War on Christianity - Pakistan, China, India, Montenegro

Pakistan: Christian family shot by radical mob
for buying house in Muslim neighborhood

By Samuel Smith, CP Reporter| Reuters

A Christian family in Pakistan was shot last week for buying a house in a Muslim neighborhood. 

On Sunday, police in the city of Peshawar in the Khybar Pakhtunkhawa province arrested the sons of a man accused of shooting two members of the Christian family after they purchased a home in late May in the Sawati Phatak colony, Asia News reports. 

The alleged perpetrator, Salman Khan, is still at large. 

Christians are seen as the enemy of Islam

After Khan found out that his new neighbors were Christian, the Catholic press agency reports Khan told the family they had to leave the neighborhood immediately because Christians are seen as the enemy of Islam. 

What followed was days of alleged harassment against Nadeem Joseph and his family. The family was said to have been threatened with consequences if they did not leave their new home.

Khan is accused of giving the family a 24-hour ultimatum on Sunday. But Joseph refused to leave his home. He tried to call the police once he noticed that Khan and his sons had returned with weapons. 

That's when Joseph was shot in the stomach by his attackers who also shot his mother-in-law in the shoulder. 

Joseph and his mother-in-law were taken to a nearby hospital and their injuries do not appear to be life-threatening. 

Joseph recorded a video message from his hospital bed, according to International Christian Concern, a U.S.-based Christian persecution watchdog group. From there, Joseph said that at one point, he was told that his new neighborhood was "meant for Muslim residents only" and that "Christians and Jews are the opponents of Muslims."

This is not radical Islam in Pakistan; this is normal Islam in Pakistan.

Christian activist Khalid Shahzad, who is in touch with the family, told Asia News that the shooting is an example of the religious intolerance found in Pakistan. 

"The main offender is still at large," Shahzad was quoted as saying in an article Monday. "Law enforcement agencies must do everything possible to capture him and bring him to justice."

Open Doors USA ranks Pakistan as the fifth-worst country in the world when it comes to Christian persecution and notes that Christians are generally "regarded as second-class citizens."

Worse than that - they are enemies of Islam and they are considered unclean.

There are various forms of Christian persecution in Pakistan, including laws that criminalize blasphemy that are often abused by Muslims to take advantage of religious minorities. 

Christians in Pakistan have been killed by societal mob violence ever since the country's founding. Additionally, there have been several occasions in which Muslim radicals have attacked churches in Pakistan. 

In 2018, the U.S. State Department added Pakistan to its list of "countries of particular concern" that tolerate or engage in systemic and egregious violations of religious freedom. 

At the time, U.S. Ambassador-at-large for International Religious Freedom, Sam Brownback, told reporters that Pakistan is home to half of the world's blasphemy law cases. Christians and other religious minorities have languished in Pakistani prisons for years after Muslims falsely accused them of insulting Islam or its prophet, Muhammad. 

Christian couple Shagufta Kausar and her husband, Shafqat Emmanuel, have been on death row for over six years over false blasphemy charges of sending a text message insulting the Islamic prophet. Last week, their final hearing before the Lahore High Court was delayed. 

Christian mother Asia Bibi (see link immediately above) spent nearly a decade languishing in a Pakistani prison after Muslim field workers accused her of insulting their prophet. She was acquitted by Pakistan's Supreme Court in October 2018, which sparked national unrest and protests by radical Muslims. 

China removes over 250 church crosses
in first 4 months of 2020

By Samuel Smith, CP Reporter| 

Workers removed a cross from the top of a church in the Lu’an-administered Shu County in a video posted to YouTube on June 10, 2020, by Bitter Winter. | YouTube/Bitter Winter via screenshot

Crosses were removed from over 250 state-sanctioned churches in China’s Anhui province between January and April as the Communist Party’s years-long crackdown on church crosses continues, according to the Italian-based magazine Bitter Winter. 

“All Christian symbols are ordered to be removed as part of the government’s crackdown campaign,” a provincial employee from Ma’anshan city told Bitter Winter, a publication produced by the Center for Studies on New Religion which covers human rights issues in China. 

The magazine reported on Tuesday that the 250 crosses were removed from churches affiliated with the Three-Self Patriotic Movement in cities that include but are not limited to Lu’an, Ma’anshan, Huaibei and Fuyang. 

One of the churches that had its cross removed from outside its building is The Gulou Church in the center of Fuyang city, a Protestant church that dates back over a century. 

The church had its cross taken down on April 2 after over 100 congregation members tried to stop authorities from removing the cross from the church the previous day. 

One congregation member told the magazine that local officials told the church members that the cross' removal was done in accordance with a national policy requiring the removal of all religious symbols, not just Christianity. 

“We support the state and comply with its regulations,” the congregation member was quoted as saying. 

“We can have a dialogue with the government if it thinks that we have done something wrong, but they can’t persecute us this way. Officials did not show any documents, fearing that people would implicate them with anything in writing. They only conveyed verbal orders and forced us to obey them.”

In the city of Lu-an, over 183 churches had crosses removed during the first four months of 2020, reports Bitter Winter. The report states that in March, a church leader in the city was threatened with imprisonment and the closure of his church if the church’s cross was not removed. 

Odisha: 14-year-old Christian boy crushed to death with stone; body chopped into pieces

Mohammad Suffian
Bhubaneswar

A14-year-old Christian boy was allegedly crushed to death with stone by a group of people in Odisha's Malkangiri.

The incident took place at Kenduguda village in Naxal-infested Malkangiri district of Odisha.

A Naxal or Naxalite (/ˈnʌksəlaɪt/) is a member of any political organisation that claims the legacy of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), founded in Calcutta in 1969. The Communist Party of India (Maoist) is the largest existing political group in that lineage today in India. - Wikipedia

The minor's body was allegedly chopped into pieces by the accused and later they buried the body parts before fleeing from the spot.

Police sources said the killing was due to suspect of practising witchcraft.

On June 5, a missing complaint was filed in Malkangiri Police station by the victim's brother. The father of the victim had filed an FIR after his son went missing.

After receiving a complaint, Malkangiri Police SP Rishikesh Khillar said: "The police reached the spot and recovered the buried body".

As per the FIR, the victim and his family including his father had adopted Christianity three years ago. Since then, a few of the villagers have been harassing them.

The victim's family members alleged that few villagers identified as Deba Madkami, Budra Muchaki, Aaita Kabasi, Rabu Madi and others picked up the minor and his two other relatives on the pretext to attend a meeting in the jungle at 11.00 pm on June 4.

The accused attacked the victim and his relatives after reaching a deserted place. While the other two boys escaped, the victim was caught off guard and fell on the ground after a tussle.

The victim failed in his attempt to escape and was killed by the accused.

The accused later chopped his body into pieces and buried his body parts.

"On the intervening night of June 4, a few villagers of a group ganged up with a handful of religious fanatics, who were not a part of their village, and attempted to kidnap Christians," Pastor Kosha Mosaki of Kalimela said.

The police detained few suspects and said the "religious goons" later accepted their crime.

However, police sources said as many as 17 villagers died in Kenduguda village for an "unknown disease" in last three months.

"At least 22 cases of Christian Persecution have been reported in Odisha, including murder, were recorded in 2019. Eight cases including the latest incident have been recorded since January 2020 till date," Father Dibya said.

"In Malkangiri district, 14 religion-based killings of Christians in a span of 2 to 3 years. These statistics rank Odisha at number 10 among the list of hostile states towards Christians in India," Father Dibya said.

"Christians in this village have been facing many threats and are being continually harassed by religious fanatics," Pastor Kosha Mosaki said. "He was earlier attacked in February this year. I have made 4 complaints at the Malkangiri police Station regarding these attacks."

Christians under attack in Christian Montenegro

..

Read to the bottom for an extraordinary act of grace

and glorification of God

By Bishop Joanikije, Op-ed Contributor| 

Bishop Joanikije is Bishop of Budimlja and Nikši in Montenegro. | Courtesy of Bishop Joanikije

On May 25, a young orthodox vicar, Reverend Nikola Radovic, was brutally assaulted by a gang of masked attackers outside his church in Bar – a town on the Adriatic coast – where he had just celebrated communion with his parishioners. His assailants were as young and as locally-born as he. Yet as they set upon him they claimed he was the agent of a foreign power.

Only days before, just 60 miles from Bar, I and seven priests performed a service inside St. Basil of Ostrog Monastery, one of the holiest sites of Orthodox Christianity. It was in private, without worshipers, and with a prior announcement made that the annual public Saint Basil’s Day street procession was cancelled due to the coronavirus lockdown. Still, the faithful had gathered outside in their thousands, and I went to implore them to respect social distancing, and return home.

The arrests began in the evening. We were taken from our vicarage. They continued for several days, with police brutalizing and incarcerating hundreds of parishioners as they came out in towns and villages across the country to protest our imprisonment. Then they moved on, detaining archdeacons and a further 25 priests.

This should not be happening in Montenegro – a country in the heart of Europe that is majority Christian, a NATO member and a candidate for European Union membership. We fear the reason why it is is money.

Before Christmas, a new law perniciously named the Law on Religious Freedom came into force. Christian, Jewish and Muslim groups – and their assets – now require state registration.

There are few states in the world that genuinely practice freedom of religion yet compel faith communities to first be on an approved government register. There are even fewer that stipulate they must additionally prove the ownership of property before 1918 with the government land registry.

When some 80 percent of Montenegrins are Serbian Orthodox Christians it means that this law in practice is a law for their faith. And when other religious micro-communities have distinct and special treaties with the state that protects them from its property stipulations, it becomes a discriminatory law against the property of the Church.

Land ownership in the Balkans – with its complexities of history and long-shifting borders – should be open to contestation. But in any modern country property disputes should and are heard in courtrooms. In Montenegro, under the new law, they shall instead be decided by the government land registry itself, with no right to appeal their decision in the courts. They have been appointed auditor, judge, jury and executor of all ownership disputes for religious property.

These are holy places of Christian worship, monasteries, hostels for the homeless, and farms that feed many hundreds of families each and every day through soup kitchens. They are buildings that fund university scholarships for young Montenegrins, sanctuary for the destitute and spiritual nourishment.

Those of faith and those in need cannot afford not to have their Church unable to support them. Yet with this law, those property are under threat, and the resources that the Church uses for good is in danger of being diverted to fend off fictitious land ownership claims.

Hundreds of protests were held by Christians nationwide between January and March 2020 across Montenegro after the law passed requiring Christian, Jewish and Muslim groups – and their assets – to have state registration. Here, thousands gather before the Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ, Podgorica, early March 2020. | Courtesy of Bishop Joanikije

Many faithful Christians in Montenegro fear this will occur. That is why, before the coronavirus lockdown, they came out onto the streets across the country to protest this wrongful law. Sixty thousand alone marched in the capital Podgorica – some ten percent of the entire population – gathered in a single mass demonstration, calling for its recall.

The government has reacted by claiming the Church is a foreign influence in the country, its priests and leaders not of Montenegro. Because we are called the Serbian Orthodox Church this can unfortunately be made to sound credible in the parliaments of Europe and the corridors of the US Congress. Yet we have had the same name across the Balkans for eight hundred years.

No one would suggest that the Roman Catholic Church is Roman, nor its priests and parishioners anything but local to the many countries where Catholicism is practiced. It is no different with our Church: our vicars, monks and worshipers are as equally loyal to their country of citizenship as they are subjects to their faith.

Reverend Radovic realized this, and his reaction to his brutal assault before his own church was the act of a man of God. When the culprits were found, he asked for charges not to be brought. He begged instead for forgiveness from his assailants, and for them to show the same grace through a donation to his parish. When they could not afford to do so, he gave them the donation himself – and they duly gave it to the church.

We wish only for peace and to continue to serve the people. We have no interest in politics. We believe that government should have no interest in religion. As in Luke 23:34 we forgive them, for they do not know what they do. And we pray that they turn back, and recall this unnecessary law.