AMBON CITY, Indonesia (BP)–The mournful horn echoes in the still air at 4 a.m. The call to prayer resounds off bullet-pocked walls and empty buildings. The Christian remnant in this Indonesian village awakens to cry out to God for peace.
SPICE ISLANDS, INDONESIA (March 21, 2000) — An urgent plea for prayer for the Christians of Indonesia has come out of that nation from a recent visitor who has just returned from the Spice Islands.
INDONESIA – (Open Doors, July 9, 2001) – Christian leaders in Tentena, in Indonesia’s central Sulawesi province, pleaded with Open Doors to “be our voice†in the face of increased atrocities being perpetrated against them in Poso district, known as a “second Ambon.â€
JAYAPURA, Irian Jaya, November 30 (Compass) — A smouldering civil unrest that has troubled the eastern Indonesian province of Irian Jaya for years threatens once again to harm Christians and others caught in the war between a growing independence movement and the Jakarta government.
AMBON, Indonesia (Compass) — “It is disappointing that the suffering of the Christians due to the conflict in the Malukus has been insufficiently exposed in various reports on a national and international level,” stated the U.S. Consul General Robert Pollard.
WASHINGTON (BP)–The State Department’s second report on global religious liberty presents a challenge for the U.S. government to act against persecution, the chairman of a federal commission said.
LOS ANGELES, August 23 (Compass) — A Christian community center in Malaysia was set ablaze on July 21 by suspected Muslim extremists. The building was unoccupied during the alleged arson attack, reported local fire and rescue officials.
A militant fundamentalist group from Idaho is spreading terror across the Midwest-and federal troops are siding with the attackers.
Since January a total of 1400 Christians trapped by radical Muslim warriors in the islands of North Maluku in Indonesia have been rescued. These Christians are among the more than 7000 who were being held hostage by Muslim Jihad fighters.
Rescue Operations Continue
Missions Insider – Since January a total of 1400 Christians trapped by radical Muslim warriors in the islands of North Maluku in Indonesia have been rescued. These Christians are among the more than 7000 who were being held hostage by Muslim Jihad fighters.
Turkmenistan has moved to fifth place on the Open Doors World Watch List of worst persecutors of Christians, behind Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Laos and China, causing “great concern” to persecution watchers around the world.
In a new twist to the violence against Christians in eastern Indonesia’s Maluku Islands, Muslim Jihad fighters dressed like Japanese “ninjas” have begun targeting individuals under cover of darkness.
LONDON (Compass) — Mobs attacked five East Java churches, and six Ambon Christians were hacked to death in May in a sudden escalation of religious violence being played out in Indonesia against a backdrop of increasing political instability.
Thousands of extremist Muslim fighters armed with automatic weapons are attacking Christian villages in Indonesia’s Central Sulawesi province, burning churches and thousands of homes and sending residents fleeing.
On the Indonesian island of Ambon, hundreds of Christian men and women — young and old, even infants and pregnant women — have been forced to convert to Islam and circumcised under threat of death. As Muslim jihad warriors press their efforts to kill or convert all Christians in Indonesia, many Christians are forced to choose between their faith and their lives. Photo by Warren Johnson
WASHINGTON (ABP) — Christian Coalition founder and President Pat Robertson claims he was misunderstood in comments taken by some as justifying forced abortions in China.
Details emerging from recent detentions and interrogations of Christians in Brunei point to a growing government concern that the growth of “cults” in this predominately-Muslim nation could lead to political and religious instability.
Work is underway to resettle Indonesian Christians rescued from violence that continues in this country’s Molucca Islands, while thousands more remain to be rescued.
Responding to urgent pleas for help, Christian Aid has joined a campaign to raise $1.2 million to rescue Christians feared targeted for conversion or extermination by Muslim jihad warriors in Indonesia.
Sharply different perspectives on religious persecution in Indonesia have been laid before the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.