MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

Zephaniah 2:1-5, “Gather together, gather together, O shameful nation, before the appointed time arrives and that day sweeps on like chaff, before the fierce anger of the LORD comes upon you, before the day of the LORD’s wrath comes upon you. Seek the LORD, all you humble of the land, you who do what he commands. Seek righteousness, seek humility; perhaps you will be sheltered on the day of the LORD’s anger. Gaza will be abandoned and Ashkelon left in ruins. At midday Ashdod will be emptied and Ekron uprooted. Woe to you who live by the sea, O Kerethite people; the word of the LORD is against you, O Canaan, land of the Philistines. ‘I will destroy you, and none will be left.'”

“The disputed territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have been administered by the Palestinian Authority (PA) and in more recent years, in part, by Hamas. Under these regimes, the resident Christian Arabs have been victims of frequent human rights abuses including intimidation, beatings, land theft, firebombing of churches and other Christian institutions, denial of employment, economic boycott, torture, kidnapping, forced marriage, sexual harassment, and extortion.

‘Muslims who have converted to Christianity are the ones in the greatest in danger. They are often left defenseless against cruelty by Muslim fundamentalists. PA and Hamas officials are directly responsible for many of the human rights violations. Christian Arabs also fall victim to the semi-anarchy that typifies PA rule.’

Justus Reid Weiner is an international human rights lawyer and a member of the Israel and New York Bar Associations. His professional publications have appeared in leading law journals and intellectual magazines. Weiner lectures widely abroad and in Israel and teaches international law and business courses at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

In Weiner’s view, the crimes committed against Christian Arabs result from a way of thinking that dates back to the earliest days of Islam. ‘Traditionally, Christians and Jews were given an inferior social status known as dhimmitude in Islam. To this day, Muslim attitudes toward Christians and Jews are influenced by the concepts and prejudices that dhimmitude has spawned in Islamic society. The widespread persecution of Christians in various Muslim dominated lands brings many proofs of this.[1]’

‘Israel is the only exception in the Middle East where the Christian population since 1948 has increased. It has risen by more than 400 percent. This also includes non-Arab Christians, such as Russian Christians who have moved to Israel as spouses of Jews.’

‘As dhimmis, Christians living in Palestinian-controlled territories are subjected to debilitating legal, political, cultural, and religious restrictions. Muslim groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad have built a culture of hatred upon the age-old foundations of Islamic society. Moreover, the PA has adopted Islamic law into its draft constitution.'” Read more.

By SULAIMAN ALIKHAN and KAWAR BARWARI – “DUHOK, Iraqi Kurdistan — Fahmi Yusef Mansour is the owner of Iraq’s biggest beer supply in the village of Seji near Duhok city in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Mansour’s beer storage was stormed and torched by an angry mob during the riots in the province earlier this month.

Following Friday sermons people in the cit of Zakho attacked liquor stores, massage parlors and hotels.

Mansour, a Christian, said he had received messages threatening to burn down his business. He said he had informed the local mayor and security officials about the threats, but was reassured that nothing would happen.

‘We also did not expect anything to happen because this is a Christian place and there are no Muslims,’ Mansour told Rudaw.

Mansour was in Dohuk the day his store was attacked. He rushed back and tried to protect his business with the help of some relatives carrying guns. According to Mansour around 2,000 people, the majority of them teenagers had attacked his beer storage.

Mansour believes some school teachers are responsible for instigating the young people against Christians.

‘Many teachers encourage student to oppose Christians and their places of worship,’ he said, adding that a number of teenage students had thrown stones at the local church.

Two students detained by the security forces have allegedly confessed that their teacher had Read more…

“Jos – Pamphlets threatening bombings of churches and other areas have been posted in the Nigerian city of Jos, where Christmas Eve 2010 attacks and reprisals killed dozens, authorities said on Friday.

A number of flyers were found on the ground in the city, which has long been hit by waves of clashes between Christian and Muslim ethnic groups that have left thousands dead.

The pamphlet signed by someone named Idris Musa and written in poor English listed some 21 targets in the planned attacks.

‘We entire Muslim of Plateau State will never give up until we have our right … Nothing can stop us from bombing these areas before December 26 2011,’ said the flyer seen by AFP.

Jos is the capital of Plateau state, located in central Nigeria.

A spokesperson for a military task force in Plateau said authorities were taking the threats seriously.

‘There is a pamphlet in circulation threatening to attack some targets, including churches, private businesses and government institutions in Jos between now and December 26,’ Charles Okeocha told AFP.

‘As security agents, we are not taking the threat lightly. We have beefed up security to avoid any unpleasant situations.’

Jos lies in the middle-belt region between the predominantly Muslim north and the mainly Christian south of Africa’s most populous nation.

Dozens were killed last year on Christmas Eve in Jos in multiple bomb attacks claimed by the radical Islamist sect known as Boko Haram as well as in subsequent clashes.” Read more.

Sura 9:123, “O ye who believe! Fight those of the disbelievers who are near to you, and let them find harshness in you, and know that Allah is with those who keep their duty.”

“Washington, D.C. (December 17, 2011) – International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that Saudi security forces arrested 42 Ethiopian Christians at a prayer gathering in Jeddah on Thursday. The location of the detained Christians is unknown.

On December 15, Saudi police and security officers raided an evening prayer meeting at the home of an Ethiopian Christian in the Al-Safa district of Jeddah. Those attending the service were reportedly beaten and threatened before being arrested.

‘Security officials broke [into] the house and captured… beat and threatened them for death… They divided the men and the women and they are torturing them [in prison],’ an Ethiopian and Eritrean Christian immigrant community living in Europe wrote in a desperate appeal for help to the ambassadors of European embassies in Riyadh on Friday.

‘Saudi Arabian officials have arrested Christians in the past but it is unprecedented for them to arrest 42 Christians at one time,’ a church leader in Jeddah, who asked not to be named for security reasons, told ICC. ‘We are particularly concerned about the children of the detained Christians.’

Two Ethiopian fellowships in Saudi Arabia informed ICC that they will temporarily postpone services until the situation calms. Christians in Saudi Arabia, most of who enter the country as foreign workers, are not allowed to practice their faith openly. Saudi police have been known to raid private worship gatherings in homes, arrest and deport congregants, and confiscate Christian materials, including Bibles.

Aidan Clay, ICC Regional Manager for the Middle East, said, ‘Though not permitting a single church building where Christians can worship in Saudi Arabia, the Saudi government goes even further to assault the religious freedoms of its citizens and foreign workers by hunting for and arresting Christians who attend services in the privacy of their own homes. As a signatory to the UN Convention against Torture, we urge Saudi Arabia to end the abuse that the Ethiopian Christians have reportedly suffered in prison and to ensure their immediate release.'” Source – Persecution.org.

“ISTANBUL, December 15 (CDN) — A judge’s decision this month to indefinitely postpone the appeal of a Christian sentenced under Algeria’s defamation and anti-proselytizing laws shows how the judicial system keeps Christians locked up without officially punishing or acquitting them, according to sources.

In May a judge in Oran, 470 kilometers (292 miles) west of Algiers, sentenced a convert from Islam, Abdelkrim Siaghi, to a prison term of five years. He had been charged with insulting Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, and with “proselytism” for giving a Muslim a CD about Christianity. Siaghi (whose name is also spelled Siaghi Krimo) was also fined 200,000 dinars (US$2,663).

The prosecutor had reportedly requested that the judge sentence him to a two-year prison term and a fine of 50,000 dinars (US$665). The judge instead gave him the maximum sentence.

In Siaghi’s appeal, however, the judge has been unable to find any evidence against him and has postponed hearing dates several times. A scheduled Dec. 1 hearing was postponed indefinitely on that day, when judges were expected to pronounce a verdict, according to Siaghi’s lawyer…

Authorities arrested Siaghi in April after he purportedly gave a CD about Christianity to a Muslim. Siaghi had gone to a phone shop to buy minutes for his mobile phone, and the merchant there initiated a conversation on religion. Unhappy with Siaghi’s non-Muslim answers, the merchant tried to force him to pay homage to the prophet and to recite the Muslim creed, ‘There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet.’

Siaghi refused and said he was a Christian, according to Krim.

‘The merchant felt offended in his faith and would hear nothing more,’ Krim said. ‘He filed a complaint that Abdelkrim had belittled the prophet, and in the absence of other witnesses, charges were brought against him.'” Read more.

By Anugrah Kumar – “An Iranian court is likely to delay its verdict in a case concerning Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani, who is facing death penalty for converting to Christianity, to allow authorities to further coerce him to convert to Islam as he remains in jail.

The evangelical pastor’s lawyer has learned that the head of Iran’s judiciary, Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani, has asked the presiding judge over the trial, Ghazi Kashani, to delay the pending judgment and keep him in prison for another year, Present Truth Ministries said in a statement Thursday.

Nadarkhani, a 32-year-old house church leader from the Church of Iran denomination, was convicted of apostasy last year and was sentenced to death by hanging. However, the Supreme Court of Iran asked for the retrial of his case by a lower court in the city of Rasht in northern Gilan Province.

The deliberate delay is meant to let the case ‘slip away from international attention’ even as the authorities continue to ‘use whatever means necessary to cause him to convert to Islam,’ said Jason DeMars, the founder of the ministry that was first to report on the pastor’s arrest two years ago.

It was earlier learnt that the court in Rasht had asked Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei, the highest ranking political and religious authority in Shi’a-majority Iran, to rule on whether the pastor should be put to death.” Read more.

“MacArthur Arbado, an elder at the Bible Baptist Church in Carmen, Cotabato, was murdered on November 10 as he returned to his farm. The attackers shot him in the leg, back and abdomen before decapitating him with his own machete. MacArthur leaves behind his wife, Lolita, and 13 children.

Although his farm was surrounded by land owned by Muslims, he had a good relationship with his neighbours. He learned to speak their language and was called ‘uncle’ by many. Often his Muslim friends tried to convert him to Islam, but he stood firm in his faith and talked with them about Christianity. MacArthur’s killers are thought to be members of a separatist Muslim group in the area. VOM has met with MacArthur’s family and provided some assistance.

Please pray that God will comfort Lolita, her children, and the church. Pray that, as sufferings overflow, their comfort in Christ will be more than enough for them (2 Corinthians 1:5). Pray that the perpetrators of this attack will repent and turn to Jesus Christ.” Read more.

Sura 8:12b, “… terrorize and behead those who believe in scriptures other than the Qur’an.”

“JOS, Nigeria, December 15 (CDN) — Joshua Dabo, like other young Christians in this city in central Nigeria, had dreams for his life. He had graduated from a Christian high school, Mt. Olives Secondary School, and at 31 was finally looking forward to attending university.

Apart from commitment to his fellowship at Nasara Baptist Church at Tirji Junction near the University of Jos, Dabo ran a barbershop to earn income as he awaited admission to college, and he was an ardent soccer player and fan.

As such he made sure to be among the 120 people from the Christian community on Bauchi Ring Road who paid to watch a classic soccer rivalry, Barcelona FC v. Real Madrid, on TV at an outdoor bar (called a ‘viewing center’ in Nigeria) on Saturday night (Dec. 10). A few minutes into the match, televised in the hall of corrugated sheet metal at Yangwava Television Viewing Center at Ukadum village, a bomb went off.

‘It was shocking for me,’ said viewing center owner Emmanuel Exodus Nimkun, 30, of the Ukadum congregation of the Church of Christ in Nigeria (COCIN). ‘I saw Joshua Dabo standing without a head. I have never seen a thing like this – a human being standing but with his head blasted off, and he was struggling to move.’

Dabo was the lone fatality in three bomb blasts targeting viewing centers in predominantly Christian areas of Jos during the Spanish soccer match; at least 10 others were injured in the blasts, leaving four in critical condition, including two in a coma.

Nimkun told Compass that he was bleeding and his back was hurt after the explosion, but he held Dabo and brought him down.

‘I began to cry, and suddenly there were shouts that another bomb was hidden in a bag beside the viewing hall that had not exploded,’ he said. ‘We all ran out, and then a policeman came to the scene. He picked up courage and went to check the bag, and the device was intact.’…

‘This is a person killed not because he has done anything wrong but because he is a Christian.’…

Danladi Dabo said that Christians in Jos have reached out to their Muslim neighbors, but Muslims seem uninterested in peaceful relations with Christians.” Read more.

“(AINA) — Two weeks after the murder of two Christian brothers by Muslims during the violence that swept the upper Egyptian village of elGhorayzat, the family of the murdered Christians has temporarily come out of hiding to speak of the terror they have been subjected to and decry the impunity enjoyed by the killers, who are walking freely in the village.

On November 28, the two Christian brothers, Kamel Tamer Abraham (55) and Camille Tamer Abraham (50), were killed in revenge for the death of the Muslim Mohamad Abdel-Nazeer, who was injured during an altercation with a village Christian over the building of a fence round the Christian’s house, and who later died in hospital. The Christian man fled from the village with his family.

Mahmoud Abdel-Nazeer, the brother of the dead Muslim, and a mob of Muslims, vowed to avenge his death from all village Copts. They went on a rampage, looting and burning Christian owned homes and businesses, and resulted in the murder of the two brothers and injury to several other Christians not involved in the altercation (AINA 11-30-2011).

Karam Tamer Abraham, the brother of Kamel and Camille, said that his two murdered brothers were killed in lieu of the life of the Muslim, explaining that the Muslims asked for the lives of his two brothers because they are ‘the Christian elders of the village.’ He said that the family is in no way related to and does not even know the Christian involved in the death of the Muslim.

The Tamer Abraham family refused any ‘reconciliation’ with the murderers, and insisted that the rule of law should prevail. ‘We will get our rights by law, and we will never accept reconciliation, whatever the consequences. We are not in a jungle.’ He said that all this happened to the family because they are Christians.

According to Karam, after the murders, Muslims looted three flats in the family house, and their shop, ‘while the security forces stood there watching.’

The three men who participated in the killings, according to eyewitnesses, were Mahmoud Abdul-Nazeer, Sabry Mohammad el-Sayed and a third man unknown to them.

‘Reconciliation’ sessions are usually arranged by the Egyptian security authorities, after every violence against Christians, and result in Christians being pressured to give up their rights.

Currently the entire Abraham family are on the run, after having received death threats from the son of the dead Muslim, Mohammad Abdul-Nazeer, who demands that all four family children also have to be killed.” Read more.