MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

“Motorcycle gunmen opened fire on the car of a Nigerian air force officer on Sunday, killing the driver and an aide, while two other people were killed in a nearby neighbourhood, authorities said.

It was not clear who was behind the attacks in the city of Kano, the largest in Nigeria’s mainly Muslim north, but they resembled similar killings in the past blamed on Islamist militant group Boko Haram.

‘A car of one of our officers came under attack this morning,’ Air Commodore Sani Ahmed said.

‘The officer’s driver and his orderly were travelling out of town, but as they reached an area called Yan-Lemo, two gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire on the car, killing the two personnel.’

The officer was not in the car at the time, he said.

In a similar incident earlier in the day, two gunmen on a motorcycle shot dead two people outside their house in a nearby neighourhood, said police spokesman Rilwanu Dutse.

A police source said the victims were from the mainly Christian Igbo ethnic group.

Boko Haram has carried out scores of bombings and shootings in their insurgency in the north of Africa’s most populous nation that has left hundreds dead.” Source – Radio Netherlands.

AFP – “Muslims on Friday set fire to Christian homes in a village near the Egyptian capital after a fight between a Muslim man and a Christian laundry worker who singed his shirt while ironing it, police said.

At least one person was wounded as Muslims and Coptic Christians also traded fire bombs, police officials said.

Muslims have in the past burned the homes of Copts during sectarian clashes, with dozens of Christians killed in the past 18 months alone since president Hosni Mubarak’s overthrow in a popular uprising.

The Copts, who make up roughly 10 percent of Egypt’s 82-million-strong population, were also targets of sectarian attacks before Mubarak’s ouster in February last year.

Mubarak’s ouster was followed by Egypt this year electing an Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi, who has pledged to respect the rights of Christians and says they will be represented in his government.

Muslim-majority Egypt has for decades been marked by deep sectarian tensions, with religious violence between Muslims and Christians often sparked by disputes over land or love affairs between members of the two communities.

In January 2011, a suicide bomber killed more than 20 Christians outside a church in the country’s second city Alexandria, amid accusations by Islamists that the Coptic Church had detained a woman who converted to Islam.” Source – Lebanon Now.

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 – “U.S.-backed rebels are committing Christian genocide in Syria, where they are sacking churches and issuing threats that all Christians will be cleansed from rebel-held territory. A mass exodus of thousands of Christians is taking place, even as mainstream Western reporters, such as Robert Fisk, demonize these same Christians for being supportive of the secular regime.

The bloody jihad waged against Nigeria’s Christians, which has seen hundreds killed this year alone, now includes plans to kill Christians with poisoned food, as part of the Islamic organization Boko Haram’s stated goal of purging Nigeria of all Christian presence.

During Egypt’s presidential elections, Al Ahram reported that ‘the Muslim Brotherhood blockaded entire streets; prevented Copts, at gunpoint, from voting and threatened Christian families not to let their children go out and vote’ for the secular candidate.

Meanwhile, under President Obama, the U.S. State Department, in an unprecedented move, purged the sections dealing with religious persecution from its recently released Country Reports on Human Rights. Similarly, the Obama administration insists that the Nigeria crisis has nothing to do with religion, even as Obama offered his hearty blessings to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood president, in the midst of allegations of electoral fraud.

Categorized by theme, June’s assemblage 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.

Church Attacks

Egypt: Because many visitors were in attendance, Muslims surrounded a Coptic church during divine liturgy, ‘demanding that the visiting Copts leave the church before the completion of prayers, and threatening to burn down the church if their demands were not met.’ The priest contacted police and asked for aid, only to be told to comply with their demands, ‘and do not let buses with visitors come to the church anymore.’ Christian worshippers exited halfway through liturgy; they were subjected to jeers outside. As the Christians drove away, Muslims hurled stones at their buses. Also, repairs to a Coptic church that was torched and gutted a year ago by rioting Muslims were woefully inadequate, leaving the congregation with a staggering debt from further necessary repairs.

Indonesia: A Muslim mob of 300 wrecked a store that was being used for a Sunday church service on the pretext that it had not obtained ‘permission to hold Mass.’ The mob wrecked the first floor of the store, breaking windows and damaging furniture. Police stopped the mob before it reached the Read more…

ICC – “International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that an armed mob prevented Christians from attending a Protestant worship service in northern Algeria on Friday and demanded the church’s immediate closure. Despite government approval to officially register Protestant churches, congregations throughout the country continue to be threatened and harassed because of their inability to quickly obtain legal status.

On July 20, Christians affiliated with the Protestant Church of Algeria (EPA) were blocked from entering a house where services were being held by a group of disgruntled neighbors in the village of El Majene, near Freha in northern Algeria. The mob, armed with guns and knives, accused the church’s 80 members of meeting ‘illegally’ and launched a petition demanding the church’s immediate closure, the Algerian daily La Dépêche de Kabylie reported.

Despite permission given by the Ministry of Interior in July 2011 stating that all EPA churches are allowed to officially register their congregations, many EPA churches, including the church in El Majene, have not yet been approved. Until the registration is processed, which is known to take years, Protestant churches are considered illegal and often face harassment by neighbors and local authorities.

‘It’s possible that more churches will be closed because the registration process takes so long,’ a spokesman of the EPA in Tizi Ouzou told ICC. ‘Without legal status, neighbors will continue to pressure the church and force Christians to leave. But, if churches have government authorization, than there will not be as many problems.’

Aidan Clay, ICC Regional Manager for the Middle East, said, ‘Although EPA churches have been permitted to register their congregations, the process is arduous and often accompanied by long delays. Yet, the security of Algeria’s churches depends on their ability to register. Until they are granted legal status, worshippers will continue to be harassed and discriminated against by angry mobs and local authorities. It has been more than a year since the Ministry of Interior granted EPA churches approval to register. No justification can be given as to why some EPA churches have still not received official status. We urge the Algerian government to act quickly by legalizing the status of all EPA churches and by overturning repressive legislation, such as Ordinance 06-03, that greatly restricts the worship of Christians and other religious minorities in the country.'” Source – Persecution.org.

By Eric Reeves – “Hudud, a specific category of punishment within the penal code of sharia (Islamic law), is unspeakably barbaric in Sudan. And this barbarism has not diminished in recent years, despite claims in some quarters that Islamism is on the wane in Sudan, still a vast and highly various country. The National Islamic Front/National Congress Party (NIC/NCP) regime is as committed as ever to an extremely aggressive interpretation of sharia, as well as its uniform imposition. Under the penal provisions of hudud in Sudan, women are regularly sentenced to be flogged (a punishment that can be fatal) for crimes ranging from brewing beer to support a family to wearing insufficiently ‘modest’ clothing. Even more shocking, women—and girls—are sentenced to be stoned to death under Sudanese hudud for adultery. Although sentences are typically commuted in the judicial proceedings, commutation is entirely arbitrary and seems to depend upon the degree of international attention that is focused on a given case. The execution itself is carried out by a crowd throwing stones at the victim, who is buried up to her chest with her hands tied. It is a slow, grim, and agonizing death.

Cross-amputation—the amputation of the right hand and left foot—is almost incomprehensibly cruel, yet it too persists. A case from several years ago gained prominence in the human rights world because the sentence was handed out to a 16-year-old boy. Most of these cases go unreported, but not always (the link here is to a horrific photograph of four Darfuri men who have had the sentence of cross-amputation imposed; I urge caution in deciding whether or not to view this disturbing photograph). There is no sign that the imposition of this brutally destructive assault on human flesh and spirit will end soon.

Crucifixion is also a punishment under Sudanese hudud. It is the punishment for apostasy (leaving the faith of Islam), but other crimes as well…

… the criminalization, subject to the death penalty, of apostasy; the efforts by the government in Khartoum to impose its restrictive interpretation of Shari’ah (Islamic law) on Muslims and non-Muslims; attacks and threats against the Christian community; the application of the Public Order Act and related laws and use of floggings for undefined acts of ‘indecency’ and ‘immorality’; the denial of public religious expression and persuasion of Muslims by non-Muslims, while allowing proselytizing of non-Muslims by Muslims; and the difficulty in obtaining permission to build churches, as compared to government funding of mosque construction.

In fact, the confiscation of Christian church lands and resources, attacks on churches and church properties, harassment of clergy and parishioners, and the intimidation of Christian religious authority generally saw a marked increase following the independence of South Sudan in July 2011—this despite the long and distinguished tradition of a Christian presence in Sudan.” 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.