‘RELIGIOUS POLICE’ IN SAUDI ARABIA ARREST 40 PAKISTANI CHRISTIANS

ARABIC BIBLES TO BE DISTRIBUTED ACROSS NORTH AFRICA, MIDDLE EAST

POLICE FACE INVESTIGATION AFTER RAIDING LOCAL CHURCH IN RUSSIA

MYANMAR ARMY MAY HAVE USED CHEMICAL WEAPONS ON KARENNI PEOPLE

PRESIDENT OF INSTITUTE ON RELIGION AND DEMOCRACY DIES AT AGE 53

PARTNERSHIP BRINGS GOSPEL BROADCASTS TO RURAL AREAS OF CHINA

Today’s News Stories:

‘RELIGIOUS POLICE’ IN SAUDI ARABIA ARREST 40 PAKISTANI CHRISTIANS Saudi Arabia’s muttawa (Islamic religious police) arrested 40 Pakistani Christians while they met privately for worship in Riyadh the morning of Friday, April 22. The gathering was a joint weekly Catholic-Protestant prayer service. Several carloads of muttawa members reportedly surrounded the house, halted the sermon and proceeded to beat some of the worshipers, overturning the furniture and breaking Christian symbols as they searched the house. All men, women and children present were detained at the Dera police station and later released. “We are very upset over this news,” a Pakistan church leader said. “Why do Saudi Muslims have the right all over the world to build mosques and worship in them when they refuse to designate places of worship for Christians who are guest workers in Saudi Arabia?” Police authorities also confiscated the Christians’ identification cards, Bibles, hymnals, tapes and other Christian materials in the Urdu language. The investigating police officer, Lt. Col. Saad Nawafal al-Rashid, said the raid was part of a wide-ranging “security campaign” that recently uncovered a prostitution ring, two home-brew alcohol factories and a variety of drug caches. The Pakistan embassy downplayed the incident, insisting that only 20 or 25 Christians were arrested, none of them children, before being released. (Compass)

ARABIC BIBLES TO BE DISTRIBUTED ACROSS NORTH AFRICA, MIDDLE EAST The persecution of the Christians in southern Sudan continues. Many of the believers there are on the move and there is a lack of Scripture portions available, but the church is still growing. John Anderson of the World Bible Translation Center says they’re looking to distribute thousands of Arabic New Testaments in the region, but accomplishing that goal is a big challenge. “We’ve tried to be very careful about who we send them to, how they’re packaged, so that they don’t get immediately identified as Scriptures, and also just send them in smaller numbers.” Anderson explains. “Not only can they get confiscated because there’s a strong Muslim presence there, but they can even get confiscated going through customs.” Dale Randolph, the center’s chief executive officer, says the ministry released the New Testament in portions “because it makes it a more effective tool for evangelism in this particular culture.” The center plans to distribute at least 250,000 copies of the New Testament across the Middle East and North Africa in the next three years. (Mission Network News)

* HCJB World Radio reaches across North Africa, the Middle East and Europe with Christian Arabic programs aired via shortwave, satellite and local stations. The Radio Al Mahabba (Radio Love) Arabic satellite network airs programs direct-to-home 24 hours a day. This region has the world’s highest concentration of personal satellite dishes.

POLICE FACE INVESTIGATION AFTER RAIDING LOCAL CHURCH IN RUSSIA A criminal investigation on police behavior will take place as a result of a raid on the Work of Faith Church in the Russian Republic of Udmurtia, about 700 miles east of Moscow. Twenty masked special and plainclothes police officers burst onto the premises on Thursday, April 14. They broke through a side gate and forced approximately 70 people to stand facing an outside wall for half an hour and searched the building. Pastor Mikhail Russkikh said the officers repeatedly called the church members “sectarians” and “prostitutes” before detaining 46 people in a single cell at the local police station for approximately five hours. The detainees were interrogated, fingerprinted and photographed, told to sign blank witness statements, and struck by police, but never formally charged. The Udmurtia state authorities’ official website said the warrant was issued for an “urgent search” of the church’s premises in connection with an April 9 murder near the building. The statement continued that a number of people with previous convictions lived there without registration. Bishop Degtyar said only 12 people present at the church did not have registration papers, and no mention was made of the murder investigation until several days after the search. (Forum 18 News Service)

MYANMAR ARMY MAY HAVE USED CHEMICAL WEAPONS ON KARENNI PEOPLE A report from Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) President Martin Panter presented evidence suggesting that the Myanmar (Burma) Army used chemical weapons against the Karenni people, a predominantly Christian people group, in an incident in February. The Feb. 15 report stated that at a Karenni border post known as Nya My, a heavy artillery device exploded in the camp. Unlike previous explosions, this device gave off a distinctive yellow smoke with a “highly irritating odor.” Within minutes those soldiers close enough to inhale vapors from the device became “extremely distressed with irritation to the eyes, throat, lungs and skin. Subsequently, some developed severe muscle weakness and one coughed up blood.” All lost weight in the subsequent four weeks. (Assist News Service)

PRESIDENT OF INSTITUTE ON RELIGION AND DEMOCRACY DIES AT AGE 53 Diane Knippers, longtime president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD), died in Arlington, Va., Monday, April 18, of complications related to cancer. She was 53. Earlier this year she was named by Time magazine as one of America’s 25 “most influential evangelicals.” Knippers served as president of the IRD since 1993 and had worked for the organization since 1982. She was a leader of evangelical, renewal voices in mainline Protestantism, especially in the Episcopal Church, and sat on the Standing Commission on Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations. She also served on the boards of the National Association of Evangelicals, the American Anglican Council, the Religious Liberty Commission of the World Evangelical Alliance, Five Talents (an Anglican micro-enterprise initiative), and the steering committee of Anglican Mainstream International. She held a bachelor’s degree from Asbury College and a master’s degree in sociology of religion from the University of Tennessee. She is survived by her husband, Edward Knippers. (Assist News Service)

PARTNERSHIP BRINGS GOSPEL BROADCASTS TO RURAL AREAS OF CHINA Radio broadcasts in the Mandarin language have been spreading God’s Word in China for more than a year through a partnership of the International Bible Society (IBS), Faith Comes by Hearing and Trans World Radio (TWR). “Most of the listeners are in rural areas, and . . . that’s where the high illiteracy rate is in China,” said Peter Bradley of IBS. Because of the remoteness of these areas, it can be difficult to bring in Bibles. However, Bradley says that there is “a huge growth in the number of new believers in the rural areas.” Reports are encouraging, and people are grateful for the daily 15-minute broadcasts from TWR’s shortwave station in Guam. In a land known to persecute Christians, people are saying that God’s Word is their food for survival, Bradley says. “Some of the [Chinese] provinces are very open to Christianity and allow the house churches to operate without any hindrance from the government,” he said. ” In others, of course, there is heavy persecution. Our role is to bring the gospel to these people, and they seem more than willing to meet with us even though in some areas it might be a little risky.” (Mission Network News)

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