MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

By Ulma Haryanto – “The Wahid Institute, a Muslim organization that promotes tolerance, warned on Thursday that the worst was yet to come for religious freedom and tolerance if the country refused to take drastic measures.

‘We have been recording the state of religious freedom and tolerance since 2008, and I have to say that 2011 was the worst,’ said Rumadi Ahmad, program coordinator at the institute.

Aside from the increasing incidents of religious violence and intolerance — 276, up from 198 last year — the Wahid Institute also highlighted the steady growth of religious bylaws.

The institute reported that 36 regulations had been drafted or implemented that banned religious practices that were deemed as deviant from Islam, including the Ahmadiyah, required dress, respect toward holy days and obligation to pay alms.

In 2011, West Java and its districts issued 10 religious bylaws, more than any other region including Aceh, which partially adopts Shariah law.

West Java also ranked first in the number of religious violence and intolerance incidents with 160 recorded incidents this year, according to the institute.” Read more.

Flashback: Indonesia: Hundreds of Hard-Line Muslims Rally to Denounce the ‘Arrogance’ of Local Church Congregation for Continuing to Exist – “Hundreds of hard-line Muslims rallied outside the Bogor City Hall on Sunday to decry the ‘arrogance’ of a beleaguered church in the city that remains shuttered by authorities despite a Supreme Court order to open it. The protesters, from Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia and the Indonesian Muslim Communication Forum (Forkami), said they wanted to show that all Muslims were united in opposition to the presence of the GKI Yasmin Church in the city. ‘We’re here to refute the arrogance of the church, which continues to insist on setting up in the Taman Yasmin [housing complex],’ said Achmad Imam, the Forkami head in Bogor.” Read more.

Flashback: Massive Increase of Radical Islamism Spreads Throughout Indonesia, Including ‘Top-Quality’ Universities – “The suicide bombing of a church in Central Java on Sept. 25 pointed not only to a new level of attacks on religious minorities in the world’s largest Muslim-majority country but to a political bent that accommodates Islamist extremism. ‘Radicalization of Islamic teachings and understanding is a problem in Indonesia,’ admitted Dr. H. Nasaruddin Umar, director general of Islamic Community Guidance under the Ministry of Religious Affairs. ‘There’s a need to re-explain the concept of jihad.’ Pino Damayanto, aka Ahmad Yosepa Hayat, who blew himself up wounding over 20 members of the Sepenuh Injil Bethel Church (Bethel Full Gospel Church) in Solo on Sept. 25, apparently believed it was his religious duty to kill ‘the enemies of Islam,’ according to his understanding of ‘jihad.’” Read more.

Iranian Christian News Agency, Mohabat News – “These threats remind us of the bitter events of last Christmas. On 26 December, 2010 when churches all around the world were praying, worshipping and celebrating the birthday of Jesus Christ, agents of the Iranian intelligence ministry attacked a number of house churches and homes of Christians in an organized fashion. They arrested hundreds of Christian converts, some of whom are still being held in prisons of the Islamic regime.

Again this year, as Christians and churches in Iran are preparing for Christmas and New Year celebrations, it seems that the security authorities are planning to repeat their violent and inhuman acts of last year to intimidate Iranian Christians. Reports received by Mohabat News from different cities of Iran indicate that security authorities are expanding their anti-Christian projects to exercise tighter surveillance of churches in order to crack down on Christians and attempt to terrorize them.

According to news published on 23 December, 2011, Farhad Sabokroh, the pastor of the Assemblies of God church of Ahwaz, as well as his wife and the members who gathered to worship and celebrate Christmas were arrested in a pre-organized attack on the church building by security authorities of the Islamic regime of Iran. All the detainees were then transferred to an unknown location.

This time, the security agents showed no mercy even to the children of the church and raided their Sunday School class with their faces covered. The security agents were shouting on children as they cried out in fear as a result of the attack. They then transferred these children to an unknown location together with other members present at the church. A question should be asked regarding this attack and it’s this. Is attacking children, frightening and treating them like criminals another tactic of the regime to oppose the growth of Christianity? Such violent and inhuman acts will only have a negative impression on these children and form a dire and evil image of these agents of the regime on their minds.

Reports sent to Mohabat News from Tehran also say that the sale of Bibles and gospels in the AOG church of Markaz in Tehran was banned two weeks ago. This prohibition shocked visitors to the library of the church. This report also states that security authorities have ordered all books stores around Enghelab Street in Tehran to unconditionally forbid the sale of Gospels and Bibles to customers.” Read more.

“A Christian couple and their one-year-old son have been shot dead by Muslim gunmen in a ‘religious attack’ in Nigeria, police said today.

The family were in a village near the the city of Jos on Tuesday evening when the killers – believed to be Muslim herdsmen – opened fire.

Plateau state spokesman Pam Ayuba said today that assailants shot the Christian couple and their child near their home.

The attack just two days after Christmas is the latest in a spate of religious violence in the country.

In a separate attack, extremists threw a homemade bomb into an Arabic school in Nigeria’s Delta state.

Seven people were wounded in the attack, including six children who were younger than nine.

The attack at around 10 p.m. on Tuesday came two days after a series of Christmas Day bombings on churches and other targets by Islamist militant group Boko Haram claimed around 32 lives.

Boko Haram, which means ‘Western education is forbidden’, wants the imposition of strict Sharia law in Nigeria.

‘Some men driving in a Camri car threw a low capacity explosive into a building where an Arabic class was taking place,’ police spokesman for the state Charles Muka said by telephone.

‘Children aged between four and nine were taking a lesson. Six children were injured and one adult (was),’ he added.

Hundreds have died in recent years in communal attacks and reprisal attacks in the Jos area in the nation’s ‘middle belt,’ where the largely Muslim north meets the predominantly Christian south.

Around 90,000 people have so far been displaced during the clashes, according to the BBC.

Christians in northern Nigeria said yesterday they feared that a spate of Christmas Day bombings by Islamist militants could lead to a religious war in Africa’s most populous country.” Read more.

What has already begun will not cease from continuing until “The Redeemer will come to Zion” (Isaiah 59:20; Romans 11:26) …

Romans 8:35-37, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, ‘For thy sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”

Mark 13:13, “And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But he who endures to the end shall be saved.”

By Terence P. Jeffrey – “(CNSNews.com) – Despite long-term U.S. military occupations aimed at establishing representative governments in Iraq and Afghanistan, Christianity now faces the real threat of eradication in those countries because of severe and persistent persecution of Christians there, according to the chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

Similarly, despite the ‘Arab Spring’ rebellion in Egypt earlier this year, the survival of Christianity is also threatened in that country because of the escalating persecution of Christians.

‘We are looking at two different countries where the United States invaded, occupied, changed their governments in the last decade–Iraq and Afghanistan–where it’s possible Christianity might be eradicated in our lifetime?’ CNSNews.com asked USCIRF Chairman Leonard Leo in a video interview.

‘Yes,’ said Leo, ‘and, unfortunately, that is sort of the pattern throughout the Middle Eastern region. The flight of Christians out of the region is unprecedented and it’s increasing year by year. It’s a very, very alarming situation.’

In Egypt, according to Leo, anti-Christian violence and discrimination may inspire a mass migration of that nation’s Coptic Christian population, thus achieving a strategic goal sought by radical Muslims.

‘The radical Islamists would accomplish their goal, if they drove the Coptic Christians out of the country, absolutely,’ Leo told CNSNews.com…” Read more.

“Islamic extremists threw acid on a church leader on Christmas Eve shortly after a seven-day revival at his church, leaving him with severe burns that have blinded one eye and threaten sight in the other.

Bishop Umar Mulinde, 37, a sheikh (Islamic teacher) before his conversion to Christianity, was attacked on Saturday night (Dec. 24) outside his Gospel Life Church International building in Namasuba, about 10 kilometers (six miles) outside of Kampala. From his hospital bed in Kampala, he told Compass that he was on his way back to the site for a party with the entire congregation and hundreds of new converts to Christianity when a man who claimed to be a Christian approached him.

‘I heard him say in a loud voice, ‘Pastor, pastor,’ and as I made a turn and looked at him, he poured the liquid onto my face as others poured more liquid on my back and then fled away shouting, ‘Allahu akbar [God is greater],’’ Mulinde said, still visibly traumatized two days after the assault.

A neighbor and church members rushed him to a hospital in the Mengo area of Kampala, and he was then transferred to International Hospital Kampala.

‘I have to continue fighting this pain – it is too much,’ Mulinde said. ‘My entire body is in pain. Most of the night I miss sleep.’

His face, neck and arms bore deep black scars from the acid, and his lips were swollen.

‘The burn caused by the acid is so severe that there is an urgent need for specialized treatment,’ said area Christian Musa Baluku Symutsangira. ‘I suggest that he be flown outside the country as soon as possible; otherwise Mulinde might lose both of his eyes, coupled with the spread of the burns. The burns seemed to spread and go very deep. He might need some plastic surgery.’

A doctor told Compass that acid burns cover about 30 percent of his face and has cost him sight in one eye.” Read more.

John 15:18-21, “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you… If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you… But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know the One who sent Me.”

UPI – “LONDON, Dec. 27 (UPI) — The British government is deeply worried about the security of the Christian community in the Middle East, the foreign secretary said.

An opinion article published last week in The Daily Telegraph newspaper accused the British Foreign Office of viewing the plight of the Christian community in the Middle East as being ‘unworthy of diplomatic attention.’ British Foreign Secretary William Hague, the article added was seen as ‘unenthusiastic’ about the issue.

The Foreign Office, in a statement issued by British Minister for the Middle East Alistair Burt, said attacks on Christians in the Middle East were ‘deeply worrying.’

The Telegraph article paid special attention to violence targeting Iraqi Christians, one of the oldest Christian communities. The Christian population there is down substantially as its members flee violence targeting their minority religious community.” Read more.

How can we remain silent while Christians are being persecuted? – “Father Immanuel Dabaghian, one of Baghdad’s last surviving priests, is expecting a quiet Christmas. To join him in the Church of the Virgin Mary means two hours of security checks and a body search at the door, and even then there’s no guarantee of survival. Islamist gunmen massacred 58 people in a nearby church last year, and fresh graffiti warns remaining worshippers that they could be next. The Americans have gone now, and Iraq’s Christian communities – some of the world’s oldest – are undergoing an exodus on a biblical scale. Of the country’s 1.4 million Christians, about two thirds have now fled. Although the British Government is reluctant to recognise it, a new evil is sweeping the Middle East: religious cleansing.” Read more.

Genocide Warning – Urge America to Defend Mideast Christians – “‘We cannot accept and thereby facilitate what looks more and more like a particularly perverse program of religious cleansing in the Middle East.’ – French President Nicholas Sarkozy. ‘Massacres are taking place for no reason and without any justification against Christians. It is only because they are Christians. What is happening to Christians is a genocide.’ – Former Lebanese President Amine Gemayal… What is the President of the United States doing to prevent the eradication of Christian communities and other religious minorities in the Islamic Middle East?” Read more.

By Jon GamBrell – LAGOS, Nigeria— The Associated Press – “An explosion ripped through a Catholic church during Christmas Mass near Nigeria’s capital Sunday, killing at least 39 people, officials said. A radical Muslim sect waging an increasingly sophisticated sectarian fight claimed the attack and another bombing in the restive city of Jos, as explosions also struck the nation’s northeast.

The Christmas Day attacks show the growing national ambition of the sect known as Boko Haram, which is responsible for at least 495 killings this year alone, according to an Associated Press count. The assaults come a year after a series of Christmas Eve bombings in Jos claimed by the militants left at least 32 dead and 74 wounded.

The first explosion on Sunday struck St. Theresa Catholic Church in Madalla, a town in Niger state close to the capital, Abuja, authorities said. Rescue workers recovered at least 25 bodies from the church and officials continued to tally those wounded in various hospitals, said Slaku Luguard, a co-ordinator with Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency.” Read more.

Nigerian Christians fear Islamic radicals will start religious war – “Northern Nigerian Christians said on Tuesday they feared that a spate of Christmas Day bombings by Islamist militants that killed over two dozen people could lead to a religious war in Africa’s most populous country. The warning was made in a statement by the northern branch of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), an umbrella organization comprising various denominations including Catholics, Protestant and Pentecostal churches… The Boko Haram Islamist sect, which aims to impose sharia Islamic law across Nigeria, claimed responsibility for the blasts, the second Christmas in a row it has caused carnage at Christian churches. Saidu Dogo, secretary general for the CAN in Nigeria’s 19 northern provinces called on Muslim leaders to control their faithful, saying Christians will be forced to defend themselves against further attacks.” Read more.

By Michael Carl – “Attacks on Christians are surging in Kenya, and analysts say Islamic radicals are putting a bull’s-eye on the community.

International Christian Concern’s Middle East specialist Aidan Clay says he recently visited a victim of a Somali mob attack in Kenya.

‘When I saw him a month after the incident, he was still badly bruised, could hardly see out of his right eye which was black, and was missing teeth,’ Clay said.

Clay said the attacks are getting more frequent and more intense.

‘Recently, there has been a slight surge of violence targeting Christians inside Kenya, provoked mainly by Somali Muslims, some of whom are likely from the militant group al-Shabaab,’ Clay said.

‘It appears that the Islamist militants are not only targeting crowded areas and tourists, but also narrowed in on a Kenyan Christian community,’ he said.

Recently, a Somali Christian man living in Kenya was beaten unconscious by Somali mobs inside Kenyan territory.

Christian news agency Compass Direct, which reports persecution of Christians, reported that a gang of seven Somali Muslims accused 23-year-old Ibrahim (his last name was withheld for security) of apostasy, then left him for dead. It happened only a few weeks after a similar attack on his brother.

Reports also say that Ibrahim was raised as a Christian, so the charge of apostasy has no legal grounds.

Clay said the attack victim he saw “was followed home by six Somali Muslims who had overheard the young man saying on the phone that he is Christian.”

‘They beat him unconscious, nearly killing him, and dropped him off, bleeding and naked, outside a Presbyterian church in Nairobi. The guards outside the church took him to the hospital and his life was spared,’ Clay said.” Read more.

By Asad Kharal – “LAHORE: The police met with Christian leaders to discuss security measures at churches on Monday, after intelligence reports warned of a heightened threat of terrorist attacks on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, The Express Tribune has learnt.

The intelligence report named 20 churches in Lahore as ‘sensitive’, while describing security at all 433 churches in the city as ‘inadequate’.

The report said that terrorists planned to target Christian gatherings on December 24 and 25.

The report was forwarded to the capital city police officer (CCPO) and others asking that the police act to secure Christian places of worship, particularly the 20 most vulnerable churches.

DOG (Operations) Ghulam Mahmood Dogar met with Christian leaders later on Monday to discuss security, according to a press release. He said that 2,000 policemen would be deployed to protect the 433 churches in the city and all security arrangements would be finalised by December 22.

The police categorised 38 churches in the city as most vulnerable to attack. The DIG said that each of these ‘category A’ churches would get a deployment of one officer and seven junior personnel including snipers to be deployed on rooftops.

The DIG said that walkthrough gates would be installed at the category A churches and that policewomen and Christian volunteers would search people with metal detectors at A and B category churches.

He said that 39 churches were in category B, 187 in C and 179 in D.

Asked if he was satisfied with the security measures, Reverend Shahid Mehraj of the Lahore Cathedral Church, who attended the meeting, said the country was in a war-like situation and it was a dangerous place.” Read more.

Matthew 5:44,46a, “But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you … For if you love those who love you, what reward have you?”

“KAGORO, Nigeria, December 20 (CDN) — A Muslim villager in Kaduna state allegedly helped Fulani herdsmen and other Muslims from nearby Kafanchan to ambush a Christian settlement, resulting in the death of one woman and gunshot wounds to two other Christians on Dec. 10, area sources said.

Musa Blak, 60, told Compass how gunmen lurking behind trees outside his home killed his wife, Kunam Musa Blak, and wounded him and his cousin, 48-year-old Monday Blai Yayok, after a schoolteacher in Kukum Gida village allegedly helped Muslims survey the site. Kunam Musa Blak was 50.

In the Jankassa ward of Kukum Gida village, a Christian settlement of 425 people who all attend the local Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA), Musa Blak and his family were asleep when they were awakened by the sound of barking dogs at 11:45 p.m., he said.

‘I decided to go outside and find out what was happening,’ Blak said. ‘While outside, I noticed a dark figure standing behind some cactus trees near my house. I neither moved nor said anything, but kept watching to see what this figure would do.’

Hidden behind the trees were Muslim gunmen who had taken positions around the village with the intent of ambushing villagers, he said.

‘A few minutes afterwards, the figure moved away quietly, and at this point my wife too came out of the room and met me outside, asking whether I had found anything,’ he said. ‘I then told her about the figure I saw that moved away.’

As he spoke to her, suddenly he heard a gunshot and saw his wife go down.

‘I heard the sound of a gunshot, and suddenly I

“Stop the Eradication of Christian and other Religious Minorities in the Islamic Middle East

‘We cannot accept and thereby facilitate what looks more and more like a particularly perverse program of religious cleansing in the Middle East.’ – French President Nicholas Sarkozy

‘Massacres are taking place for no reason and without any justification against Christians. It is only because they are Christians. What is happening to Christians is a genocide.’ – Former Lebanese President Amine Gemayal.

‘The most recent developments [i.e., deadly Islamist attacks against Egyptian Christians in May 2011] fill us with dread. …The aim of the Islamists is to stoke up hatred and violence.’ – Former Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel, June 27, 2011.

‘Christians [in the Middle East] are the most oppressed and tormented minority. We witness acts of violence in which the most elementary rules of humanity collapse’ – Pope Benedict XVI.

Learn more about Christian Persecution in the Middle East Here

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What is the President of the United States doing to prevent the eradication of Christian communities and other religious minorities in the Islamic Middle East? Will President Obama heed or ignore the Pope’s appeal for the emergence of ‘leaders to show them effective solidarity’?

Our President has the opportunity to demonstrate a determination to prevent Genocide. CSI urges him to do so by presenting an effective policy for securing the survival of religious minorities when he speaks about the Middle East in the State of the Union Address this January.

If you do not raise your voice, neither will the President.

Please send this urgent appeal to President Obama, and distribute it by e-mail to friends, colleagues, politicians, and religious leaders.

CSI will also forward your appeal to all the Republican presidential candidates so that they too will be powerfully challenged to help prevent the destruction of religious minorities and promote religious freedom throughout the Middle East.” Please click here to sign the petition.

Related:

• Christian Bishop in Egypt: Christians Are Currently Experiencing Their Worst Time in Recent Centuries, Many Now Unable to Buy or Sell
• Iran: The Spread of the Gospel Among Iranian Youth and Families Sparks Islamic Authorities to Increase Suppression of Christianity
• Islamic Militants Calling Themselves ‘The Unknown Soldiers of The Hidden Imam’ Threaten to Hunt Down and Execute Christians Who Flee Iran
• Nigeria: Muslim Extremists Killing Christians in Two States in Effort to ‘Cleanse’ Islamic Land, Entire Christian Families Among Those Killed
• Egypt: Rising Islamic Leader Declares ‘We Will Launch a Campaign of Islamic Conquest Throughout the World’, ‘Exterminate’ Christians Who Get In the Way of Sharia
• Sudan: Christianity No Longer an Accepted Religion, Muslims Attack Christians Trying to Rebuild Church
• Iraq: Islamic Extremists Want to Eliminate Christians From Country, Mass Movement of Christians Continues Unabated
• Not a Single Christian Church Left in Afghanistan, Says State Department
• Egypt: Islamists Boast, ‘We Won’t Leave Any Christians in This Country’
• Pakistan: The Existence of Christians Threatened Now More Than Ever Before, Persecution the Worse It Has Ever Been
• Middle East Christians Are Being Killed by Radical Islamists Because of Their Faith, Threatening Their Very Existence