts , which have never granted permission to convert out of Islam, have the sole right to handle these cases. Conversion out of Islam (“apostasy”) can be punishable by fine or imprisonment.

24th - (India) - Hindu extremists attacked a young Christian man and a Hindu woman who hoped to marry each other. The couple was attacked in the marriage licensing office because the young woman was a Hindu and under Indian laws would convert to Christianity after marriage.

25th - (Cuba) - Arrested in his home in Havana by five security policemen for allegedly aiding refugees to illegally emigrate, Pastor Carlos Lamelas remains in La Villa Marista Detention Center where his weight and blood pressure continue to drop to unhealthy levels. No formal charges have been brought against Cuba’s former President of the Church of God.

26th - (Cambodia) - A partially built church building in a small village was destroyed by approximately 300 local Buddhists. The Buddhists felt threatened by the visible presence of another religion. Chanting "Destroy the church," and "Long live Buddhism," the villagers tore down the building and burned the rubble.

27th - (Vietnam) - Siu Lul, 62, a Degar Christian, recently died in Ha Nam prison, where he had been imprisoned since 2004, and where he was tortured, denied food and water, and repeatedly beaten by Vietnamese officials.

28th - (Belarus) - A Belarusian Pentecostal pastor has been fined for leading worship without state sanction. "Divine freedom is given to us by God," Pastor Ilya Radkevich remarked to Forum 18 News Service, "but state freedom you have to pay for." Radkevich's fine is the latest to be imposed on some Baptist, Pentecostal and independent Orthodox groups, under a legal provision against founding and leading an unregistered religious congregation 29th - (Russia) - Several members of the Resurrection Baptist Church in Russia were detained by local authorities after a raid on an authorized evangelistic event. The church was using a local theater to show a Christian film and then they were going to distribute copies of the New Testament and Psalms. Agents from the local home affairs office entered the theater and then stopped the proceedings, telling the church that the distribution was illegal.

30th - (Kenya) - An attack by Muslims on Radio Hope, a Christian radio station in Nairobi, left one person dead and three injured. The attack immediately followed a Swahili-language broadcast entitled "Jesus is the way", advocating conversion of Muslims to Christianity.

JULY 1st - (Indonesia) - An evangelist, 55, affiliated with an Indonesian church is awaiting trial after being accused of “defaming Islam.” His arrest came after a violent incident when hundreds of Muslim radicals beat him in front of his house. The evangelist, who asked not to be named, suffered wounds to his head and ears and fell unconscious. He was arrested for “doing a displeasing act,” but the local prosecutor later accused him of “defaming Islam,” a crime that carries a maximum sentence of five years in jail.