Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin | RLPB 114 | Wed 29 Jun 2011

By Elizabeth Kendal

WELCOME to the intercessors who have joined the list this month.

‘Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it
will be opened to you. [. . .] If you then, who are evil, know how to give
good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in
heaven give good things to those who ask him!’ (Matthew 7:7,11 ESV)

JUNE 2011 UPDATE — During June we prayed for . . .

ZIMBABWE (RLPBs 110 & 111), where churches (particularly Anglican
churches) are facing escalating political violence ahead of elections.
See Religious Liberty Monitoring http://elizabethkendal.blogspot.com/
for more information.

UPDATE: according to The Tablet, a Catholic weekly newsletter, President
Mugabe has branded the Catholic Church an enemy of the State. With
secret police masquerading as Mass-goers, Catholic priests are
increasingly at risk of arrest and torture. One priest laments: ‘[we]
don’t have any freedom to preach the Word as we would want to even
within the Church because you never know what kind of visit you may get
after Mass. You know that the secret police are attending and the
moment you finish, things happen.’ Even just acknowledging the
existence of hunger in the country is enough to get a priest into
trouble. Phones are tapped and Internet lines are monitored. Priests
wearing clerical garb are routinely arrested, interrogated and
humiliated. ‘If you are lucky,’ the priest said, ‘you are interviewed
and let go; if you are not so lucky you are tortured a little bit.’
Pray for the Church in Zimbabwe.

REFUGEES (RLPB 112), as increasing numbers of Christians are being forced
to flee war, Islamic jihad and violent religious persecution.

NUBA MOUNTAINS, SUDAN (RLPB 113): where as many as half-a-million mostly
Christian Nuba — some 50 African tribes indigenous to North Sudan’s
Nuba Mountains — have been displaced by aerial bombardment and a
violent ethnic cleansing campaign. Once again, as in the early 1990s,
the Arab-Islamist regime in Khartoum has closed the Nuba Mountains off
to all humanitarian aid as it seeks the genocide of the ‘blacks’
through the use of starvation as a weapon of mass destruction. See
Religious Liberty Monitoring http: //elizabethkendal.blogspot.com/ for
more information. Please pray for God’s intervention.

JUNE 2011 ROUND-UP — also this month . . .

* BURMA (Myanmar): CONFLICT ERUPTS IN KACHIN STATE

As was noted in RLPB 080 (3 Nov 2010), the sole purpose of Burma’s
fraudulent November 2010 elections was to legitimise the regime and give
it a mandate to impose its will. Because the ethnic-religious minorities
do not have enough confidence in the junta to disarm, the regime has
branded them ‘separatist’ and tensions have escalated. Conflict has
erupted in devoutly Christian Kachin State which borders China to the
north. The trigger has been China’s building of two hydropower mega-dams
in Kachin, against the will of the Kachin people who protest that social
and environmental damage will be catastrophic. With China wanting to build
at least seven more such mega-dams in Kachin State, the Burmese junta’s
interest in controlling Kachin lands will intensify. Thousands of
Christian Kachin are on the run and at least 50 have been killed. Pray for
the Christian Kachin.

* EGYPT: VIOLENCE CONTINUES AGAINST COPTIC CHURCH

On 23 June hundreds of fundamentalist Salafi Muslims attacked the Coptic
Church of St George in the village of Bani Ahmed in Minya Province, Upper
Egypt, during Mass. The Salafis demanded that the priest, Fr George
Thabet, either leave the village or be handed over to be killed. For
months now, the Salafis have been protesting development work done on the
church. After a five-hour siege the Army intervened, quelling the rioting
and escorting Fr Thabet out of the village.

On 25 June a rumour spread through the village of Awlad Khalaf in Suhaj
Province, Upper Egypt, that the home being built by a Coptic Christian,
Wahib Halim Attia, was actually a church. Consequently, a mob of some 200
Muslims responded by attacking Mr Attia. After looting and bulldozing his
home, they moved on to loot and torch another six Coptic-owned homes.
Attia was subsequently arrested. Reportedly, local Muslims intervened to
return many of the looted possessions. Pray for the Church in Egypt and
that Egyptian Muslims will awaken to the fact that Islam is not the
solution.

* NORTH KOREA: MILITARY GOING HUNGRY

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) has obtained some very
revealing film smuggled out of North Korea. The footage confirms: there is
mass poverty, starvation and fear; there are scores of scavenging,
homeless orphans whose parents have died either of starvation or in
concentration camps; and work is being done by malnourished slave
labourers. But the report also reveals something quite new: many uniformed
soldiers are weak from hunger and malnutrition. See

http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2011/s3253989.htm . This is significant
because if the regime cannot sustain its ‘military first’ policy —
feeding its military to secure its loyalty — then the regime’s grip on
power could be tenuous. Under the Kim regime, hundreds of thousands of
Korean Christians suffer some of the most severe expressions of religious
persecution known. See Religious Liberty Monitoring

http://elizabethkendal.blogspot.com/ for more on North Korea. And please
pray.

* TAJIKISTAN: SEVERE RELIGIOUS RESTRICTIONS THREATENED

On 15 June Tajikistan’s Lower House of Parliament approved a controversial
Parental Responsibility Law. An initiative of President Emomali Rahmon,
the law obliges parents ‘not to let children-teenagers participate in the
activity of religious organisations [other than funerals], with the
exception of those officially enrolled in [State-sanctioned] religious
education’. Penalties will apply. Also on 15 June the Lower House approved
amendments to the Criminal Code that will extend punishments for
‘unapproved meetings’ to unapproved religious meetings, and prescribe
lengthy prison terms for those found participating in ‘religious
extremist’ teaching. With the courts left to define ‘extremist’, observers
fear that all unsanctioned religious education will be penalised. Before
they can be enacted as law, the draft law and amendments need to be
approved by the Upper House (Majlisi Milli) and signed by the President.
Chair of the Lower House’s Science, Education, Culture and Youth Policy
Committee, Marhabo Jabborova, told Forum 18 she felt ‘sure’ the Parental
Responsibility Law and the Criminal Code amendments would be adopted by
the Upper House in July. Whilst Islamic sects considered to be dangerous
are the target, Protestant Christians will be caught in the net, a detail
the authorities will keenly exploit. Please pray for God’s intervention.

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We usually provide a summary to use in news-sheets unable to
run the whole of an RLPB. As a summary is not practicable with
this monthly update posting we suggest one or more of the above
items be used instead.

—————–

For more information, updates and helpful links see Elizabeth Kendal’s
blog ‘Religious Liberty Monitoring’ <http://elizabethkendal.blogspot.com>.

This RLPB was written for the Australian Evangelical Alliance Religious
Liberty Commission (AEA RLC) by Elizabeth Kendal, an international
religious liberty analyst and advocate, and a member of the AEA RLC team.
Previous bulletins may be viewed at
<http://www.ea.org.au/ea-family/Religious-Liberty/Prayer-Postings.aspx>.

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