MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

Matthew 10:22, “And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved.”

By Raymond Ibrahim, Gatestone Institute – “The war on Christianity and its adherents in the Muslim world rages on. In March alone, Saudi Arabia’s highest Islamic legal authority decreed that churches in the region must be destroyed; jihadis [holy warriors] in Nigeria said they ‘are going to put into action new efforts to strike fear into the Christians of the power of Islam by kidnapping their women’; American teachers in the Middle East were murdered for being Christian or talking about Christianity; churches were banned or bombed, and nuns terrorized by knife-wielding Muslim mobs. Christians continue to be attacked, arrested, imprisoned, and killed for allegedly ‘blaspheming’ Islam’s prophet Muhammad; former Muslims continue to be attacked, arrested, imprisoned, and killed for converting to Christianity.

The extent of this persecution is virtually unknown in the West, due to the mainstream media’s well-documented biases: the mainstream media knows that if they do not ignore or at best whitewash the nonstop persecution of Christians under Islam, their narrative of Islam as the ‘religion of peace’ would be quickly undermined. Last month alone, the New York Times ran an anti-Catholic ad, but refused to publish a nearly identical ad directed at Islam; the BBC admitted it mocks Jesus but will never mock Muhammad; and U.S. sitcoms have been exposed as bashing Christianity, but never Islam.

Categorized by theme, March’s batch of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes, but is not limited to, the following accounts, listed in alphabetical order by country, not severity:

Apostasy, Blasphemy, and Proselytism: Death and Prison

Egypt: A Christian man accused of insulting Islam’s prophet Muhammad was sentenced to six years in prison. Although under Egyptian law ‘defamation of religion’ is a misdemeanor, punishable by a prison sentence of one month to three years, the judge doubled the sentence to appease Muslims, including an angry 2,500-strong mob that terrorized the courtroom, and demanding death for the Christian. Similarly, an ‘anti-Christianization course‘ was initiated by an organization ‘specializing in the resistance to Christianity,’ so that Muslims will not be ‘throw[n] under the feet of the Cross.’ According to an instructor, ‘Recurring attempts at the university in Aswan to convert Muslims to Christianity or provoke them with misleading information was the impetus behind the course.’

India: A young woman was attacked and thrown out of her home ‘for daring to give thanks for healing in Christ’s name’ in a predominantly Muslim village; ‘her parents helped Islamic extremists to beat her nearly unconscious‘: In a village where ‘hard-line Muslims have threatened to kill the 25 families who initially showed interest in Christ, leaving only five frightened Christian families,’ the woman was attacked when returning from church, and called ‘pagan, among other verbal abuses.’ The mob also harassed and threatened the Christian woman who had allegedly

Compass Direct News – “JOS, Nigeria, April 25 (CDN) — One person was killed and nine others were injured last night after suspected Islamic extremists attacked a TV viewing center in a Christian area of Jos where a crowd had gathered to watch soccer.

At about 10:15 p.m. at the viewing center, one of many such establishments popular in Nigeria for watching soccer matches, the attackers drove past the site and threw an explosive device at hundreds of Christians watching the match, eyewitnesses told Compass.

Some 10 minutes after the bombing, security agents evacuated the injured to Janvak Hospital just a few meters away. Medical personnel at the hospital were treating four of them under strict supervision of police and other security agents. Plateau state spokesman Pam Ayuba reportedly said one person died in the blast.

Soldiers and police under the Joint Military Task Force charged with keeping peace in embattled Plateau state cordoned off the area around the establishment. Authorities have not ruled out members of the Islamic sect Boko Haram as suspects.

The bombing marks the second time in two weeks that the Christian area has been attacked. Boko Haram, which seeks to impose a strict version of sharia (Islamic law) throughout Nigeria, was suspected of a detonating a bomb a few meters from the center during Easter celebrations that injured five Christians. Various churches in Tudun Wada, Jos, commonly use the site as a base for evangelistic campaigns aimed at social venues in the area.

Christian and Muslim communities live in close but separate quarters of the Tudun Wada area of Jos, and the attacks have heightened tensions between them. The area comprises eight churches – Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) Bishara 2, Angwan Yashi, ECWA Good News Church, Assemblies of God Church, Redeemed Peoples Mission, Solid Rock Church, Deeper Life Bible Church, and Christ Way Baptist Church.” Read more.

By Ashfaq Fateh, ASSIST News Service – “TOBA TEK SINGH, PAKISTAN (ANS) — Scientists say that, ‘a man or woman cannot live without air, water and food’ as these three elements play a vital role in human life.

Most countries ensure the fundamental rights to its citizens to ensure the availability of all these three elements. Citizens pay taxes to get pure drinking water and other facilities.

However, the story of Christians living in village # 700/42, Pirkadiayana, Tehsil Kamalia, District, Toba Tek Singh, Punjab, Pakistan, is a different one where their supply of water was on the condition that they not only had to pay the required water tax and also a pay a Muslim cleric of a mosque in the village.

In Pakistan, municipal corporations (MC) supply drinking water through their water supply schemes. Underground pipelines have been laid and a citizen applies for the connection and government then connects the house with a water supply, thus the citizen gets drinking water. The bill is collected annually.

In villages and remote areas, the government in installs the water supply system and then asks locals to form their management committees to run the system and develop their own system of collection, time table, repairs, payment of electricity bills and issuing connections. The committees run the system and try to provide water connections without any religious discrimination.

Now ASSIST News Service-Pakistan has come to know about the story of this village where poor Christians have been forced to pay water tax as well to the local Muslim cleric.

ANS-Pakistan decided to highlight this story which shows the miseries faced by Christians and an example of their unity and faith to work together despite the challenges.

The 244 Christian families of Pirkadiayana village paid extra charges to a Muslim cleric from the local Mosque from 1997-2009 to get drinking water…

‘We were forced to accept the demands of the management committee as they were powerful and if we refused to pay, our women and children had to fetch drinking water from miles away and our most of the time was spent in this exercise. Therefore, there was no alternative.'” Read more.

Sudan Tribune – “(KHARTOUM) – The secretary-general of the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), Yasir Arman, has blamed ‘racist’ statements of Sudan’s President Omer Al-Bashir for encouraging a mob of fundamentalist Islamists to attack a church in the capital Khartoum.

An Evangelical Church in the Sawafi area of Khartoum was attacked and set on fire Friday by a group of fundamentalist Islamists mobilized by hard-line cleric Mohamed Abdel-Karim despite a police cordon in the area.

A pastor named Yusuf Matar Kodi told Agence France Presse (AFP) on Sunday that the group had ‘burned Bibles and torched the school for training clergy on the farm, as well as the residence of the students.’

In a press statement on Monday, Arman said that the assailing group had been motivated to burn the Church as police forces ‘stood and watched’ by the ‘racist’ statements of Al-Bashir.

Arman was referring to a number of derogatory remarks Al-Bashir has made against leaders of South Sudan following the latter’s military takeover two weeks ago of oil-rich Heglig region on the disputed borders between the two neighbors.

In separate occasions, Al-Bashir described the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) in South Sudan as ‘an insect’ whose members must be disciplined by ‘the stick,’ in what some have linked to a well-known Arab phrase that says ‘don’t buy a slave without the stick.'” Read more.

By Christian Today – “Christians in Mali are in a ‘desperate plight’ following last month’s military coup, international Christian aid agency Barnabas Fund has warned.

Government forces collapsed in the north following the coup, allowing separatist and Islamist rebels to seize control of the country’s three northern regions.

Around 215,000 people have been displaced from their homes, many of them crossing into Burkina Faso and Mauritania.

Many Christians have sought safety in Mali’s capital, Bamako, where they are being fed and sheltered by a network of churches.

A Barnabus Fund contact in Mali reports that churches in the towns of Gao and Timbuktu were destroyed in the takeover, with the congregations abandoning their homes and fleeing south.

‘Horrible crimes have been made against the population – massacres, rape of women, obligation to wear the veil, chasing Christians,’ the source reports.” Read more.

Flashback: Mali: Christian Leader Beheaded as Islamists Terrorize Country, Create List of All Christians They Intend to Execute by Beheading – “A Christian leader has been beheaded and others are being threatened with similar treatment as Islamic militants run amok in Mali, West Africa. Christians have fled the town of Timbuktu in the north of the country where harsh Sharia Law has already been imposed amid reports that churches in Gao, 200 miles to the east, have been completely destroyed… ‘We have escaped in the wake of horrible death threats as the Islamists have a list of all the Christians in Timbuktu whom they intend to execute by beheading.’” Read more.

“Algeria (MNN) ― Algeria is earning its keep as country number 23 on the Open Doors World Watch List for the worst persecutors of Christians.

Voice of the Martyrs, Canada and Voice of the Martyrs, USA recently cited two separate accounts of persecution in Algeria.

An Algerian Christian was sentenced to five years in prison for “shaking the faith” of Muslims last May. Currently, ‘Kadar’ is awaiting a decision on his appeal.

Kadar, who regularly shares his faith with Muslims in the city of Oran, was discussing his belief in Christ with a man at an outdoor food court last May when the man became angry and accused Kadar of insulting Muhammad. Police arrested Kadar and found a large amount of Christian materials in his apartment.

After Kadar was convicted, the judge gave him the maximum sentence of five years in prison even though the prosecutor had recommended a lesser sentence. Kadar is now out on bail awaiting the decision.” Read more.