Christian Persecution Jul/Aug 2018

UGANDA—The Muslim relatives of 27-year-old Gobera Bashir in eastern Uganda recently burned 40 percent of his body with hot cooking oil because he converted to Christianity.

The attack came a week after Bashir accepted Christ at a church service. The pastor gave him a Bible and counseled him, “Be cautious when reading the Bible, since your family is a Muslim family,” Bashir told Morning Star News.

Four days later, his sister found him reading the Bible in his room. “Why are you reading the Bible? You know our family only reads the Koran,” she said, according to Bashir. He told his sister he was just reading the Bible to gain knowledge.

Soon afterward, word spread that he had a Bible, and a group of people showed up at his house. Bashir refused to open the door, but they forced their way in. “As they entered the house, they found me in the sitting room and began tying my arms and legs. . . . ‘Shame! Shame! You are bringing a bad omen to the family with your bad Christian religion. Our family is a Muslim family,’ [they shouted]. There and then one of them poured a hot liquid from a thermos flask on me, and then they dragged me out of the house,” Bashir said.

The assailants’ faces were covered, but Bashir heard one of them call another “Paata,” his uncle’s name. So he knows some of them were relatives.

After burning him, they took him to a nearby swamp. “As they pulled me, I felt a lot of pain and screamed for help as one of the attackers blocked my mouth, and there I lost consciousness,” Bashir said.

Christians from a nearby house found him and took him to Naboa Health Centre, where he received treatment for four days.

After his treatment, a Christian widow and her grown children took him into their home. “Bashir has wounds all over his body, and his clothes have stains from an oily substance, suggesting that what was poured on him is a kind of oil,” the woman told Morning Star News. “He sleeps under very strong pain killers, hence he spends sleepless nights. The burns cover about 40 percent of his body.”

Most of his burns cover his legs, buttocks, and hands, since the assailants forced him to sit on hot cooking oil, she said.

Two days after being discharged from the health center, family members discovered where Bashir had taken refuge, and he was taken to another location. “Please pray for quick recovery for Bashir, as some of the skin burns are rotting with a very bad smell,” a local source said. “He needs urgent attention and specialized treatment, which might be very costly.”

Bashir has not reported the attack to the police, since doing so would expose those hiding him to attacks from his family, sources said.

In January another Christian in eastern Uganda, Munabi Abudallah, lost his wife and seven children after putting his faith in Christ. In December 2017, a widowed mother of five was poisoned on Christmas Day for converting to Christianity.

Although Uganda’s laws provide for religious freedom, including the right to evangelize and convert from one faith to another, Christian persecution occurs in the eastern part of the country, where Muslims constitute about 12 percent of the population.

by Morning Star News
To read the full report, go to Morningstarnews.org.