MANADO, Indonesia (BP)–A Christian human rights leader from the United States and a five-member delegation he was leading were detained for a day and a half by security forces in Indonesia’s strife-ravaged Malukan island chain before being released Feb. 24.
A growing body of evidence confirms reports that Christians in Indonesia’s Maluku Islands have been forced to convert to Islam under threat of death, although Muslim clerics deny the claims.
Indonesia’s Christian and political leaders are convinced that the widespread Christmas Eve church bombings were meant to provoke all-out war between the Muslim and Christian communities in the country.
Maluku’s head of police admitted that authorities cannot dislodge the hundreds of Muslim jihad fighters scattered throughout eastern Indonesia’s Maluku province and who have escalated the inter-religious conflict as Christmas approaches. More than 100 Christians were reported killed in November fighting.
“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.
Dr. Benjamin Munthe, an Indonesian pastor who was involved in a September 17 brutal attempt on his life in which his driver Caleb was killed, has spoken about that fateful day.
Dozens of Christians have been killed in renewed attacks by extremist Muslim warriors in Indonesia’s eastern province of Maluku. At least 32 people died in an attack on the Ambon island village of Hative Besar, according to news reports.
28 September 2000 (Newsroom) — Dozens of Christians have been killed in renewed attacks by extremist Muslim warriors in Indonesia’s eastern province of Maluku. At least 32 people died in an attack on the Ambon island village of Hative Besar, according to news reports.
Some 2,000 survivors of an attack last week on a Christian village on Indonesia’s eastern island of Ambon are hiding under life-threatening conditions in a nearby jungle, according to the Missionary Service News Agency (MISNA).
Twenty-three Christians were massacred in Indonesia as they fled from their village in late July and early August, The Hindustan Times of India has reported. The report from Indonesia was relayed to U.S. media via Crosswalk.com, an Internet news and information site.
Reports of an “ethnic-cleaning” style religious war by Muslims against Christians on the Indonesian island of Ambon continue to be received from eyewitnesses on site.
Christians in Indonesia’s Maluku islands say their community remains under threat of extermination by thousands of trained Jihad troops that have entered the region since May.
Leaders of Christian communities who report they are under attack by jihad warriors in Indonesia’s Maluku islands are seeking emergency help from Europe.
Christian communities in Indonesia’s Moluccas fear the onslaught of “religious cleansing” as some 3,000 extremist Muslim fighters prepare to converge on the archipelago, according to a British-based group that recently returned from a fact-finding mission. Many families already have fled to other islands as predominantly Christian villages have been razed, Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) said.
25 April 2000 (Newsroom) — Indonesia vice president Megawati Sukarnoputri is visiting the Molucca archipelago this week in a further attempt to diffuse tensions between Muslims and Christians that have resulted in an estimated 3,000 deaths since January 1999.
At least 40 people were killed last week in continuing sectarian violence in Indonesia’s Moluccas, also known as the Spice Islands. According to news reports, the fatalities resulted from clashes between Muslims and Christians in the town of Galela on the island of Halmahera in North Malaku province.
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.