page 3

The list of Christian suffering is almost endless: more than 100 masked men invaded the Solid Rock Kingdom Church in Nigeria¹³, attacking the congregants with machetes, and destroying the building. In the Sudan¹⁴ about 3,000 Christians (and animist¹⁵ children) were abducted from the South and forced into slavery in the North where they are beaten and tortured. Young girls are used as concubines for Muslim troops, while boys are shipped to army camps and forcibly converted to Islam and turned into soldiers. All Christian assets and buildings are to be confiscated and all Christian books burned by the Khartoum regime. Christian students have been chased off universities.

In Saudi Arabia where Evangelism is severely punished, five Filipinos and a Dutchman have been imprisoned since June, while the exact number of Christians being held is unknown. Other Christians are to be deported. The arrests began after some church members were arrested for distributing Bible materials in Riyad.

Palestinian converts are threatened, beaten and jailed by PA officials. Their shops are burned down, their homes confiscated and their cars defaced with Islamic slogans. Some are jailed for years without charge, or are sentenced in midnight trials in a matter of hours. There were once tens of thousands of Palestinian Christians in the areas Israel was pressured to hand over to the PLO. Now there remain only a few thousand, who fear for their lives. The others have fled into exile. 

Only Hanan Ashrawi - whose anti-Israel venom can frequently be heard on CNN and BBC - seems to feel secure despite the fact that she claims to be “Christian”, and a descendant of the first Christian converts. But apparently she had never read the Bible, for she asserted that "Jesus Christ was born in my country {speak: Palestine), in my land. Bethlehem is a Palestinian town."YU When she was told that the first believers in Jesus Christ (Yeshua HaMahiach) were Jews she retracked her claim!

In a profoundly dangerous return to Soviet-style control of religion, Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed the new anti-religion law (September 26, 1997). This law delegitimizes virtually all religious institutions other than the official state religion, the Russian Orthodox Church (which was among the sponsors of the law), and provides a legal “hunting” license for provincial authorities to persecute all non-Orthodox bodies (which are not in the spotlight of the Western media and of human rights organizations). 

Hector Tamez, a native of Mexico, who has worked for 34 years on four continents on behalf of Open Doors with Brother Andrew International, and was a regional director for the Mexican Bible Society, estimates that about half the Latin American Christian church is suffering persecution in some form, with some Christians “paying a higher price” for their faith than others. A Peruvian evangelist who worked for Open Doors was recently found murdered, with his hands and feet cut off, and his heart and tongue cut out. Mr. Tamez said that drug lords and their armed forces are often the instigators of persecution against Christians in leading drug-producing areas such as Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and southern Mexico. They demand that the church help in drug production. “Its a continuous struggle,” Tamez said.

In October 1998 the United States Senate approved the Freedom from Religious Persecution Act under which President Clinton is obliged to take some form of action against all countries cited by the State Department as not allowing religious liberty. Egypt is prominent on the list... But the Clinton Administration sees Mr. Mubarak as a key player in peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians and seems unlikely to risk upsetting him by reducing its £ 1.3 billion aid package.