Thanks for choosing to receive e-mail from HCJB World Radio. Please add to your e-mail address book or safe sender list to ensure that you receive these e-mails.

Today’s Headlines:

TAJIKISTAN GOVERNMENT SHUTS DOWN CHILDREN’S CAMP MINISTRY SAUDI ARABIA COURT SENTENCES FOREIGNER FOR SPREADING CHRISTIANITY MENNONITE CHAPEL ATTACKED AS PERSECUTION INCREASES IN VIETNAM HEALTH OF IMPRISONED CUBAN DISSIDENT ‘DETERIORATING,’ WIFE SAYS AUTHOR: CENTER OF CHRISTIANITY SHIFTING TO SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE MEXICAN CHURCHES USE ‘JAMMERS’ TO THWART CELL PHONE CALLS

Today’s News Stories:

TAJIKISTAN GOVERNMENT SHUTS DOWN CHILDREN’S CAMP MINISTRY The government in Tajikistan shut down a children’s camp ministry earlier this summer after seizing land owned by local churches. Mark Reimschisel of Bible Mission International said believers are petitioning authorities to return the camp, but the “court case is officially closed.” He urges Christians worldwide to pray about this situation and write letters to the government of Tajikistan, asking officials to release the camp back to the churches. Reimschisel says the government has been increasingly hostile to Christians even though freedom of religion is protected by the country’s constitution. In May 1998 the government passed a law to prohibit the creation of political parties with a religious orientation. This restriction was later lifted, and two members of an Islamic party sit in the lower House of Parliament. (Mission Network News)

SAUDI ARABIA COURT SENTENCES FOREIGNER FOR SPREADING CHRISTIANITY A Saudi Arabian court sentenced Brian O’Connor, an expatriate Christian from India, to 10 months in jail and 300 lashes Wednesday, Oct. 20, accusing him of “spreading Christianity” and other charges. O’Connor was first arrested on March 25, 2004, by the Muttawa, Saudi Arabia’s religious police. International Christian Concern (ICC) reported that the young Indian native was tortured by police following his arrest. O’Connor’s legs were first chained, and he was hung upside down when the Muttawa came in . . . and kicked him in the chest and rib area” continuously until 2 a.m. “After enduring months in a Saudi prison, O’Connor was taken to court in late September for a brief, 90-minute hearing,” an ICC spokesperson said. “Charges brought against him included selling alcohol and possession of pornography in addition to spreading Christianity. Executives at his employer declared that the allegations against their employee are a cover-up for the real reason for his arrest [spreading the gospel].” (Assist News Service)

MENNONITE CHAPEL ATTACKED AS PERSECUTION INCREASES IN VIETNAM Vietnam’s recent demolition of a Mennonite chapel in Vietnam’s Kontum province highlights the country’s intensifying campaign against religious freedom, Human Rights Watch reported. A new law, expected to go into effect in November, bans any religious activity deemed to threaten national security, public order or national unity. On the morning of Friday, Sept. 24, more than 200 officials, including paramilitary police, descended on the chapel and home of Pastor Nguyen Cong Chinh in Kontum province. The attack marked the second time the chapel was destroyed this year. On Jan. 16 authorities bulldozed the same chapel which doubles as Chinh’s residence. In the Sept. 24 attack, government officials confiscated Chinh’s property and farm animals, set fire to the house and chapel, and then used two bulldozers to flatten the remains.

Chinh was out on a pastoral visit at the time, but his wife and children were arrested by officials and detained at Vinh Quang district headquarters. Mrs. Chinh, who is seven months’ pregnant, reported being hit in the stomach and stepped on while in custody. “All that remains of the Mennonite chapel in the central highlands is a cement floor,” she wrote in a letter. Vietnam does not recognize the Mennonite church as a Protestant denomination. “Bulldozing a Mennonite chapel is just one aspect of the Vietnamese government’s crackdown on freedom of religion,” said Brad Adams, executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia division. “Whether through legislation or through violence, the government has shown it is increasingly unwilling to tolerate religious practice outside its strict control.” (WorldWide Religious News/Reuters)

HEALTH OF IMPRISONED CUBAN DISSIDENT ‘DETERIORATING,’ WIFE SAYS The health of an influential imprisoned Cuban political prisoner Raul Arencibia Fajardo is “rapidly deteriorating” after prison officials denied him medical attention for more than a month, said is wife, Olga, in a statement. “He has a permanent cough, sore throat and high fever due to the lack of medical attention,” she said after meeting her husband in jail on Thursday, Oct. 7. Fajardo was one of 17 dissidents whom communist authorities arrested in December 2002, reported Amnesty International. He has been linked Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet of the Lawton Human Rights Foundation, another Christian dissident whose health is said to have deteriorated after prison officials refused to give him enough food or medications, his family and dissident sources said. Fajardo was sentenced to three years in prison in what human rights watchers described as an “unjust trial” on charges of contempt and public disorder along with dissidents Virgilio Marante Guelmes and Orlando Zapata Tamayo. More than 70 known political dissidents have been arrested in Cuba since 2002 in what was seen as a fresh crackdown by authorities loyal to ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro, 78. (BosNewsLife/Associated Press)

* HCJB World Radio continues to air Spanish programs to Cuba via shortwave from South America. Hundreds of listeners have enrolled in the ministry’s Bible Institute of the Air, a Spanish correspondence program incorporating radio broadcasts. In addition, numerous pastors’ workshops sponsored by Apoyo, a joint training ministry with Leadership Resources International, have been held in Cuba since the mid-1990s.

AUTHOR: CENTER OF CHRISTIANITY SHIFTING TO SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE Christians need to prepare for religious struggles ahead as the center of Christianity shifts to the south, says historian and author Philip Jenkins. In his book, The Next Christendom, Jenkins says by the year 2050 the heart of Christianity will move to the Southern Hemisphere with the majority of Christians living in Latin America and Africa. Jenkins, a professor of history and religious studies at Penn State University, says the coming global shift will have ramifications not only for Christians, but also the growing Muslim world as the two religions find themselves in political and religious clashes in the midst of world population changes. “Muslim and Christian nations will expand adjacent to each other, and often Muslim and Christian communities will both grow within the same country,” he noted. As those populations increase, so does the rivalry with struggles for converts and “competing attempts to enforce moral codes by means of secular law. Whether Muslim or Christian, religious zeal can easily turn into fanaticism.” (Maranatha Christian News Service/Associated Baptist Press)

MEXICAN CHURCHES USE ‘JAMMERS’ TO THWART CELL PHONE CALLS They sound off during formal dinners, in restaurants, at the movies and even in churches. They’ve become the bane of every public speaker. The dreaded cell phones. As technology has given us the ability to reach out and touch each other, whenever and wherever, the cell phone has become both a blessing and a curse. It was the curse part that prompted four Roman Catholic churches in Monterrey, Mexico, to look for ways to strike back. Church leaders are placing cell phone jammers in their sanctuaries to keep phones from receiving a signal while in the buildings. The size of paperback books, the Israeli-made jammers are nestled unobtrusively among paintings and statues. “There are still some people who don’t understand that being at mass is sharing a moment with God,” said Juan Jos © Mart ­nez, a spokesman for the archdiocese. “Sadly, we had no other choice but to use these little gadgets.” The ringing of cell phones is increasingly being thwarted — from Mexican sanctuaries and India’s parliament to Tokyo theaters and commuter trains — by devices originally developed to help security forces avert eavesdropping and stop phone-triggered bombs, reported the Associated Press. At present, use of these devices is illegal in the U.S. and most Western nations, but Mexico and many other countries have no law against them. (Maranatha Christian News Service/Associated Baptist Press)

CORRECTION: A story in Monday’s update should have said that the man shot on the grounds of a church in Indonesia occurred late Thursday, Oct. 21.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * James A. Ferrier HCJB World Radio U.S. Ministries Communications Director E-mail: Phone: 1-719-590-9800 Fax: 1-719-590-9801 Web: http://www.hcjb.org http://www.beyondthecall.org * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Editor’s Note. Feel free to forward this to any interested friends. Our lists are distributed for information purposes and to encourage prayer. HCJB World Radio does not necessarily endorse or support the activities on which it reports. _______________________________________________ HCJBDaily mailing list

with subscribe in the subject line.

__________ NOD32 1.906 (20041025) Information __________

This message was checked by NOD32 antivirus system. http://www.nod32.com