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RULING PARTY  CADRES UNLEASH TERROR ON MINORITIES IN KALICAHAR VILLAGE, BANGLADESH  OVER ONE HUNDRED HOMES BROKEN INTO, RAVAGED AND LOOTED Report: Daily Janakantha dated 05/08/04.  KALIA in the district of  Norail, Bangladesh is burning from the vengeful terror  attacks of ‘Alliance”  party cadres and their supporters. These terrorists stuck at a minimum of four small villages where minorities live. All night long on Thursday, they attacked and ravaged more than one hundred homes. They robbed the villagers of their possessions. Terrified families deserted their homes and took shelter in the forest or in other villages that so far escaped...

Nigeria - Wednesday June 08, 2005 CHRISTIAN LECTURER DISAPPEARS AFTER DEATH THREAT Muslim dress code stirs unrest in Kaduna and Kano states. June 8 (Compass) — Andrew Akume, a Christian lecturer at Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) in Zaria city, Kaduna state, northern Nigeria, has disappeared since the issuance of a death sentence against him. A militant Muslim group at ABU passed the sentence on him claiming he blasphemed Mohammed, the prophet of Islam. The death sentence for Akume, the university’s dean of the faculty of law, is contained in two fatwas (Islamic decrees) issued in the months of May...

Christian Areas Attacked, 200 Homes Destroyed (BosNewsLife) - A human rights investigation continued Friday, July 1, into an outbreak of violence in several Christian areas of Pakistan where hundreds of homes have reportedly been destroyed by Islamic militants. The Voice Of the Martyrs (VOM) USA told BosNewsLife the attacks happened this week in three areas around the city of Peshawar, about 172 km (107 miles) west of the capital Islamabad. Troubles began late Tuesday, June 28, just hours after an illiterate Christian man in his 60's allegedly burned pages with Koranic verses written on them. The organization claimed the burning...

Missionary Tortured and SentencedA young Indian missionary has been sentenced to one year in prison and beaten hundreds of times in Saudi Arabia, a mission organization said Thursday, June 30. Christian Aid Mission (CAM) told BosNewsLife that 30-year old Brother Samkutty, whose family name was not released, was detained after traveling to the Islamic kingdom on the invitation of Christian friends who had asked him to speak in churches of Indian believers. "On March 22, while on his way to a Bible study, Samkutty was arrested by Saudi Arabia's religious police," said CAM, which supports native missionaries across the world....

Naushera blasphemy case: Christian was illiterate, only followed orders: NCJP* Case also registered against angry mob which set temple on fire: policeLAHORE: Yousaf Masih, an illiterate 60-year old sweeper who is charged with blasphemy and desecration of the Quran in Naushera, was only disposing waste on his landlady’s orders, according to evidence gathered by the National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP). Yousaf had no way of knowing if some Quranic verses had found their way into the garbage, says the commission. “A child spotted Yousaf Masih burning verses from the Quran. He was in fact just burning garbage....

Pakistan: Police raid a Catholic libraryKarachi (AsiaNews) – Pakistani police have raided a bookshop run by Catholic sisters in the wake of publication of unfounded accusations leveled against the local Christian community. The raid took place in Saddar near Karachi on 13 June: police officers raided the library of the Daughters of St Paul and confiscated merchandise on sale. The police kept a shop salesman for more than 24 hours for questioning while the sisters were intimidated. The raid came after an article appeared in a national Urdu daily and accusations by Islamic extremists. On 12 June, the Nawa-I-Waqt newspaper...

Three Women Face Charges for Evangelizing Children Dufan (Fantasy World) in Jakarta Charges have been laid against three Indonesian women as the result of a picnic which they led at Dufan (Fantasy World) in Jakarta in December 2004.  The picnic conducted by a church-run children's program. Some Muslim children joined the picnic and there were no problems until some of their parents raised complaints last month.  According to VOMC sources in Indonesia, the three women, Dr Rebecca, Mrs Ratna and Mrs Lia, were summoned to the police station on May 3 and charges were formerly laid against them on...

Saudi Arabia - Monday May 16, 2005 GOVERNMENT DENIES ACCESS TO JAILED CHRISTIANS Five East Africans held in Riyadh prison. Yemane Gebre Loul, May 16 (Compass) -- Five East African Christians arrested at a private Christian worship service three weeks ago are being refused any access to visitors at the interrogation center where they are jailed in the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh. An expatriate friend who attempted to visit the three Ethiopians and two Eritreans last week was refused permission by prison officials of the Mabahith, an internal security force under the Saudi Ministry of Interior. When the...

House Church Raided in Saudi Arabia One week after a prayer meeting in Riyadh was raided and forty Christians arrested, a second house church meeting was broken up by the muttawa (religious police) on April 29 and five leaders taken into custody. According to a May 4 report from Compass Direct, sixty Ethiopian and Eritrean Christians had gathered together for prayer when the muttawa, together with high-ranking Muslim sheikhs, burst into the meeting, confiscating forty Bibles and a cross necklace before warning them to never meet there for prayer again. Those detained have been identified as Yemane Gebre Loul, Gazai...

Catholic Radio Station Bombed in Lebanon BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNS) -- A Catholic-run radio station in Lebanon was destroyed in a bombing attack May 6, the latest in a series of attacks in Lebanon's Christian areas. The attack was an apparent response to the station's campaign regarding the plight of Lebanese detained in Syrian prisons. The Voice of Charity, operated by the Congregation of Maronite Lebanese Missionaries in the port city of Jounieh since 1984, was completely destroyed in the attack, caused by an estimated 50 pounds of explosives in the main square outside the building. One person was killed, and...

Indonesia-wide terrorist plan found in the wake of anti-Christian attack in Mamasa Poso (AsiaNews) – An attack on April 24 that cost the lives of six people in predominantly Christian Mamasa regency (district) in West Sulawesi was part of a wider terrorist scheme, this according to General Saleh Saaf, South Sulawesi Police Chief Inspector, after the arrest of Amirrudin, 22, a terror suspect arrested following the Mamasa attack. General Saaf said that documents in the young man’s possession reveal the existence of “plans to carry out terror attacks and bombings across the country”. Currently, police is analysing the confiscated documents...

By Jeremy ReynaldsSpecial Correspondent for ASSIST News Service PAKISTAN (ANS) -- After refusing to renounce his Christian faith and embrace Islam, a Pakistani man was seriously beaten. According to a news release from the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance (APMA), Shahbaz Masih, 29, worked as a driver for the Muslim family of Mir Hussein. Masih’s hard work and honesty earned the trust of his employer. However, that offended a number of area Muslims, APMA reported. On the evening of April 23, Masih was captured by a group of eight armed Muslim men. They brought him to a farm house outside...

Muslims Demand Church Closing-Demand Christians Return To Islam ICC has received a report of an attempted church closing in West Java, Indonesia on April 14, 2005. On 14 April around 8:00 P.M. a group of about 50 people claiming to represent the Aliansi Gerakan Anti Pemutadan [the Alliance of the Movement Against Apostasy] approached a Gereja Kristen Pasundan church at Jalan Kebonjati number 108, Bandung (capital of West Java province). The group demanded that the church close its satelites (Pos PI) in the villages of Kampung Gugunungan Village, Cimahi Village, and in Cisewu District and Garut District by 10 May...

Eritrea - Wednesday April 20, 2005 SIXTEEN PASTORS, NEARLY 900 CHRISTIANS IN JAIL Alleged Adventist registration progress under dispute. April 20 (Compass) -- Currently 16 full-time pastors are among nearly 900 Eritrean Christians known to be jailed in local prisons, military confinement camps and shipping containers for daring to meet secretly for prayer and worship outside government-sanctioned churches. Despite a heavy-handed clampdown by Eritrea’s security police, evangelical sources in the tiny northeast African nation have managed to compile a documented list of 883 Christians now being held without trial or charges because of their faith. Only a handful of...

Nigeria - Monday May 02, 2005 ARSONISTS BURN DOWN CHURCH FOR FOURTH TIME Muslim extremists suspected in string of attacks in Kaduna. Inside the burned sanctuary May 2 (Compass) -- Unidentified arsonists set fire to the Conquerors Chapel in the Hayin Banki sector of the city of Kaduna, Nigeria, on April 10, destroying the meeting place of the Word of Faith Ministries for the fourth time in five years. The congregation has rebuilt its sanctuary after each previous attack. To date, police have not arrested any suspects in the string of arson attacks. The Rev. Ndubuisi Chiazor, pastor of...

CHURCH FORCED TO MOVE HEADQUARTERS Two-million-member Church of Christ seeking to avoid religious violence. April 26 (Compass) -- Devastation caused by religious conflict and the hostile attitude of Muslims toward Christian refugees returning to their villages in the central Nigerian state of Plateau has forced the Church of Christ in Nigeria (COCIN) to relocate its regional headquarters from the town of Wase to Kadarko. “The decision to relocate our regional office and the church in Wase town was made by our church council following the complete destruction of all our churches in Wase town and the killing and displacement of...

Islamist zealots attack Ahmadiyya Mosque in Bangladesh Unruly Islamist zealots attacked an Ahmadiyya mosque and the homes of a number of leaders of the minority Muslim sect in south-western Satkhira district of Bangladesh on Sunday. Witnesses said several hundred bigots brought out a procession in Joginagar village of Samnagar Upazial of the district, demanding that members of the Ahmadiyya community be officially declared 'non-Muslim'. They marched towards the mosque and replaced a signboard inscribed with "It's not a mosque and no Muslim will enter here for namaj (prayer)" instead of the "Ahmadiyya mosque". "The Islamist bigots captured the mosque complex...

Pakistani killed for desecrating Koran A man in a small village in western Pakistan was shot and killed after a local cleric declared him an infidel for desecrating the Koran. Ashiq Nabi, who had been on the run since Monday after being accused of blasphemy, was shot Wednesday after begging for his life and then climbing a tree to escape an angry mob of about 400 villagers, the Pakistani newspaper Dawn reported. Ashiq, who lived in a village about 18 miles outside Peshawar, allegedly had desecrated the Koran Monday during an argument with his wife. After his uncle complained, police...

<p>Pastor and assistant attacked following baptism ceremony.</p> <p>April 15 (Compass) -- Hindu and Muslim villagers burned down a prayer hall and physically attacked three church members following a baptism ceremony in Kerala, India, on April 1. Two days later, villagers assaulted Pastor Paul Ciniraj Mohammed and his 54-year-old assistant.</p>

Bangladesh - Monday April 04, 2005 LAY PASTOR BEHEADED Widow fears reprisals from murderers as she struggles to support her family. Dulal Sarkar April 4 (Compass) — Sources have confirmed the murder by beheading on March 8 of Dulal Sarkar, a lay pastor and evangelist in Bangladesh. Sarkar, 35, worked with a local branch of the Bangladesh Free Baptist Church in Jalalpur village, in the southwest division of Khulna. He had planted several churches in the area and also worked as a guard and general caretaker for the church. Shared His FaithThe week before he was murdered, he shared...