They Cry in Silence Jul/Aug 2011
Muslims Murder a Convert. Two Muslim extremists in Somalia murdered a member of a secret Christian community in Lower Shabele region in April as part of a campaign to rid the country of Christianity.
An area source told Compass Direct News two al Shabaab militants shot 21-year-old Hassan Adawe Adan after entering his house at 7:30 P.M. They “dragged him out of his house, and after 10 minutes they fired several shots on him,” said the source. “He then died immediately.” The militants then shouted “Allahu Akbar [Allah is great]” before fleeing.
Adan, single and living with his Muslim family, was said to have converted to Christianity several months earlier. Area Christians said they suspected someone told the Islamic militants of his conversion. One source said a relative who belonged to al Shabaab told Adan’s mother that he suspected her son was a Christian.
“This incident is making other converts live in extreme fear, as the militants always keep an open eye to anyone professing the Christian faith,” the source said.
The al Shabaab insurgents seek to impose a strict version of Sharia (Islamic law), but the transitional government in Mogadishu fighting to retain control of the country treats Christians little better than the al Shabaab extremists do. While proclaiming himself a moderate, President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed has embraced a version of Sharia that mandates the death penalty for those who leave Islam.
On January 7, a mother of four was killed for her Christian faith on the outskirts of Mogadishu by al Shabaab members who cut her throat in front of villagers. She leaves behind her children—ages 12, 8, 6 and 4—and her husband, all of whom have fled to an undisclosed location.
Malaysian Christians Want Bibles. Christian importers of Bibles that Malaysian officials detained are balking at conditions the government has imposed for their release, such as defacement by official stamps.
The Home Ministry stamped the words This Good News [Malay] Bible is for use by Christians only on 5,100 Bibles without consulting the importer, the Bible Society of Malaysia (BSM), which initially refused to collect them, as it had neither accepted nor agreed to the conditions. The Home Ministry applied the stamp a day after the government issued a release order for the Bibles, which had been detained in Port Klang since March 20, 2009.
Another 30,000 Bibles, detained since January 12 on the island of Borneo, remain in port after the Home Ministry told the local chapter of Gideons International that it could collect them if the organization would put the stamp on them. The Gideons have declined to do so, and a spokesman said in April that officials had already defaced the books.
A significant 64 percent of Malaysian Christians are indigenous people from Sabah and Sarawak states who use the Malay language in their daily lives, and having the Bible in the Malay language is considered critical to the practice of their Christian faith.
In the case of West Malaysia, however, in view of its larger Muslim population, the government imposed the condition that the Bibles must have the words Christian publication and the sign of the cross printed on the front covers.
Christians make up more than 9 percent of Malaysia’s nearly 28 million people, according to Operation World.
Compiled from reports filed by Compass Direct News
