Human rights activists asked recently the Egyptian government to free hundreds of refugees from Eritrea and other African countries who have been kept hostage for one month in a desert prison.

Christian Solidarity Worldwide, Agenzia Habeshia, EveryOne Group and Human Rights Concern Eritrea also sent a joint appeal for urgent international intervention saying the 250 refugees have been tortured, are chained at the ankles, undergo electric shocks and lack food and water, Worthy News reported.

According to Worthy News, many of the hostages are Christians who fled persecution from their country of origin, and who paid $2,000 for passage to Israel. Instead, they were kept in purpose-built containers in the Sinai Desert by Bedouin human traffickers.

CSW told Worthy News that kidnapping, the trading of groups of asylum seekers and the trafficking of organs is common in the area and several gangs are involved. They exploit asylum seekers from the Horn of Africa and demand payment of up to $8,000 for a hostage’s release.

CSW expressed grave concern that already some 100 of the 250 refugees “were moved overnight” despite claims by the Egyptian government that it is working “round the clock” to seek the release of the victims, Worthy News reported.

CSW told Worthy News that no real progress has been made by the government. Stuart Windsor, CSW national director said, “The latest news that some of the refugees have been moved suddenly and under cover of darkness is deeply worrying. The welfare of the remaining refugees is also of great concern.”

Prior to separating and moving the Eritrean hostages, their religious materials were torn up and those who failed to make full payments were assaulted, according to Worthy News.

Case filed

Charges have been filed in Cairo, the capital city of Egypt, against traffickers by EveryOne Group and Agenzia Habeshia. However, human rights groups are also appealing to the international community to pressure Egypt to strengthen measures to free the refugees, Worthy News said.

Christians, many of them evangelicals, often flee Eritrea and other countries to escape persecution and imprisonment. In Eritrea only four religious groups are recognized, namely Islam, the Lutheran Evangelical Church of Eritrea, the Eritrean Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church, Worthy News said.

However, according to Worthy News even those from recognized religions experience persecution in Eritrea, which is in the U.S. State Department’s list of “worst violators” of religious freedom. Eritrea’s government has denied persecuting anyone for their religious beliefs.

Two years after a wave of violent attacks by Hindu extremists against Christians in Orissa, India, which left 120 dead and 50,000 displaced, survivors and their relatives are still experiencing persecution.

The violence occurred on Aug. 23, 2008 after a Hindu leader was killed. Maoists claimed responsibility, but Hindu extremists expressed their rage at Christians. Some 252 churches, 13 educational institutions and 4,640 homes of Christians were destroyed.

(For background, go to http://theundergroundsite.com/index.php/2009/08/orissa-one-year-later-fear-persecution-remain-high-10073).

Court cases are still ongoing. One victim, an Indian nun, identified in court recently five attackers who raped her, including the one who stood on her hand while the crime was done, Catholic News Service reported.

Some 19 people were arrested for attacking the nun and forcing her to walk down the streets half naked, according to Catholic News Service.

Worthy News reported that survivors and their relatives in Orissa state are still being pressured to convert to Hinduism. A preliminary report of a fact-finding team said, “Despite the state administration’s claim of normalcy, a state of lawlessness and utter fear and sense of insecurity” prevails.

The fact-finding team visited four villages in Kandhamal district earlier this month. Worthy News reported that a pastor in Tikabali said he was forced to convert to Hinduism so his aged mother, who cannot walk, would not be attacked.

In Bodimunda village Hindu extremists also do not allow any Christians or their belongings to be transported by vehicle, and Christians may not avail of basic needs, Worthy News said.

Christians may not bring in medicines or provisions, cannot purchase from local shops, and have no stores of their own, according to Worthy News. A number of Christians were forced to display pictures of Hindu gods for protection from attacks.

A 2001 census said that out of 648,201 people who live in Kandhamal district, 117,950 are Christians. Most of them are from the Dalit class, formerly known as the “untouchables,” Worthy News reported.

According to Worthy News, Christians said that local administrators are suspected to be collaborating with the Hindu extremists, and they receive no government protection.

The fact-finding team includes attorney Nicholas Barla and human rights activists Jugal Kishore Ranjit and Ajay Kumar Singh, according to Worthy News.

Two of the most secular states in the Middle East, Syria and Jordan, have long been places of choice for the migration of Christians from Iraq and other middle eastern countries where there is harsh persecution—rather than to the west.

In the case of Syria, this country has long been one of the freest Middle Eastern countries where religion is concerned, according to The Economist.

But lately Syria has been cracking down on Christians, who compose one-tenth of their population. Christian buildings have been closed down which do not receive official sanction as churches, The Economist said.

Foreigners who work in Protestant churches in Syria are not getting their visas renewed. The reason—a decree has banned them because they work with the Protestant Injeeli, The Economist reported.

The crackdown has led to the cancelling of a number of summer church camps. Ironically, however, only the Protestant churches are being targeted. Why? According to Syrian officials, it is because of their tendency to evangelize, often with the help of foreigners, The Economist said.

Since the invasion of Iraq, thousands of refugees have come to Syria, and this has led to the influx as well of local and foreign evangelicals, largely from the U.S. and South Korea, who help the refugees in their financial needs and lend theological support to Christians in Syria insofar as is permitted, The Economist reported.

However, evangelistic efforts also have led to incursions on independent local churches which are licensed by the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon. Orthodox and Catholic leaders, according to The Economist, are unhappy with the success of the new churches and have issued complaints.

While evangelizing to Muslims is illegal, there has always been an unspoken understanding, according to The Economist, that Christians keep off of one another’s members. Protestants do not follow the unspoken rule. An Orthodox pastor said to The Economist, “We have enough churches—but the Protestants are stealing our sheep.”

No discrimination

One reason the Syrian government has managed to successfully limit religious discrimination for so long is because of its commitment to secular and religious harmony, The Economist reported.

But there is a political advantage, too. The regime is ruled by a minority Alawite Muslim sect. Secularism helps to keep the Muslim Brotherhood in check. The government clamps down quickly on zealous acts, according to The Economist.

In the last two years the niqab, a female garment which covers the entire body, has been banned at Islamic schools. But part of keeping things in order is making sure that people stay in the faith they were born in, The Economist said.

An Orthodox leader told The Economist, “There is freedom to practice your religion but not yet to choose it. You are what you are born into.”

The Syrian Catholic archbishop of Baghdad appealed recently to the international community on behalf of Christians in Iraq who have faced intense violence and persecution in the past few weeks.

Archbishop Athanase Matti Shaba Matoka cited the need for stronger measures to secure the safety of Christians in Iraq, even as he has been comforting Christians who have turned to him for help, the Globe and Mail said.

Matoka said, “It would be criminal on the part of the international community not to take care of the security of the Christians,” according to The Globe and Mail.

Christians in Baghdad have been gathering in panic in churches, praying for rescue from an unrelenting wave of persecution for the past 10 days, including a series of assaults on the dwellings and businesses of Christians in the capital city which have left six people dead and 33 injured since Tuesday, the Globe and Mail reported.

Matoka said, “Everybody is scared. People are asking who is going to protect them, how are they going to stay on in Iraq. We are trying to encourage them to stay patient,” The Globe and Mail said.

Monsignor Pius Kasha told The Globe and Mail, “We don’t know what is the aim of these criminals, but what is certain is that this will push even more Christians to emigrate.”

France’s UN ambassador Gerard Araud said from New York that there is “a deliberate will to destroy the Christian community. [This is] an attack on the diversity of Iraqi society,” according to The Globe and Mail.

The Islamic State of Iraq, which is linked with al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility for an Oct. 31 Syrian Catholic hostage taking that ended in 53 deaths and some 60 others injured. (See http://theundergroundsite.com/index.php/2010/11/iraqi-cardinal-condemns-bloody-ruthless-attack-on-landmark-church-14305)

They did it to avenge a scrapped plan by a small church to burn the Quran, and to seek the release of two Iraqi women whom they claimed were prisoners. After the incident, the Islamic State of Iraq stated that all Christians are “legitimate targets,” which led to the last 10 days of violence, the Globe and Mail reported.

Demonstrations, support

In Michigan, some 1,000 members of the Iraqi Christian community took to the streets chanting, praying and waving flags in front of the McNamara Federal Building in Detroit. They said the U.S. and Iraqi government should do more to protect Iraqi Christians from Muslim extremists, according to Catholic Online.

The group said that for years, they had been urging the State Department to protect religious minorities in Iraq, “but nothing ever gets done. Religious and ethnic minorities are not a priority,” Andre Anton, one of the rally organizers, told Catholic Online.

A similar rally is being scheduled within three weeks in Washington D.C., Anton told Catholic Online, in the hope that the nation’s lawmakers will take heed.

U.S. Rep Gary Peters cited during a news conference at St. Toma Syriac Catholic Church in Farmington Hills, the crucial need to act immediately to set in motion protection measures for religious minorities in Iraq, in light of the ongoing withdrawal of U.S. forces from the country, Catholic Online said.

“We have to step up and be firm,” Peters said.

Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican Secretary said the recent attacks are “very painful,” and “a terrible suffering for all the Christian communities in the world,” The Globe and Mail reported.

One day before the latest attacks, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki asked Christians to stay in the country and promised that they would be protected, The Globe and Mail reported.

The Quran says that Christians are “people of the book” who are to be protected, according to The Globe and Mail.

The head of a U.K-based International Christian group said recently that insidious religious persecution is not just limited to developing countries—it is finding its way into the West, as well.

Dr Patrick Sookhdeo, International Director of Barnabas Fund issued a warning on the organization’s website that Christians in the West should not to be blindsided by thinking that they are immune to persecution, Christian Today reported.

Sookhdeo told Christian Today, “It is understandable [that] in the West – a bastion of freedom and tolerance – Christians tend to think that persecution is something that happens only to believers in far-flung places. But it is becoming increasingly apparent that we, too, need to steel ourselves for suffering if we are going to make a stand for Christ.”

In their website, the Barnabas Fund cited examples of Christian persecution in the UK, including the case of Eunice and Owen Johns, a Pentecostal Christian couple who were deemed unacceptable foster parents because of their faith.

According to the Daily Mail, the Johns couple are experienced carers who have already given respite care to some 15 children. For a while they took a short break from their work. Then, they applied at Derby City Council again.

This time their suitability was questioned because their faith does not accept homosexuality. The couple withdrew their application but decided to raise their case to determine where their beliefs stand with regard to the Sexual Orientation Regulations and the Equality Act, the Daily Mail said.

The Barnabas Fund also voiced concern over a declaration by al-Qaida which deemed that Christians in the Middle East are “legitimate targets” after they had assaulted a Christian cathedral in Iraq, the website said.

A third concern the organization raised was the undermining by world leaders of the meaning of religious liberty through the adoption of the phrase “freedom of worship” in place of “freedom of religion,” according to their website.

The replacement phrase has been put into use by President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and British Home Secretary Theresa May, according to Christian Today.

Christian Today reported that the Barnabas Fund asked churches in the UK to offer one Sunday this month to focus on persecution not just in other countries, but in their own back yards as well.

The theme of this year’s Suffering Church Sunday is “Be on Your Guard” to reflect the concern they are raising over the freedom of Christians in the West, according to Christian Today.

The organization is also offering free resources for Suffering Church Sunday such as a sermon outline, Bible Study, prayer/response cards and a DVD which can be availed at their website.

Christian leaders at the recently held closing of The Third Lausanne Congress in Cape Town, South Africa, were imparted with words of encouragement and faith as they return to the challenges in their missions.

Some 4,000 Christian leaders at Cape Town 2010 were also reminded of their vision for evangelization, even as they were challenged to recommit themselves to Jesus, according to The Christian Post.

Lindsay Brown, international director of The Lausanne Movement, urged the delegates to share Jesus Christ everywhere in the world, in every realm of society, even as he challenged them to recommit to “the lordship of Christ in every area of human activity.” Many of the delegates will be returning to countries that persecute Christians, The Christian Post said.

Brown urged the leaders not to lose heart if they see no results, noting the experience of Adoniram Judson who in 1812 went to Myanmar (then called Burma). Judson lived there for 38 years, during which his wife and seven of his children died. Judson was beaten, hung upside down, ridiculed and finally thrown into the sea, The Christian Post said.

When Judson died there were only some 12-25 Christian converts. However, he successfully translated the Bible into Burmese and today, hundreds of thousands of believers owe their spiritual heritage to Judson, The Christian Post reported.

Brown said, “Some of us may have the joy in seeing significant fruit, but for others our calling is not to give up, not to lose heart knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord,” according to The Christian Post

Joel Edwards of The Guardian said Lausanne “gathered one of the largest, most gifted and diverse collection of influential evangelicals to date.” He said the congress covered “a whole gamut of spiritual, ethical and environmental issues. It was a heroic attempt to compress all the ailments and anxieties of the world into the busy program.”

Edwards, in The Guardian cited the sustained standing ovation rendered to an 18-year-old North Korean young woman after her presentation, and noted stories of people who suffered persecution, yet came to love those who hurt them and their loved ones.

Edwards wrote that the strongest transference of spirit came through corridor conversations with lesser known people, noting “the recognition that something called the priesthood of all believers is what makes God come alive to many people outside the church.”

Many delegates told The Christian Post they were strengthened by the congress. Michael El Dabai from Egypt felt a desire to share his faith more boldly after meeting Christians who dealt with heavier persecution than his own.

El Dabai told The Christian Post, “What we have been going through [in Egypt] is just a tap on the back. There are other countries that are really, really having a difficult time. I will definitely put evangelism at the top of my priority list.”

El Dabai said he also learned, through the conference, to receive the love of Messianic Jews who, on Egyptian TV, are portrayed negatively, The Christian Post said.

Despite the fact that some 230 delegates from home churches in China were blocked from leaving their country to attend the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization in South Africa, Christians in China remain upbeat.

Tom Henry of WorldServe Ministries said that incidents like this seem to occur whenever China opens up to the bible. (See http://theundergroundsite.com/index.php/2010/10/beijing-stops-chinese-christians-from-attending-lausanne-conference-14047).

However, Chinese Christians have taken on an attitude of optimism. Henry told Mission News Network, “The one thing I have learned about the Chinese is that they totally embrace and follow a God that’s all powerful, that’s sovereign, that’s loving, and they yield these [situations] into His hands so that they have really learned, as Paul said, contentment in all things.”

Henry noted that the church often gets harassed in China for spreading the gospel, so the incident regarding Lausanne was no surprise. Nonetheless, delegates were disappointed as they had hoped to network at the Conference, Mission News Network said.

Henry told Mission News Network, “Because of the nature in the church in China, there’s not as much networking as there [is] in other countries where there’s more of an open environment.”

Henry said the church in China is hoping God will open even bigger doors despite the current setback. He told Mission News Network, “They really have seen God take things like this that are humanly disappointing and use them to really expand the church in China.”

Even as WorldServe continues with its usual work in the People’s Republic of China, Henry said they also work with Chinese believers who are training North Korean believers and sending them back to their country, Mission News Network said.

Chinese government threatened

Another Christian leader in China, Bob Fu, said the Chinese government felt Lausanne was a threat to national security. Fu, who founded ChinaAid, told OneNewsNow that he did not believe delegates were forbidden to go to Lausanne because the official Chinese church had not been invited.

According to Fu, the Chinese Christians had already been facing opposition from the government for many months. He said Christians who went to the airport to go to Lausanne were “harassed and threatened, and… when they were blocked from going out, they were told it’s a threat to national security and the Lausanne World Evangelization Conference is [an] anti-China conference,” OneNewsNow reported.

According to Fu, despite the persecution Christians get from the Beijing government, the underground house churches remain strong in China with a population of 100 million that continues to grow daily, OneNewsNow said.

A Middle East analyst accused recently the regime of Egypt’s President Mohammad Hosni Mubarak of inflaming violence and hostility by the Muslim majority against Christian Copts.

Raymond Ibrahim, a lecturer of the National Defense Intelligence College, accused the Mubarak regime of spearheading the Muslim Brotherhood and supporting the “severe persecution” and intimidation of the nation’s eight million Christian Coptic minority, according to World Tribune.

Ibrahim, who is also associate director of the Middle East Forum, said in a piece he wrote for the Hudson Institute that as Egypt quells pro-democracy opposition, it has simultaneously resorted to “medieval persecution of the Copts.”

The World Tribune cites accusations made by leading Egyptian scholars that link the Copts with Israel and who claim they are hoarding ammunition and weapons in monasteries. A leading cleric, Mohammed Al Awa, told A-Jazeera satellite television, “Israel is in the heart of the Coptic cause, preparing to wage war against Muslims.”

Al Awa urged Muslims to obstruct the growth of Egypt’s Coptic Church, warning that unless they act, the “country will burn,” and saying that the country’s security forces are banned from searching the monasteries and churches for weapons, World Tribune reported.

Ibrahim wrote in Hudson New York that such a claim is “amazing” because “Coptic monasteries are not only at the mercy of the state, but easy prey to Islamist and Bedouin attacks.” He noted that Copts make up only 12 percent of the population.

The Hudson New York piece also said Muslim leaders have been sending out rumors that Pope Shenouda III and the Copts “kidnap” Coptic women who convert to Islam, then torture and re-indoctrinate them to Christianity in desert monasteries. However, the women publicly deny ever having converted to Islam.

The Front of Islamic Egypt in a statement said Copts will experience a “bloodbath.” Last month over 10 mass demonstrations were held by thousands of Muslims shouting, “Shenouda, just wait, we will dig your grave with our own hands,” and other threats against Copts, the Hudson New York said.

Questioning why the Mubarak regime did not simply investigate the monasteries and clear them in order to defuse tensions, Ibrahim noted, “The Copts find themselves again in a period of severe persecution,” World Tribune reported.

The World Tribune noted that Copts in Washington have also been lobbying in Congress on behalf of Egypt’s Coptic Christians, noting that the U.S. annually gives Egypt $1.3 billion in military aid.

For more information go to http://theundergroundsite.com/index.php/2010/09/uscirf-says-egypt%E2%80%99s-reconciliation-talks-worsen-abuse-of-christians-13799 and http://theundergroundsite.com/index.php/2010/08/coptics-seek-arrest-warrant-against-muslim-cleric-for-hate-speech-13325 and http://theundergroundsite.com/index.php/2010/06/egyptian-couple-will-drop-attempted-murder-charges-if-they-can-build-church-12536.

A faith leader said recently that a strongly hostile environment prevails towards Christians in North Africa, where the persecution is harsh.

Pastor Imad Dabour told delegates at the third Lausanne Congress of World Evangelization, a.k.a. Cape Town 2010 that some tens of thousands of Christians in North Africa view persecution as part of their everyday life, Christian Today said.

Dabour noted that the region has, for the last eight centuries, had veritably little Christian presence. Nonetheless, it continues to grow despite daily challenges in Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco, according to Christian Today.

Most Christians in the region are converts from Islam. At present it is not known exactly how many they are, but estimates say there are tens of thousands. The new converts stand to lose friends and family because of their faith, and so they find it difficult to grow in their new identity, Christian Today said.

Dabour said, “There are two things about Christianity that we teach people. That it gives you salvation and a lot of joy with it – and persecution. Persecution is a basic teaching in our church,” Christian Today reported.

Another speaker at Cape Town 2010 was Rajael Achi who is with a children’s ministry in Lebanon. Achi noted that children face fear and violence due to unrest in the country and the Middle East region, Christian Today said.

Achi said, “Many people have lost hope in a good future in the country and want to leave. The children dream of leaving as they grow up.” Achi said the circumstances nonetheless also provide opportunities for evangelism, according to Christian Today.

Achi told delegates at the convention, “The Lord has given us freedom of worship and of ministry outreach and evangelism that we need to make use of. If we want a better future for Lebanon, if we want better leaders for Lebanon, we need to start now in reaching out to children,” Christian Today reported.

China blocked recently over 230 Chinese Christian delegates from joining a major evangelical conference that is slated to be held in Cape Town, South Africa.

The Chinese delegates were expecting to attend the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization, also called Cape Town 2010, which is slated for Oct. 16-25. However, the Chinese government leveled pressure on the delegates so they could not leave, CBN News said.

A number of delegates who went to the airport were blocked, and their visas and passports were confiscated. One delegate has been detained, and four delegates are being confined in their homes, according to NPR.

One church in Changsha, Hunan was told they could no longer meet because of Lausanne, and church members were threatened with arrest. Over the past months, officials had warned most of the invited pastors to shun the conference, which they said was anti-China, NPR reported.

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu, in a statement to NPR said the organizers of Lausanne did not send an official invitation to Three-Self Patriotic Movement, the official China church, which is controlled by the state.

Ma accused the organizers of secretly communicating with China’s private churches. In the NPR statement he said, “This act has openly challenged China’s principle of an independent, autonomous, self-governing church. It is a flagrant interference in China’s religious affairs.”

Doug Birdsall, executive chair of Lausanne, expressed to CBN News deep sadness about the situation in China adding, “Probably it (the China group) was the most thoroughly carefully selected group in all the world. We were looking forward to featuring what God has been doing among them in their country for the last 40 years. But they are not going to be there, and so we are just praying and trusting God’s sovereignty that whether they are here or not here that God will speak to them and through them and that they will be a blessing to the global church.”

Abraham Liu Guan, a church elder, told NPR in a phone interview that authorities had ordered him not to speak to them. He said, “The border defense people said they’d received a notice from the State Administration for Religious Affairs and the Ministry of Public Security. It said our participation in this meeting threatened state security, and they should not let us pass customs.”

Fan Yafeng, a leader of the Chinese Christian Legal Defense Association, also said authorities warned him not to speak to foreign media about Lausanne. By then, however, he had already spoken to another NPR, Christian Newswire said.

Fan said that persecution of house church Christians who were invited to the congress has increased. In his case, 20 police officers are restraining him from leaving home, Christian Newswire said.

Christianity outside the official government church has been booming in China, with believers worshiping openly as authorities often turned a blind eye (see http://theundergroundsite.com/index.php/2010/07/china%E2%80%99s-christians-increase-amid-spiritual-vacuum-13035).

Just the fact that China’s underground Christians could meet, select delegates and raise over $1 million for their travel costs was unthinkable a decade ago. However, Beijing seems to be disturbed with Christianity’s tremendous growth in China, NPR said.

Rev. Ezra Jin of Beijing’s Zion Church told NPR the current wave of persecution will not affect the larger trend. “I think Lausanne could play a positive role for Chinese Christians. For a short time there might be pressure, or there might be a price to pay. But that will pass quickly.”

However, there is concern that this may just be the start of a new wave of persecution against underground churches in China. If so, this would clearly dispute the claim of Beijing that religious freedom is permitted in China, NPR reported.