Somali Convert to Christianity Kidnapped, Beheaded

Muhammad ordered his followers to execute apostates.

Sahih al-Bukhari 6922—Allah’s Messenger [said], “Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him.”

Sunan Abu Dawud 4337—The Apostle said: Kill those who change their religion.

Sunan Ibn Majah 2535—It was narrated from Ibn Abbas that the Messenger of Allah said: “Whoever changes his religion, execute him.”

Al-Muwatta of Imam Malik 36.18.15—The Messenger of Allah said, “If someone changes his religion—then strike off his head!”

Sahih al-Bukhari 6878—Narrated Abdullah: Allah’s Messenger said, “The blood of a Muslim who confesses that La ilaha illallah (none has the right to be worshipped but Allah) and that I am the Messenger of Allah, cannot be shed except in three cases: (1) Life for life; (2) a married person who commits illegal sexual intercourse, and (3) the one who turns renegade from Islam (apostate) and leaves the group of Muslims.

Therefore it should surprise none of us that Muslims would kill anyone who leaves Islam to embrace the Lord Jesus Christ as their God and Savior, as the article below shows us.

09/12/2011 Somalia (CDN)-A kidnapped Christian convert from Islam was found decapitated on Sept. 2 on the outskirts of Hudur City in Bakool region, in southwestern Somalia. Juma Nuradin Kamil was forced into a car by three suspected Islamic extremists from the al Shabaab terrorist group on Aug. 21, area sources said. After members of his community thoroughly combed the area looking for him, at 2 p.m. on Sept. 2 one of them found Kamil’s body dumped on a street.

The kidnapping and subsequent manner of murder suggests that al Shabaab militants had been monitoring him, Christian leaders said. Muslim extremists from al Shabaab, a militant group with ties to al Qaeda, have vowed to rid Somalia of Christianity, and they control the area some 400 kilometers from Mogadishu. A Christian who saw Kamil’s body said it bore the marks of an al Shabaab killing, according to a leader in Somalia’s underground church who lives in another city.

“It is usual for the al Shabaab to decapitate those they suspect to have embraced the Christian faith, or sympathizers of western ideals,” the leader said. “Our brother accepted the Christian faith three years ago and was determined in his faith in God. We greatly miss him.”

An area resident said he was on his way to his house when he saw a crowd of stunned people gazing at the corpse.

“I could not immediately comprehend what might have gone wrong, only to learn that someone had been decapitated,” the resident said. “His head was put on his chest."

A Christian said the area community initially did not bury the body out of fear of al Shabaab extremists seeing them associated with a newly discovered convert to Christianity.

“The community feared burying him, and his body lay in the open for two days before unknown people buried him secretly,” he said.

Another Christian convert who lives in another city said Kamil had become a Christian three years ago.
“This is very sad news for the community,” he said. A source in Mogadishu with ties to Somalia’s underground church confirmed the murder of Kamil.

With estimates of al Shabaab’s size ranging from 3,000 to 7,000, the insurgents seek to impose a strict version of sharia (Islamic law), but the transitional government in Mogadishu fighting to retain control of the country treats Christians little better than the al Shabaab extremists do. While proclaiming himself a moderate, President Sheikh Sharif Sheik Ahmed has embraced a version of sharia that mandates the death penalty for those who leave Islam.

Al Shabaab was among several splinter groups that emerged after Ethiopian forces removed the Islamic Courts Union, a group of sharia courts, from power in Somalia in 2006. Al Shabaab has been designated a terrorist organization by several western governments.

In the Lower Shabele region of Somalia earlier this year, two Muslim extremists murdered a member of a secret Christian community, sources said. An area source told Compass two al Shabaab militants shot 21-year-old Hassan Adawe Adan in Shalambod town after entering his house on April 18.

In Warbhigly village on the outskirts of Mogadishu, a mother of four was killed for her Christian faith on Jan. 7 by Islamic extremists from al Shabaab, a relative said. The relative, who requested anonymity, said Asha Mberwa, 36, was killed when the Islamic extremists cut her throat in front of villagers who came out of their homes as witnesses(Source).

If anyone wants to know more about apostasy and Islam, see this video made by my brother in Christ Jesus, David Wood:

Uzbekistan: Religious fines lead to travel bans

It figures. When you're scared of the spread of the Christian gospel, what do you do? You go to silly lengths like preventing travel in order to keep it from going places.

9/9/2011 Uzbekistan (Forum 18 News Service) – Seven months after a fine for "illegally" bringing Christian magazines into Uzbekistan was overturned on appeal, passport officers stopped Tashkent Baptist Lidiya Guseva from leaving Uzbekistan, fellow Baptists complained to Forum 18 News Service. She was taken off a late-night train and had to return to Tashkent by taxi. Bailiff Sanjar Sultanov told Forum 18 that the failure to cancel her exit ban was the fault of the Court for failing to tell them it had cancelled the fine.

The Court insisted to Forum 18 it had told the Bailiffs. This was the second case known to Forum 18 since the beginning of September of an individual punished by an administrative court for their religious activity being denied permission to leave the country. Powers to place individuals on the exit black list for unpaid fines was handed from the courts to bailiffs at the end of 2010, one told Forum 18(Source).

Christianity’s Growth in China – A New Generation Seeks Answers and Acceptance

9/11/11 China (BBC UK) - Many of China's churches are overflowing, as the number of Christians in the country multiplies. In the past, repression drove people to convert - is the cause now rampant capitalism?
It is impossible to say how many Christians there are in China today, but no-one denies the numbers are exploding.

The government says 25 million, 18 million Protestants and six million Catholics. Independent estimates all agree this is a vast underestimate. A conservative figure is 60 million. There are already more Chinese at church on a Sunday than in the whole of Europe. The new converts can be found from peasants in the remote rural villages to the sophisticated young middle class in the booming cities.
...
Driven undergroundThere is a complexity in the structures of Chinese Christianity which is little understood in the West. To start with, Catholicism and Protestantism are designated by the state as two separate religions.  Throughout the 20th Century, Christianity was associated with Western imperialism. After the Communist victory in 1948, the missionaries were expelled, but Christianity was permitted in state-sanctioned churches, so long as they gave their primary allegiance to the Communist Party.

Mao, on the other hand, described religion as "poison", and the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 70s attempted to eradicate it. Driven underground, Christianity not only survived, but with its own Chinese martyrs, it grew in strength. Since the 1980s, when religious belief was again permitted, the official Churches have gradually created more space for themselves.

They report to the State Administration for Religious Affairs. They are forbidden to take part in any religious activity outside their places of worship and sign up to the slogan, "Love the country - love your religion."
In return the Party promotes atheism in schools but undertakes "to protect and respect religion until such time as religion itself will disappear".

...On Easter morning, in downtown Beijing, I watched five services, each packed with over 1,500 worshippers. Sunday school was spilling on to the street.

The official Protestant Church is growing faster than Catholicism.

However, these numbers are dwarfed by the unofficial "house churches", spreading across the country, at odds with the official Church which fears the house churches' fervour may provoke a backlash.
What the authorities consider non-negotiable is the house churches' refusal to acknowledge any official authority over their organisation.

The State fears the influence of zealous American evangelism and some of the House Church theology has those characteristics, but, in many other respects, it seems to be an indigenous Chinese movement - charismatic, energetic and young. An educated young Christian described her church to me: "We have 50 young professionals in this church. Everyone is so busy working, you don't have time socialising, and even if you are socialising, you are putting on a fake face.

"But in church people feel warm, they feel welcome… they feel people really love them so they really want to join the community, a lot of people come for this."
Alpha marriage course

A Chinese academic close to the government told me that the government would prefer to ignore the house churches, as unlike the Falun Gong they are not seen as a threat. But where a church oversteps the line, as happened in Beijing this year, taking its worship on to the streets, then the authorities will crack down.

In some areas the state has sought to enlist Christianity into its "big idea" of a "harmonious society" - the slogan that dominates Chinese public life. There has been official interest in the Western evangelical Alpha Marriage Course, because of alarm at the escalating divorce rate among young Chinese.

What must unsettle the authorities most is the reason why so many are turning to the churches. I heard people talking again and again of a "spiritual crisis" in China - a phrase that has even been used by the Premier Wen Jiao Bao. The old have seen the old certainties of Marxism-Leninism transmute into the most visceral capitalist society on earth.

For the young, in the stampede to get rich, trust in institutions, between individuals, between the generations, is breaking down. As one of China's most eminent philosophers of religion - Professor He Guanghu, at Renmin University in Beijing put it to me: "The worship of Mammon… has become many people's life purpose.

"I think it is very natural that many other people will not be satisfied... will seek some meaning for their lives so that when Christianity falls into their lives, they will seize it very tightly(Source)."

Christian Man Murdered in the Philippines

The Quran says that Christians and all other non-Muslims are the worst of Creatures:
Sura 98:6-- Verily, those who disbelieve (in the religion of Islam, the Qur'an and Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him)) from among the people of the Scripture (Jews and Christians) and Al-Mushrikun will abide in the Fire of Hell. They are the worst of creatures.

Therefore it should come as no surprise that Muslims are called fight, oppress and subjugate Christians and other non-Muslims:

Quran 9:29- Fight those who believe not in Allah nor in the Last Day, nor hold forbidden which has been forbidden by Allah and his Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of truth from among the People of the book, till they pay the jizya and feel themselves subdued.

Quran 9:73- O Prophet! Strive hard against the unbelievers and the hypocrites and be unyielding to them; and their abode is hell, and evil is their destination.

Quran 9:111- Surely Allah has bought of the believers their persons and their property for this, that they shall have the garden; they fight in Allah's way, so they slay and are slain;

Quran 47:35- Be not weary and fainthearted, crying for peace, when ye should be uppermost: for Allah is with you, and will never put you in loss for your  (good) deeds.

Fortunately not all Muslims live according to these commands. However, there is a minority group as seen in the article below that takes such commands very seriously:

9/8/11 Philippines (CIC) - A Christian man, Clarito dela Cruz, was recently murdered by Muslims in the region of Mindanao in the Philippines. On July 26, a Muslim couple pretending to be husband and wife hired Clarito to drive them to a remote village near the town of Linamon.

It is then believed that the couple, likely assisted by a companion, tortured and strangled Clarito with an electrical wire. They also shot him twice and stole his motorbike, which belonged to his father-in-law and was the family's means of earning a living. He leaves behind a wife named Leodel, who is pregnant, and their 3-year-old son.

Clarito's parents oversee their church's evangelism program, and his pastor told a VOM worker that Muslims in the area had tried to convert church members to Islam. Muslims attacked Christians in Linamon several years ago, burning homes and stealing livestock(Source).

Indian Police Arrest Hindu Converts to Christianity

Karnataka Boys Beaten and Arrested for Having Converted to Christianity

09/09/2011 India (AsiaNews)-It is a cause "serious concern" to see how Christians are "regularly" attacked in Karnataka by Hindu nationalists, while the authorities "turn a blind eye, because their political survival depends on these forces”, denounces Sajan K George, president of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), in the face of yet another case of violence and abuse against two Christians held responsible for forced conversions.

Bhasker Naik, 20 years, and Hemanth Naik, 22, from the village Mank (North Kanara district), worked for over a year in the town of Udupi, employed in a private company. About six months ago, the boys began to follow the sermons of Pastor Sadananda, of the Church of Christ Fellowship in Hirebettu, and converted to Christianity. On 7 September the two returned to their village, but some activists of the Bajrang Dal (ultra-nationalist Hindu youth wing), learned of their conversion, started beating them and insulting them, telling them to return to Hinduism.

Faced with the refusal of Bhasker and Hemanth to deny Christ, Hindu activists reported them to Honnavar police for forced conversions. The inspector Venkatappa conducted a brief investigation, and arrested them. The two Christians are still in prison(Source).

American Family Evacuated from Indonesia on Rumors of Evangelism to Local Muslims, Violence Threatened

9/6/11 Indonesia (Jakarta Post) - The Central Sulawesi Police have evacuated a family of four American nationals from their rented house in the BTN Bukit Kabonena Permai residential complex in Palu to the local immigration office, allegedly because they were in danger due to rumors they had been proselytizing to locals.

The Graeff family, including father David Ray, 41, mother Georgia Rae, 41, and children Benjamin David, 12, and Daniel Earl, 14, were evacuated on Sunday evening reportedly after locals had begun to question the family’s presence in the region. Locals then burned the family’s car after they were evacuated.

Palu Police Chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Deden Granada said that David Ray Graeff, who had been in Kabonena for two weeks, was a teacher at Uwera Theological School in Marawola, Sigi regency, Central Sulawesi.
“We had to evacuate the family for their own safety,” Deden said.

A local resident, Habib Saleh Alaydrus, told The Jakarta Post on Monday that the day before he had received information from his pupils at Majelis Dzikir Nurul Khairaat boarding school and local residents that there were foreigners preaching Christianity in the area. He said that there had been rumors that a helicopter had transported foreigners to the Kabonena hills in the middle of one night in June 2011.

“On Sunday, we again received information about two cars transporting foreigners to the Kabonena hills. So we ran after them,” Habib Saleh said.

Habib Saleh said that he and other local residents had suspected that foreigners in the region had a hidden agenda because the local subdistrict and district administrations had not been informed of their arrival.
He said that the fact that David Ray was teaching in Uwera but resided in Palu added to the suspicion.
“What was going on? There must be some other agenda. Why should they bring in English teachers from America?” Habib Saleh asked.

It was feared that the evacuation of the American family on Sunday would awaken old tensions dating back to the inter-religious fighting that plagued Central Sulawesi 10 years ago. Central Sulawesi witnessed fierce fighting between Muslims and Christians in 2001 and 2002 that killed more than 1,000 people(Source).

North Korean Agents Implicated in Missionary Death

9/9/11 North Korea (Sydney Morning Herald) - A South Korean missionary working with North Korean refugees in China died suddenly in the street amid suspicions Pyongyang agents were involved, a newspaper and another missionary said Friday. Another South Korean activist working elsewhere in northeast China has alleged he himself was stabbed with a poison-tipped needle in a separate non-fatal incident, the Korea JoongAng Daily reported.

Seoul's foreign ministry said it did not know whether there was any North Korean involvement in the incidents, but its diplomats had asked Chinese authorities to ensure the safety of South Koreans near the North's border.
...
The ministry said it was investigating an alleged non-fatal attack on a 59-year-old activist, which had not been reported to Seoul's consulate in Shenyang or to police. The consulate "has strongly requested the related organisation in the Chinese government to ensure the safety of South Koreans in border regions, and plans to take necessary measures to prevent further incidents from happening," its statement said.

The Korea JoongAng Daily said there are suspicions both men were the victims of North Korean agents trying to silence voices of dissent, but there was no firm evidence of this. It said the activist who survived had collapsed in the street in Yanji in the Chinese province of Jilin and was rushed to hospital.

The unidentified man said he had been stabbed in the waist with a poisoned needle after leaving a sauna, the paper said. He had reportedly been openly protesting against the North's regime. Tim Peters, a Seoul-based Christian activist, said he had a "very strong suspicion" but no evidence that the missionary who died had been poisoned by the North's agents.

He told AFP the victim had been involved in evangelical work among North Korean refugees, an activity that was taken extremely seriously by the regime. Peters founded Helping Hands Korea, an organisation involved in evangelising and giving general assistance to refugees from the North who cross into northeast China.

Asked if missionaries were in fear of such attacks, he said: "There's a kind of sobering awareness that this is always lurking in the shadows. It's part of the price one pays for doing missionary work in this area."
South Korean pastor Kim Dong-Shik was kidnapped in Yanji in January 2000 and taken to North Korea, according to Seoul authorities.

Kim had been reportedly involved in helping refugees flee to South Korea via a third country. His fate is unknown(Source).