NIGERIAN PEACEKEEPING SOLDIERS KILL CHRISTIAN WOMAN

CHINESE PROTESTANT CHURCH ACTIVIST RELEASED FROM PRISON

PROPOSED VISA CHANGES IN PHILIPPINES RAISE MISSIONARIES’ CONCERNS

FRANCE’S EVANGELICAL CHURCHES FACE BUREAUCRATIC HURDLES

PARENTS OF MISSIONARY SLAIN IN PERU RENEW QUEST FOR ANSWERS

U.S. REPORT ON UGANDA ‘FAILS TO OFFER PROACTIVE SOLUTIONS’

Today’s News Stories:

NIGERIAN PEACEKEEPING SOLDIERS KILL CHRISTIAN WOMAN Numan, a town in northern Nigeria’s Adamawa state, remains under siege following major religious clashes. On Friday, Jan. 28, a Christian woman was shot death by soldiers deployed in the town to keep order. Christian leaders say the killing — combined with the state government’s ouster of Numan’s Christian monarch and its failure to prosecute a Muslim fanatic who killed a female Christian evangelist in the town 19 months ago — amounts to persecution. Meanwhile, in the northern city of Kano, the family of Yusuf Olawale, 27, reported him missing and believe he may have been killed. The family has not heard from him since his arrest by Islamic law enforcers on May 13, 2004, on allegations that he breached sharia, the Islamic legal code. (Compass)

CHINESE PROTESTANT CHURCH ACTIVIST RELEASED FROM PRISON An Internet writer who posted articles online supporting China’s unregistered independent churches has been released after serving a one-year jail term, a fellow activist and a family member said. Computer technician Zhang Shengqi was detained in November 2003 and sentenced to one year in prison last summer after being convicted of leaking state secrets. He recently returned to his home in eastern China’s Shandong province. Zhang and two fellow activists, Liu Fenggang and Xu Yonghai, were also accused of helping spread information on the Internet about a 2003 crackdown on unregistered churches in the eastern city of Hangzhou. Liu and Xu received three- and two-year jail sentences respectively. China allows worship only in tightly controlled state churches and regards unregistered congregations as “subversive channels for foreign infiltration.” Hundreds of ministers and worshipers were reportedly detained in sweeps by police, and dozens of unregistered churches in Hangzhou were destroyed in the crackdown. (WorldWide Religious News/Associated Press)

PROPOSED VISA CHANGES IN PHILIPPINES RAISE MISSIONARIES’ CONCERNS Changes in the immigration law for the Philippines has raised concerns among missionaries serving in the country. The changes, first proposed last September, could mean limited ministry opportunities for foreign workers, says Phil Burns, Send International’s Philippines director. “Basically . . . it came down to that all missionary workers would be limited to one five-year term of duty in the Philippines, non-renewable. That sent quite a panic through the missionary community. In December they did extend it for one renewal, but that still would play great havoc with the missionary community.” Since the memo was issued, there’s been some good news, Burns says. “The commissioner has indefinitely postponed the implementation of the order [to consult] with some of the Catholic and evangelical groups that would be severely impacted.” He says terrorism and other illegal activity is the main reason that the government is considering stricter immigration guidelines. (Mission Network News)

FRANCE’S EVANGELICAL CHURCHES FACE BUREAUCRATIC HURDLES Evangelical churches in France are encountering growing administrative difficulties as the country re-examines its secular principles. The French Protestant Federation said it must frequently intervene to protest official actions that could be considered attacks on religious freedom, but they were more likely the result of ignorance. Federation President Jean-Arnold de Clermont explained that because of France’s Catholic traditions, public officials consider “legitimate” only those religions that have a recognized head, such as a bishop, and a recognized service, such as mass. Anything differing from that pattern was regarded as a “sect.” An article I a major French magazine recently declared that evangelical churches were sects and criticized what it said was the use of religion as a political tool in the U.S. However, de Clermont rejected the view that freedom of religion was being attack in France. The French Protestant Federation often is called upon to explain the specifics of the widely diverse Protestant movement to government authorities. At a meeting of religious leaders called by the Ministry of the Interior to discuss anti-Semitism, a Reformed Church pastor discovered that he was the sole representative of the Protestant faith, attending along with a Catholic bishop, Muslim cleric and Jewish rabbi. He informed officials that they also should have considered inviting Lutherans, evangelicals and other Protestant representatives to participate in the discussions. (Religion Today/CNSNews.com)

PARENTS OF MISSIONARY SLAIN IN PERU RENEW QUEST FOR ANSWERS The parents of a missionary killed with her adopted baby when a plane was shot down in Peru have renewed their quest for answers after learning that federal prosecutors have dropped a criminal investigation of CIA operatives. Veronica Bowers’ parents say they consider the killings “murder.” They received a brief call of apology from President George W. Bush after the shootdown, but still want someone held accountable. The 35-year-old Baptist missionary and her 7-month-old daughter, Charity, were killed in April 2001 when a Peruvian warplane shot down their floatplane after a surveillance aircraft contracted by the CIA misidentified it as a possible drug flight. Her husband, Jim, and the couple’s son, Cory, were also aboard the plane. They and the pilot, Kevin Donaldson, survived the attack. (AgapePress)

U.S. REPORT ON UGANDA ‘FAILS TO OFFER PROACTIVE SOLUTIONS’ A report from the U.S. State Department analyzing Uganda’s 18-year civil war raises awareness of the nation’s problems but lacks any useful, proactive solutions, says Rory Anderson of World Vision. “In our minds, a conflict that has been raging for 18 years, where more than 20,000 children have been abducted and pressed into military service by the Lord’s Resistance Army and used as sex slaves, requires more than just a reiteration of the status quo.” Anderson had hoped the report would lay out “solutions and cutting edge vision for both ending the war and rebuilding Uganda.” For 10 years World Vision has operated a “Children of War” center in Gulu to help child soldiers reorient to society. “While lost innocence can never be reclaimed,” Anderson says, “hope lies in the fact that at the center of our ministry is . . . demonstrating to these children . . . that even though they’ve done these horrible atrocities, God still loves them. They can still be a vessel to bless His people in northern Uganda.” (Mission Network News)

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