MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

Compass Direct News – “After a memorial service for three Christians who were murdered in Malatya, Turkey five years ago today, an Istanbul pastor who was attacked over Easter weekend said he’s experienced hostility from Muslims nearly all his life.

Semir Serkek, 58, pastor of Grace Church in Istanbul’s Bahcelievler district, said he personally knew Turkish converts to Christianity Necati Aydin and Ugur Yuksel and German Christian Tilmann Geske, who were brutally murdered by five young men in the southeastern city of Malatya on April 18, 2007.

‘I looked at their fate with some envy, because they were young and I am old, but they left – I have gone through many things,’ he said. ‘But they were so young, so young.’

On a day when memorial services were held for the three slain Christians in Malatya, Izmir and Elazig as well as the ones Serkek attended at both the Kozyatag Cultural Center and Gedikpasha Church in Istanbul, the pastor said the physical violence on him the evening (April 7) before Easter Sunday surprised him.

‘I’ve been verbally abused for being a Christian many times, but this was the first time I was hit, so this was surprising and made me sad,’ Serkek said.

Serkek was alone at Grace Church finishing preparations for the next day’s Easter celebration when at around 9 p.m. he heard frantic pounding at the door, he said. Opening it, he found four young men in their late teens who claimed they had questions and demanded to enter.

The men, whom Serkek said appeared to be about 18 years old, were agitated, and when he refused to let them in they used insulting language, he said. They threatened to kill him if he didn’t recite the Islamic testimony of faith.

‘This made me uneasy, and I told them that this was a church and they should come back in the morning,’ Serkek told Compass. ‘‘This is a Muslim neighborhood, what business does a church have here?’ they asked me, and told me again and again that if I didn’t accept the final religion I would die.'” Read more.

“The United States has warned its citizens in Nigeria that the radical Islamist sect Boko Haram may be planning attacks in the capital, Abuja.

The U.S. embassy issued an emergency message saying attacks could target hotels used by Westerners, but that the timing was unknown.

The alert said the Nigerian government was aware of the threat and ‘actively implementing security measures.’

The embassy cautioned citizens to be especially aware of their security near Nigerian government facilities, diplomatic missions, large gathering places, markets and places of worship.” Read more.

Viewer Discretion Advised

By Gary Lane, CBN – “ISTANBUL, Turkey — On April 18, 2007, three Christians were bound to their chairs, tortured, and stabbed repeatedly at a Bible print shop in Malatya — their throats slit.

Five years have now passed since the Malatya murders, an incident that was perhaps the most tragic and brutal murder of Christians in modern-day Turkey.

Today, believers are facing increased persecution and the country is gradually moving away from secularism.

‘You see everyday is April 18. Everyday I have to live without him,’ widow Susanne Geske told CBN News on the one year anniversary of her husband’s murder.

Five suspects went on trial for killing the men, but there is still no conviction…

Church attendance dropped immediately after the Malatya incident. And although attendance is now growing again, so are the number of attacks against Christians.

The Protestant churches of Turkey documented 12 attacks in 2011. This included the beating of Christians for sharing their faith with Muslims.

No one has been prosecuted for any of these crimes, putting Turkey on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom’s list of ‘countries of particular concern’ (CPC) for the first time.

Nina Shea, one of the commissioners supporting that move, said the Turkish government is suppressing Christian worship, and as a result Christian numbers are dwindling.

‘They comprise 0.15 percent of the entire population of Turkey,’ Shea said. ‘They are very frail, and we’re going to see them vanish in our lifetime if Turkey doesn’t lift its dense web of regulations and give them religious freedom.’

Turkey’s ambassador in Washington called the CPC designation ‘politically motivated.’

Middle East analyst Walid Phares is not surprised by the persecution of Christians in Turkey. He said Prime Minister Erdogan has been shifting away from a pro-NATO, pro-Western position to a ‘pro-Islamists, more anti-Israel and slightly anti-Western attitude.'” Read more.

BBC – “A Swiss woman has been abducted in the rebel-held northern Malian city of Timbuktu, officials and residents say.

The woman, a Christian missionary in her 40s called Beatrice, was taken from her house by armed men, residents said.

Most foreigners fled Timbuktu after Tuareg and Islamist rebels seized the town early this month in the aftermath of a military coup.

The kidnap comes amid concern the area could offer a safe haven to an al-Qaeda branch operating in the country.

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (Aqim), the network’s North African wing, has links to the Islamist rebels. The group is already holding 13 Westerners.

‘Beatrice, a Swiss national, was abducted this Sunday at Timbuktu by armed men,’ local official Mohamed Ould Hassen told AFP.

One resident of the town told the news agency that they saw six armed men take the woman.

‘They shouted ‘Allah Akbar’ [God is great],’ the resident added.” 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.

It was only a matter of time …

Sudan Tribune – “(KHARTOUM) – The Sudanese national assembly on Monday adopted a resolution designating the country’s southern neighbour as an enemy state in the latest sign of escalation between the two sides.

‘We consider the government of South Sudan an enemy and Sudanese state institutions must treat it as such,’ according to the text read by Kamal Obeid who chairs the defense and security committee in parliament.

The legislative body’s speaker Ahmed Ibrahim al-Taher also announced that his country wants the ruling party in South Sudan toppled by any means necessary.

‘We declare that we will confront the [Sudan People Liberation Movement] SPLM until we end its rule of the South, and will work to gather our resources to realize this aim,’ al-Taher said.

‘We are in a battle that does not finish with the recovery of Heglig, but with an end to the danger that comes from South Sudan’ he added.

It remains unclear what implications the decision will carry as the power to declare war lies with the president according to the constitution. Only then can the parliament endorse it according to the 2005 constitution.” Read more.

Flashback: North Sudan: Islamist Government Launches Air Strikes Against Churches and Schools in the Nuba Mountains – “After Khartoum denied that it had bombed civilians earlier this month, Sudanese aerial strikes last week were aimed at church buildings and schools in Kauda, South Kordofan state, a humanitarian aid worker said… Humanitarian agencies consider the Islamic government’s targeting of civilians in the Nuba Mountains, which has a large Christian population, an ‘ethnic cleansing’ against non-Arab peoples …” Read more.

Flashback: North Sudan: Christianity No Longer an Accepted Religion, Muslims Attack Christians Trying to Rebuild Church – “Emboldened by government calls for a Sudan based on Islamic law since the secession of South Sudan, Muslims long opposed to a church near Khartoum have attacked Christians trying to finish constructing their building, sources said… laiming that Christianity was no longer an accepted religion in the country, Muslims in the Hay al Sawra, Block 29 area of Omdurman West on Aug. 5 attacked SCOC members who were constructing the church building, the sources said. ‘We do not want any presence of churches in our area,’ shouted members of the mob as they threw stones at the Christians, the sources said.” Read more.

Flashback: North Sudan: President Al-Bashir Moves Forward with Rewriting the Country’s Constitution to Implement Sharia Law – “Sudanese leader Omer Hassan Al-Bashir is moving forward with rewriting the country’s constitution to implement Shariah law, according to reports from organizations with links inside the Muslim-dominated nation. International Christian Concern’s North Africa specialist Jonathan Racho says that a Shariah-compliant constitution will mean more suffering for Sudan’s remaining Christians. ‘This new law (Shariah compliant constitution) is going to affect a significant number of Christians who live in places like Khartoum (the capital city). There are still a significant number of Christians in Sudan,’ Racho said.” Read more.

By Stoyan Zaimov, The Christian Post – “Reports of Islamic extremists attacking people of others faiths in India and Pakistan have been growing in recent years, resulting in beatings and even beheadings.

On March 30, at a Christian church in the West Bengal state of India, a 65-year-old woman widow was beaten after Islamist extremists forced their way into the church, Compass Direct News reported. The 11 or so members of the church were attacked simply for gathering and worshipping Christ, and the Islamists called them “pagans” as they continuously kicked and beat them.

In the same area of Nutangram earlier in March, a 22-year old woman was driven from her predominantly Muslim village after she thanked Christ for being healed from an illness – apparently, even her Muslim parents joined in the subsequent attack by Islamists who wanted her and her beliefs out of the village.

The religious persecution is reportedly just as bad in neighboring Pakistan, where Christians are targeted even by government authorities. Currently, a Christian mother of five, Asia Bibi, is on death row for allegedly blaspheming the name of the prophet Muhammad two years ago, an accusation filed by co-workers at a field she was working on.

Bibi insists all she was doing was defending her Christian faith, but has been jailed nonetheless – and even if the Pakistani court finds her not guilty and releases her, many Islamic leaders have placed a bounty on her head …” Read more.