SANTA ANA, Calif. — Despite the fact that Filipino Christian
prisoner Rene Camahort was released from a Saudi jail in May, the
Islamic nation of Saudi Arabia still has the world’s worst record of
persecuting
Christians, says Open Doors with Brother Andrew.
The ministry, that was begun more than four decades ago by Brother
Andrew, the Dutch-born author of “God’s Smuggler,” has announced its
findings with the latest release of its World Watch List.
“I am sorry to say that Saudi Arabia still has the dubious title of
being the world’s worst persecutor of Christians, closely followed by
Afghanistan, Sudan and China,” says Terry Madison, U.S. president of
Open Doors, based here.
“Despite the fact that there are 600,000 ex-patriot Christians living
there, the kingdom does not permit any practice of the Christian faith.
Although one prisoner has been released, in June we learned that another
Filipino was arrested for practicing his faith.”
The Taliban-controlled land of Afghanistan, in which only 2,500
Christians are known to reside, is a close second in its treatment of
believers, revealed Madison.
“In the south of Sudan, clashes between government forces and rebels
continued, though a cease-fire was prolonged,” said Madison. “One
Christian was released after he had suffered a stroke. Two others were
transferred from a military prison to a civilian one. In addition, an
Anglican church was bulldozed in a refugee camp outside of Khartoum
earlier this year.”
Madison then spoke about China, a country he has visited nearly 40
times over the years, including a night in June 1981 when he personally
took part in Open Doors’ “Project Pearl.” One million Bibles were
delivered by sea to waiting believers on a beach in southern China that
evening, the culmination of months of strategic planning for this
extremely bold initiative.
“In China the government campaign against Christians has continued.
Police arrested 25 Christians in Henan on April 25, and the Hong Kong
Human Rights Center reports that since October 1998 more than 250
Christians have been arrested in Henan,” he said. “To prevent wide-scale
commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre,
dissidents were arrested and sentenced to long terms in jail. Bishop
Ding of the state-sponsored Three Self Patriotic Church attacked
evangelical believers, and house churches came under even greater
surveillance.”
Open Doors reported that the balance of the top-10 list of
persecutors is made up of the countries of Yemen, Morocco, Iran, Libya,
Tunisia and Egypt.
Madison, who visited Egypt last year, spoke about the situation
there: “We have received new reports about persecution and
discrimination of Christians in Egypt by local police and other security
officials who seem to perform this with impunity,” he said.
Chechnya, which is number 13 on the World Watch list, now has only a
handful of known believers left in the war-torn country. A brutal policy
of “evangelical cleansing” by radical Islamic gangs in Chechnya has
forced most of the evangelical Christians in Grozny to flee into
southern Russia for resettlement.
“Chechnya’s ongoing rash of kidnappings and brutal murders during the
previous nine months has prompted the action,” said Madison. “This is
the first time in memory that almost the entire Christian population of
a nation may be evacuated.”
Madison explained that members of Grozny Baptist Church have been
living in fear after the savage murder of their church leader, 65-year
old Alexander Kulakov, who was last seen alive March 12 boarding a bus.
“Ten days later, a lady from the church saw — to her horror — his
severed head displayed at a local market,” said Madison. “This was the
second time a church leader had been targeted. Last October their
pastor, Alexey Sitnikov, 42, was abducted from the church building. A
search into Sitnikov’s whereabouts proved fruitless, and no ransom
demands were ever made. Inquirers about his fate were finally told in
mid April by an inside contact among the local security authorities that
the pastor had been killed during the first week after his abduction.
Among the first church members to be resettled was the invalid mother of
Alexey Sitnikov.”
He then said that there has been some encouraging news. “A Protestant
seminary was allowed to buy land to erect new buildings in Jordan and
the remaining eight Christian prisoners, who were arrested in January,
were released in Laos,” said Madison.
Madison concluded by saying, “Persecution around the world should be
of concern to all Christians. We are instructed to ‘bear each others’
burdens’ and we can do this through prayer, by going to encourage them
and by providing them with Bibles and other spiritual tools, and by
supporting ministries that reach out to the Suffering Church.”
Dan Wooding is a veteran journalist and
author.
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