WASHINGTON — One-hundred percent of Christians in 21 countries around the world experience persecution for their faith in Christ as over 215 million Christians faced “high levels” of persecution in the last year, a leading human rights watchdog group reports. Continue reading “100% of Christians Face Persecution in These 21 Countries | re-blog CP World by Samuel Smith”
Tag: Yemen
The Silent Tragedy of Child Marriage – Re-Blog / Robert Spencer
The Silent Tragedy of Child Marriage
By Robert Spencer
May 20, 2013 – 8:00 am
“Since this is not negated later, we can take from this verse that it is permissible to have sexual intercourse with a prepubescent girl.” — IslamOnline.Com
Last Friday, an Afghan journalist named Mustafa Kazemi posted on Facebook a harrowing story about an eight-year-old girl in the Khashrood district of Nimruz province in Afghanistan, who was sold off into marriage to a mullah in his late 50s, and who bled to death on their wedding night.
It was one of many such tragedies in a land that little notes nor long remembers such deaths. An eight-year-old girl sold into marriage and dead after a brutal sexual assault that her body could not withstand is no more noteworthy than a pack animal that collapses under a too-heavy weight. It’s time and money wasted, that’s all. Forget about it. Get another one. Continue reading “The Silent Tragedy of Child Marriage – Re-Blog / Robert Spencer”
Please pray for Christians in Yemen – World Watch List #9
Persecuted Church: Please pray for Christians in Yemen (World Watch List #9)
Population: 25.6 million (a few thousand Christians)
The Yemeni constitution declares that Islam is the state religion and Sharia is the source of all legislation. Conversion is forbidden for Muslims and Muslim-background believers face persecution from authorities, family and extremist groups who threaten ‘apostates’ with death if they do not revert.
There is some religious freedom for foreigners here and there are a few official churches for several thousand Christian expats and refugees in Aden, but in the north, no church buildings are allowed. The country is very unstable and large numbers of expats have left the country. Evangelism is prohibited and conversion is forbidden. Yemenis who leave Islam may face the death penalty. The few hundred Christians from a Muslim background face persecution from authorities and family, and extremist groups use this threat to pressure them to recant. (Open Doors)
Please Pray:
- That isolated believers will find ways to meet together.
- That vocational training programs supported by Open Doors will help Yemeni believers to stand strong.
- Suicide bomb attacks killed over 100 in 2012. Pray for peace in this deeply divided country.
Background: Yemen, situated on the Arabian Peninsula, consists mostly of desert. The country’s main source of income comes from its petroleum industry. However, poverty is a big problem in Yemen as one in every three Yemenis is unemployed.
When the winds of the Arab Spring reached Yemen, the government used excessive violence to crack down on protestors. As a result of the unrest many expatriates, including Christians, left Yemen.
On March 18, 2012 an American language teacher, Joel, was shot dead by gunmen in Yemen’s second largest city, Taiz. Joel was driving to work on a Sunday morning when he was fired on by gunmen on a motorbike. The al-Qaeda-linked militant group, Ansar al-Sharia, said it carried out the attack, “in response to a Western campaign to preach Christianity among Muslims.”*
The number of Muslim background believers is estimated to be between 500 and 1 000. They are not allowed to have their own gatherings and so they meet in secret locations.
Yearly, about five to six Christian converts are imprisoned for a duration varying from a few days, up to half a year. Often, these Christians are not officially charged making it very hard to prove that they are being detained due to their Christian faith.
The government used excessive force to crack down on protestors after 10 months of mass protest caused by high unemployment levels and government corruption. In February 2012, elections were held and the Acting President and only candidate Mansour Hadi was sworn-in amid a climate of violence. The country is divided between pro- and anti-Saleh forces, the south is claiming independence. There is a strong tribal system and small al-Qaeda-linked groups struggling for power.
” Freedom of Worship or Religion?” – What Will Become of the Middle East’s Christians? | First Things
Peanut Gallery: What’s the difference between “Freedom of Worship” and “Freedom of Religion?”
The secularists in the Obama administration are attempting to substitute the former for the latter in official “human rights” documents – so what?
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom’s 2010 Annual Report took note of the shift, stating, “This change in phraseology could well be viewed by human rights defenders and officials in other countries as having concrete policy implications.”
As Nina Shea, director of the Center for Religious Freedom, observed, this expression implies a narrower scope of the exercise of religion. “It excludes the right to raise your children in your faith; the right to have religious literature; the right to meet with co-religionists; the right to raise funds; the right to appoint or elect your religious leaders, and to carry out charitable activities, to evangelize, [and] to have religious education or seminary training,” said Shea, who previously served on the Commission.
The simple substitution of one word – “worship” for “religion” – forms the ideological basis for Christian persecution throughout the world… and most particularly in Islamic countries. It’s a big deal!
Please read the full article by Andrew Doran published in First Things
What Will Become of the Middle East’s Christians?
October 30, 2012 – Andrew Doran
In the fall of 2010, a few months before revolution swept the Muslim world, I happened to be in Yemen for work. The trip coincided with the start of the Eid holiday, which provided ample free time to see much of the capital, Sana’a.
One afternoon, en route to the hotel from the historic Old City, the driver pointed out the window at a group of men standing on a vacant corner. “Look!” he said with the excitement of happening upon a rarity. “Those are Jews.”
They were some distance away, and whatever distinguished them from other Yemeni, I could not see it through the window of an SUV. In the blink of an eye, they were no longer visible.
At the start of the last century, there were tens of thousands of Jews in Yemen; today, there are perhaps hundreds. Most were airlifted out in 1949 and 1950 as part of Operation Magic Carpet, an Israeli undertaking to rescue Arab (especially Yemeni) Jews following the pogroms that resulted from the founding of Israel in 1948. While efforts to rescue the remaining Jews have recently resumed, the whereabouts of many Yemeni Jews remains unknown.
The exodus of Jews from Yemen, where they had lived for fifteen centuries before the birth of the Prophet, was not an isolated occurrence; it was repeated across the Middle East and North Africa, as these Diaspora Jews made their way, reluctantly in many cases, to Israel. Their fight for survival foreshadowed that of the more than ten million Christians of the Muslim world, who today struggle to maintain a presence and identity in the lands where they have lived for centuries. Continue reading “” Freedom of Worship or Religion?” – What Will Become of the Middle East’s Christians? | First Things”
Please pray for believers in Yemen
Peanut Gallery: Current events in Yemen further jeopardize the lives of the few hundred believers from a Muslim background in this country of 24.8 million. Open Doors describes the flight of Christian ex patriots after the “Arab Spring” riots – click here.
Islam is the state religion and source of legislation. The few hundred Christians from a Muslim background meet secretly as they face persecution from authorities, family and extremist Islamic groups. In the north, no church buildings are allowed. There is some religious freedom for foreigners but evangelism is prohibited. There are four official churches in Aden for the several thousands of Christian expats and refugees living in the country but large numbers have left as a result of the Arab Spring riots.
But that was a year ago… before current events. Please pray for believers’ safety, protection and peace.
“Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4.6-7 NLT
Turmoil Spreads to U.S. Embassy in Yemen
SANA, Yemen — Turmoil in the Arab world linked to a contentious video denigrating the Prophet Muhammad spread on Thursday to Yemen, where hundreds of protesters stormed the United States Embassy, two days after assailants killed the American ambassador in Libya and crowds tried to overrun the embassy compound in Cairo.
News reports also spoke of a separate protest in Tehran, where around 500 Iranians chanting “Death to America” tried to converge on the Swiss Embassy, which handles United States interests in the absence of formal diplomatic relations with Washington. Hundreds of police officers held the crowds back from the diplomatic compound, which Swiss officials had evacuated as a precaution, Agence France-Presse said.
For a third straight day, protesters scuffled with police in Cairo, news reports said, while in Iraq, a militant Shiite group, Asaib Ahl al-Haq, once known for its violent attacks on Americans and other Westerners, said the video “will put all American interests in danger.”
In Sana, witnesses said Yemeni security forces had tried to disperse a crowd at the fortified embassy compound in the east of Sana, the capital. But protesters broke through an outer perimeter protecting the embassy, clambering over a high wall and setting fire to a building.
They were forced to retreat after trying to plunder furniture and computers, the witnesses said. Continue reading “Please pray for believers in Yemen”
The Peanut Gallery 