They Cry in Silence Jul/Aug 2015
INDIA—Church members have fled a village in northeast India after a vicious attack in April that seriously injured at least three Christians, including a 7-year-old girl.
A mob of about 100 Hindu extremists armed with swords, bamboo sticks, and stones attacked Christians who were eating after an 8 p.m. service in a village in Assam state, church leaders said. At least 15 Christians were injured.
“Right now there are no Christians in the village—all have fled,” said the Rev. David Boro of Guwahati. “The Christian families who were the main target of the attack are now in a safe-house after they were released from the hospital. The more critically injured are still in the hospital, and when they will be released, they too will join the others in the safe-house.”
The 7-year-old girl suffered serious chest injuries and clots in her brain due to the beating. The village is no longer safe, and the Christians’ homes have all been destroyed.
The Rev. Vijayesh Lal of the Evangelical Fellowship of India’s Religious Liberty Commission said the brutality of the incident was shocking. “The way children have been beaten up mercilessly shows the extent of hate created by external elements,” he said.
LIBYA—In an April video showing the execution of 28 Ethiopian Christians, the militant Sunni terrorist group Islamic State (ISIS) says persecution of Christians is fundamental to Islam and warns that if Christians in the Middle East and elsewhere refuse Islam, they will be slain.
An ISIS spokesman gives Christians three options: convert to Islam, submit to its rule and pay the Jizya (tribute), or be killed:
We say to Christians everywhere, the Islamic State will expand, with Allah’s permission. And it will reach you even if you are in fortified strongholds. So whoever enters Islam will have security, and whoever accepts the Dhimmah contract will have security. But whoever refuses will see nothing from us but the edge of a spear. The men will be killed and the children will be enslaved, and their wealth will be taken as booty. This is the judgment of Allah and His Messenger.
The recording issues what could be termed a treatise on persecuting Christians. Using numerous citations from the Qur’an and the Sunnah (the sayings and actions of Muhammad), along with quotes from Islamic scholars, ISIS labels Christianity a false religion and calls persecution of Christians a “fundamental” aspect of Islam that has fallen out of use in the modern era.
“In the recent past, these rites were absent from the condition of the Muslim Nation. Rather, these rites were the hostages of jurisprudence books and theoretical legal discussions,” a leader says.
“Whoever does not consider the Jews and Christians to be disbelievers and does not hate them is not a Muslim,” he added, quoting Islamic scholar Al Islam Ibn-Taymiyyah.
NIGERIA—Muslims killed a church pastor and more than 70 other Christians in Plateau state in May, setting fire to church buildings. Pastor Luka Gwom of the Church of Christ in Nations is dead, along with a woman who had gotten married in the church only two weeks earlier.
Sources told Morning Star News in a text message, “The jihadists, in their quest to eliminate Christians in Plateau state and their thirst for blood, have succeeded in killing Christians and burning their houses.” As always, victims included women and children.
Sources said, “We…have been under siege and invasion. Lives have been lost almost every day, and [there is] no serious action from any quarter by the government. But we are still faithful to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
Church leaders say the attacks constitute a war “by Islam to eliminate Christianity” in Nigeria. Christians make up 51.3 percent of Nigeria’s population of 158.2 million. Muslims account for 45 percent and live mainly in the north. Previously, gunmen shouting “Allahu Akbar” attacked three villages in Plateau state, burning down a church and killing at least 10 Christians.
by Morning Star News
(morningstarnews.org)
