3 November 2005 Update From HCJB World Radio

MUSLIMS ATTACK BAPTISM CEREMONY IN GUINEA, INJURING 10 PEOPLE

MIDDLE EAST STATE TO ALLOW FIRST CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN 1,400 YEARS

Today’s Top Stories:

MUSLIMS ATTACK BAPTISM CEREMONY IN GUINEA, INJURING 10 PEOPLE

On Wednesday, Oct. 19, a baptism ceremony in Nzerekore in the West African country of Guinea was attacked by Muslims complaining about the music from the service disturbing their prayers at a nearby mosque. Ten people were injured, two seriously, and several houses were sacked. The Muslims rioted again on the evening of Friday, Oct. 21, and razed a local video store. Elite soldiers had to be deployed to restore calm. Several guns were confiscated, and a curfew was imposed. During the weekend some 100 people were arrested with 56 remaining in detention. The Christians belong to the Guerze ethnic group which has a long history in the forest region of southeastern Guinea. They clashed with Konianke Muslims, a subgroup of the strongly Muslim Mandingo (or Malinki) people. The two tribes have competed for land for more than a century. Religious tensions are increasing as radical Muslims exert more influence in the region. Ethnic-religious violence erupted in Nzerekore on June 16, 2004, when a Guerze youth on a motorcycle accidentally ran into a crowd leaving a mosque, resulting in a riot and hundreds of arrests. (Assist News Service)

MIDDLE EAST STATE TO ALLOW FIRST CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN 1,400 YEARS

The reform-minded emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, has donated land on the outskirts of Doha for the construction of the first Christian church in that country since the 7th century. The Church of the Epiphany, which will begin operations in 2006 under 58-year-old Scotsman Ian Young, will not have a spire or free-standing cross — though walkways and grounds of the church will have motifs resembling those used in early Christian churches. Rev. Clive Handford, the Anglican Bishop in Cyprus and the Gulf, said: “We are there as guests in a Muslim country, and we wish to be sensitive to our hosts . . . but once you’re inside the gates it will be quite obvious that you are in a Christian centre. We hope that the centre can be a base for ongoing Muslim-Christian dialogue.” Christianity disappeared from most Gulf Arab states within a few centuries of the arrival of Islam, but many Christians have migrated to the region since the discovery of oil. Qatar’s Anglican community is estimated to be between 7,000 and 10,000 people. (Religion Today/The London Times)