Churches respond to third week of Nigerian church bombings

The bombed Shalom Church in Kaduna (Compass Direct photo)

Nigeria (MNN) ― For the third consecutive weekend, Nigerian churches faced a series of bombings, resulting in at least 50 deaths. Over 100 more were injured.

Three attacks occurred on Sunday, June 17. Two suicide bombings happened near churches within Zaria. Compass Direct News reports that a blast at the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) killed 24, while an attack at a Catholic Church killed 16.

Thirty minutes later, a Pentecostal congregation called Shalom Church near Kaduna was bombed, killing at least 10.

Compass Direct News reports that a majority of those killed and injured in the attack series were children.

Terrorist group Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the June 3 and June 10 bombings, and sources say the group has now owned up to the June 17 attacks as well. Boko Haram has been clear about its intentions to wipe Christians off the map of northern Nigeria.

"It's becoming more and more the norm when Christians gather for worship to have bombings and car bombings in northern Nigeria," says Todd Nettleton with Voice of the Martyrs.

Nettleton says as a result, churches are upping their security. "More and more of the churches in Nigeria are posting guards at the gate. They are building gates to the church property. They are trying to minimize the danger that they face from this type of attack. At the same time, the very message of the Gospel is a message for everyone."

It's difficult to think this way when families are in danger, though. Some believers are going as far as to retaliate. Reuters reports that after the Kaduna bombing, Christian youths blocked the highway. Witnesses claim the young people were pulling Muslims out of cars and killing them.

Nettleton notes, "It's easy to sit in a comfortable church in the United States and feel safe and say, ‘They really shouldn't strike back. They really shouldn't try to get vengeance.' But if you think about it, if your family was being attacked, if your wife, if your children are being attacked, the drive to protect them and the drive even toward vengeance would be very strong."

But of course, that drive doesn't negate Christ's command to turn the other cheek. Nettleton says the most significant need now is for prayer.

"One of the ways that I think is really important for us to pray is for wisdom for the Christians in northern Nigeria, and especially the leadership within the churches to know how to respond, and to know how to lead their people to respond to these kinds of attacks. We're called on to pray for those who persecute us. We're called on to love our enemies as followers of Christ. That's a very hard thing to do when you go to church on Sunday realizing that there's a very real danger that there will be a bombing and you or some of your family won't make it home safely after the service."

Pray that the Holy Spirit would intercede to allow believers to love their enemies, to reach out with the Good News, and to keep from striking back.

VOM Medical responds to victims of attacks like these. Click here to help them. 

Egypt elections: no clear answers

Open Doors' Carl Moeller.

Egypt (MNN) ― Both parties claimed victory in Egypt's first presidential elections since President Hosni Mubarak was ousted from power. Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi said he received 51%of the vote, while secularist Ahmed Shafiq says he won with 52% of the vote.

While official vote tallies aren't expected before Thursday, President of Open Doors USACarl Moeller says, "The last few days have proven that nothing can be predicted in Egypt."

Moeller says Christians do have some assurances. He says Shafiq "would be more friendly to the Christian community. The unknown factor with the Muslim Brotherhood is, of course, that things would become far more volatile for the Christians."

While reports indicate Egypt's interim ruling military council would hand over power, Moeller isn't so sure. "The military can rightly claim that no one got a clear majority and so therefore they will continue to hold on to power until some other arrangement can be worked out."

Student revolutionaries say the revolution was stolen by Islamists. Moeller says there is some indication that "the Muslim Brotherhood has overreached in their desire to make Egypt a strongly-Islamic state. That said, it's now produced a 50-50 split in the country."

Moeller believes that will produce more unrest and discontent, especially since there's no official national constitution.

For Christians, Moeller says, "The situation for them is grim. They are either faced with embracing a regime that for decades succeeded in persecuting them, or face the prospect of an Islamic-influenced government. The only hope, of course, is in Jesus Christ."

Even though Egypt faces uncertainty, Moeller says the church is strong. "Even in the midst of all of this chaos, the spiritual openness of people to the Good News of Jesus has never been greater in this part of the world."

Open Doors supports Christians in Egypt and other nations where believers are persecuted. Your support is needed now more than ever. "There is fear among Christians. And they need a sense that they are not alone. So it's vital that we meet them in their time of need with food, clothing, and Bibles."

If you'd like to help, click here.

EGYPT: The military versus the Islamists

As protests in Egypt continue, the military
 and the Muslim Brotherhood go head to head
 over parliamentary elections.
 Image by Ty McCormick. Egypt, 2011.

By Elizabeth Kendal

Updating Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin (RLPB) 163 
EGYPT: PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 16-17 JUNE 

------------------------------------------------------------------

In April 2012, the Islamist-dominated parliament passed the Political Isolation Law which disqualified senior officials of Mubarak's regime from holding political posts. The law would have prevented Ahmed Shafiq (former air-force chief and Mubarak's last Prime Minister) from contesting the presidency had he not won an appeal against the law. At that point the Political Isolation Law was deferred to Egypt's Mubarak-appointed Supreme Constitutional Court.

On Wednesday 13 June, the day before the Constitutional Court was due to hand down its decision, Egypt's Justice Ministry issued a decree giving military police and intelligence officers permission to arrest civilians suspected of "crimes" such as activities deemed "harmful to the government", destruction of property, "obstructing traffic" and "resisting orders". The decree restores some of the powers of the decades-old emergency law which expired just two weeks ago. Al Jazeera's Rawya Rageh, reporting from Cairo, "said Egyptian activists see the current order as 'much worse than the [previous] emergency law', in that it is seen as expanding the military's power".

Then, on Thursday 14 June, the Constitutional Court -- an institution in which the military maintains significant leverage -- unsurprisingly deemed the Political Isolation Law unconstitutional, thereby freeing Ahmed Shafiq to contest the presidential run-off this weekend. 

In what activists and academics have described as a "soft military coup", the Constitutional Court also ruled the country's parliament illegitimate, paving the way for the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) -- the military body that ruled after the first military coup ousted Mubarak -- to resume legislative powers. 

According to Bloomberg Businessweek, the court found "that part of the law under which the parliament was elected was illegal, as it allowed parties to field nominees for [the one third of] seats earmarked for independent candidates. That ruling is irreversible and means the entire legislature is illegitimate, court spokesman Maher Sami said. . . . The court said parliament has no 'standing under law'."

Former presidential candidate Abdel Moneim Abol Fotouh, an independent Islamist, decried the two court rulings, saying they amount to "a complete coup". Writing on his Facebook page, Fotouh raged, "Keeping the military candidate [in the race] and overturning the elected parliament after granting the military police the right to arrest is a complete coup and whoever thinks that millions of youth will let it pass is deluding themselves," 

See: Egypt Court Dissolves Parliament in 'Soft Coup'
By Tarek El-Tablawy, Abdel Latif Wahba and Mariam Fam
Bloomberg News, 14 June 2012 

Egypt supreme court calls for parliament to be dissolved
BBC, 14 June 2012 

At this point in time, the Islamists are refusing to dissolve the parliament and have vowed to win the presidency. And despite the threat posed by the Justice Ministry's repressive decree, protests have begun and are expected to intensify after Friday prayers and across the weekend.

See: Egyptians protest as court dissolves parliament, confirms Shafiq candidacy
Mohammed Morsi: Millions over the weekend will say 'no' to tyrants
14 June 2012 

Stratfor sees strategy

In a report entitled "Egypt's Military Delivers Ultimatum to Muslim Brotherhood" (14 June 2012), Stratfor Global Intelligence surmises that the legal manoeuvres are part of a military strategy to intimidate and contain the Muslim Brotherhood.

"Egypt's military has the least amount of control when the country goes to the polls. Through parliamentary elections the MB, together with Egypt's Salafist faction, the al-Nour Party, came to dominate parliament. And MB candidate Mohammed Morsi had a strong chance of beating Shafiq at the presidential election polls.

"The military's authority instead comes from its institutional leverage. The MB may have had nominal control over the parliament, but the military's influence over the judiciary effectively has nullified any parliamentary move the MB attempted. Similarly, the military is using its institutional strength to keep the drafting of the country's constitution out of the MB's control.

"The SCAF [Supreme Council of the Armed Forces] could not be confident that its preferred candidate, Shafiq, would beat Morsi in the presidential runoff. The SCAF may be contemplating that the best way to protect its authority in the system is to back the MB [Muslim brotherhood] against a wall, first by pushing ahead Shafiq as a legitimate candidate, then by threatening to dissolve the MB-controlled parliament and finally by establishing itself as the final arbiter in the constitution-drafting process.

"The main question moving forward is whether the MB is ready for the grand bargain that the SCAF is trying to impose on the Islamist party. The SCAF appears willing to risk an MB presidency, so long as the MB cedes primary authority to the military in drafting the constitution, which will ultimately decide the balance of power among the military, parliament and presidency. The dissolution of parliament is a threat directed at the MB: If the MB accepts the military's demands on the constitution, then the SCAF could allow the parliament to remain as is; if not, it could dissolve parliament and schedule another round of parliamentary elections. In another round of elections, the MB would likely come out with another strong win. Only this time, the elections would theoretically take place within a constitutional framework shaped by the SCAF."


-----------


The first military coup -- in which military power was leveraged to oust Mubarak -- rode on the back of youth-driven pro-democracy protests in Tahrir Square. In this second military coup, military-controlled legal instruments are being leveraged against the parliament while military power will be leveraged against the street with the aim of asserting military control over the Islamists as they stand on the threshold of controlling both the parliament and the presidency.

The battle between the military and the Islamists has begun in earnest, leaving Egyptians who had dreamed of progress and liberty lamenting what might have been and questioning why it was not achieved.

Islamists Bomb Three Churches in Kaduna State, Nigeria

Blasts in two churches in Zaria, one in Kaduna city kill dozens of Christians.

By Abdias Pasoville

 

 The bombed Shalom Church in Kaduna city.
(Photo Courtesy: Compass Direct News)

JOS, Nigeria, June 17 (Compass Direct News) – Suspected Islamic extremists bombed three churches in Kaduna state this morning, the third consecutive Sunday that worship services in Nigeria have ended in lethal bloodshed.

 

In a predominantly Christian area of Zaria known as Wusasa, a suspected Islamic extremist crashed a car into a barricade at an Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) church at around 9 a.m., setting off explosives that killed at least 24 people and wounded 125, according to one unconfirmed report citing an anonymous state official. A few minutes later, suspected Islamic extremists set off explosives at Christ the King Catholic Church in the Sabon Gari area of Zaria.

 

An eyewitness told Compass that at least 10 corpses were removed from the cathedral, with dozens of people injured, many critically. At press time the Nigerian Red Cross Society reported the death toll from the blast at the Catholic church had reached 16.

 

A short while later, a Pentecostal congregation called Shalom Church in the Trikania area of Kaduna city was bombed, killing at least 10, according to the Red Cross. Retaliatory attacks reportedly killed several others.

 

The attacks were believed to have been carried out by the Boko Haram Islamic sect, which took responsibility for similar attacks in Plateau and Borno states on June 10 and in Bauchi state on June 3.

 

Andrew Gani-Ikilami, executive director of the Wusasa Business School in Zaria, said many victims were arriving at the area hospital.

 

“One of the churches is an ECWA church located here in Wusasa where we are, and many children are affected,” he said.

 

Dr. Taylor Adeyemi, medical director at St. Luke’s (Anglican) Hospital Wusasa in Zaria, confirmed that many of the victims were children.

 

“40 injured Christians have been brought to the hospital, and the majority of them are children,” Adeyemi said. “Three have died, and others are still being treated.”

 

John Shiklam, a journalist in Kaduna city, said a 24-hour-curfiew made it difficult to obtain more information on the blast there.

 

“All I can say is that it is true there were attacks on three churches in the state, and as a result, a fight broke out between Muslims and Christians,” Shiklam told Compass by phone.

 

Besides the bombing of a church in Jos, Plateau state last Sunday, gunmen also attacked  a church in the town of Biu in Borno state, killing two Christians (see www.compassdirect.org, “Suicide Bombing Hits Another Church in Jos, Nigeria,” June 10).

 

On June 3 in Bauchi state, a Muslim suicide bomber from the Boko Haram sect attacked the Living Faith church in Yelwa, a Christian settlement on the outskirts of the northern Nigerian city of Bauchi, killing 13, with allegations following that authorities killed eight others who were protesting the lack of security. The blast also collapsed a wall of the nearby Harvest Field Church of Christ, leaving three people in critical condition (see www.compassdirect.org, “Blast Wreaks Bloodshed on Two Churches in Bauchi, Nigeria,” June 3). 

 

Boko Haram has killed at least 560 people this year alone, according to a county by The Associated Press. Literally meaning “Forbidden Book” and translated as “Western education is forbidden,” the Islamist sect has targeted churches, state offices, law enforcement sites and some moderate mosques in its effort to destabilize the government and impose a strict version of sharia (Islamic law) on all of Nigeria.

 

Nigeria’s population of more than 158.2 million is divided between Christians, who make up 51.3 percent of the population and live mainly in the south, and Muslims, who account for 45 percent and live mainly in the north. The percentages may be less, however, as those practicing indigenous religions may be as high as 10 percent of the total population, according to Operation World.

 

www.compassdirect.org

 

END

 

**********

Copyright 2012 Compass Direct News

Iran tightens the screws on church leaders

Central Assembly of God, Tehran
 (Photo courtesy Farsi Christian Network)

Iran (MNN) ― Concerns over church growth prompted Iran's Revolutionary Guard to crack down on a government-sanctioned church earlier this month. 

In a country where almost all Christian activity is illegal--especially when it occurs in Persian languages, President and CEO of Open Doors USACarl Moeller says, "Our work in the Persian-speaking world is very involved in supporting churches. The reality is that this church in Tehran--an Assembly of God church--was closed. It's one of the few legally Farsi-speaking churches in all of Iran."

Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) says that until the order is reversed, no services will be held at the Janat-Abad area church.

Islam is the official religion in Iran, and everything falls under the interpretation of Sharia law. Moeller adds, "There are religious minorities that have historically been granted permission to worship in Iran: primarily Armenians, who are ethnically Armenian but living in Iran as Iranian citizens. They've been given certain limited permissions to meet." However, over the last year or so, many Christians have reported imprisonment, physical abuse, harassment, and discrimination because of their faith.

Moeller goes on to say that the most disconcerting part of the closure is: "There are few legally-protected Farsi-speaking churches, and yet those few now are coming under extreme pressure, and this one church has been ordered to be closed."  

Last month the leadership of the AOG Central Church of Tehran asked its members to volunteer their names and national ID numbers. Compass Direct News reports that the government move was aimed at limiting attendance by converts from Islam to Christianity, as well as to better monitor its members.

It's more than keeping an eye on Christians, though, explains Moeller. "In much of the country, Christians are being labeled by the government as 'agents of foreign governments' and so forth, and simply as 'spies to the regime.'" 

It's a consistent line of thinking when the Islamic regime's desire is to eliminate Christianity from Iran. "The way in which it seems to make sense, from their perspective, is that Christians, by their definition, are 'foreign agents.' Again, [with] the pressure that they're feeling globally on scrutiny about their nuclear program and the various other pressure that the Iranian government feels it's under, the first easy target for them to go after are Christians."

Disillusionment coupled with fear and social pressure are widening the crack in the regime's façade. Moeller says that their harsh treatment of Christians only further fuels the flames of the Gospel. "Increasingly, the government has to resort to stronger and stronger tactics to control the population. We see this happen as the influence of Christians in the country grows. And as people are more and more emboldened by their Christian faith to stand up against the government, the government is going to crack down even more. "

Open Doors UK/Ireland estimates that are roughly 460,000 Christians (from an Islamic and Assyrian/Armenian background) in Iran. Pray for boldness for believers there. Check our Featured Links Section for more prayer needs around the world.

Iranian believer charged with blasphemy released

Iran (MNN) ― Last week on June 10, Christian brother Mehdi "Petros" Foroutan was released from prison in Iran, reports Voice of the Martyrs, Canada.

Foroutan served about a year in an Iranian prison for crimes against national security. In other words, he did time for following Christ.

Foroutan, 27, was one of five Iranian Christians and ministers who were convicted of crimes against the Islamic Order. They were convicted March 8, 2011 for telling Muslims the truth about Jesus Christ. Their technical crime was blasphemy.

Although the judge ruled that the five were not guilty, the prosecutor appealed the verdict.

At the time of the sentence, one of the five believers was seven months pregnant.

Now Foroutan at least has been released from prison. His time spent was very difficult, as only about a month into his sentence, Foroutan was put in solitary confinement for a period. Pray that he would overcome all of the after-effects of his imprisonment.

This is one small victory for the persecuted church in Iran, but many others remain imprisoned for their faith. Most notably, Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani remains on death row in Rasht, Iran. He is still awaiting an official response from the local court regarding his September 2011 trial.

Voice of the Martyrs has several ways for free believers to encourage their persecuted brothers and sisters. Through theirPrisonAlert.com, Christians can advocate on behalf of individual believers, write letters to prisoners, and become better versed in worldwide persecution.

Encourage Youcef Nadarkhani or Behnam Irani, another imprisoned Iranian pastor, here.