Love not hate

Persecution of Christians is on the rise worldwide,but what about in the UK? 1

Persecution of Christians is on the rise globally. Blasphemy and apostasy laws in Islamic countries can lead to severe official punishments, plus “mob justice” and lynching. Christian converts from Islam are particularly vulnerable because of strict penalties for apostasy insharia law, but Christian-background Christians are also at serious risk from harassment, violence and economic marginalisation from Muslims, within their communities, in many countries.

But what about in the UK, a nation founded on the values of religious tolerance and freedom of belief? Christian converts from Islam should reasonably expect to be safe and accepted within these shores and protected equally under UK law. Yet, troubling stories of Christian converts being persecuted by Muslims in Britain are emerging with greater frequency, with several prominent cases in the news in recent years.

Such Christian converts include Nissar Hussain and his family who endured many years of violence and abuse in Bradford, to the extent of having to move home several times; on one occasion under armed police protection. In 2016, Nissar ended up seriously injured in hospital after being assaulted and now suffers from PTSD symptoms due to relentless harassment from British Muslims in his community. If that were not disturbing enough, both Nissar and his wifeKubrahave each had false allegations made against them for separate ‘offences’, resulting in each of them being held at the police station for several hours.

Recently, a Barnabas Fund contact sent disturbing reports of on-going violence and harassment against a young Christian woman ‘A ’, who converted from Islam. In an incident in 2016, she was accosted by three men after leaving a mosque in the UK, who demanded if she was“the Christian talking with the imam”. The men tied a sheet around her throat and kicked her as she lay on the ground, breaking several bones in her feet. She told the police a few days later, but they appeared reluctant to investigate the incident and failed to get a statement from an imam who witnessed the attack, or to look at evidence from CCTV footage.

Late last year, ‘A ’ was again assaulted, this time by four Muslim men who attempted to pull her clothes off; and fled when ‘A ’ activated a ‘rape alarm’. This time, with ‘A ’s body-cam video evidence and ability to identify the perpetrators, police had no choice but to take her assault seriously. However, no charges were made and the suspects countered with an accusation that she had “insulted Islam”and “provoked the fray”. Her case was passed on to a Muslim police officer who was sceptical about ‘A ’s Christian faith due to her Middle Eastern origins, saying to her, shockingly, “How can you possibly be a Christian from your background?” Living in fear of reprisals and attacks from her former community, ‘A ’ said that she has “no confidence”in the police.

Such stories appear against a backdrop of an equally concerning increase in anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic sentiment in the UK. In March this year, police were called to the Houses of Parliament to investigate suspicious packages sent to four Muslim MPs, which contained a ‘low-level noxious’ substance. It was suspected that the packages were linked to the repugnant spate of “Punish a
Muslim Day” 2 ‘Islamophobic’ letters posted across the country in April 2018.

Sharia and ‘far right’ patrols

We have already seen some Islamist groups attempting to mount sharia patrolsto enforce Islamic law in certain predominantly Muslim parts of the UK. We have also seen far right groups mounting counter patrols in mainly Muslim areas. Both of these groups seek to restrict freedom of religion for others. Recent news coverage of antiSemitic views within the Labour Party further highlights the need for vigilance against an upsurge of anti-religious views more broadly.

Sajid Javid, who describes himself as a “non-practising Muslim”, was appointed Home Secretary on 30 April 2018. He and his Christian wife Laurahave four children. The former Secretary of State for Culture, Media, and Sport, brings a solid parliamentary CV and, we hope, the perspective and level-headedness much needed, to steer the long-troubled Home Officein dangerous times.

Worldwide persecution of Christians

Three killed and two injured in Chechnya church attack 3

Four Islamist terrorists, armed with guns and knives, killed three people during an attack on a church in Chechnya. The gunmen, who were also carrying Molotov cocktails according to some news reports, attempted to storm the church in Groznyon Saturday 19 May and take hostages. One Christian churchgoer and two police officers were killed, and a second worshipper and two police officers were injured.

Minister Sergiy Abasov was holding a service when shots were heard outside the church, along with chants of “Allahu Akbar”. Worshippers rushed to shut the doors and secure the bolts as the gunmen tried to break in. He told the TASSnews agency: “They could not possibly hold it for long. There were only elderly women and just one man.

I approached and helped holding it, and this is when they started shooting right through the door.”

The minister ran to another part of the church and shouted from a window across to his wife and three children, who were standing outside their home. He told reporters, “I yelled ‘Get Inside’, but the attackers opened fire on my wife. She tried to take shelter in the house, but it was too late, he [one of the attackers] had already reloaded his shotgun and was now aiming at her. She ran to the dining room, and then locked herself in the basement, and this is what saved her life.” A police officer on duty at the church was one of those killed. The injured man, who was holding the door, is thought to be a local doctor. Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya’s Moscow-backed regional leader, said that terrorists attempted to take hostages inside the church. Armed officers arrived and in the ensuing shoot-out the four attackers were killed, along with a second police officer, while two other officers were injured. Russia’s Investigative Committeeblamed Islamic Statefor the attack.

In February, an IS gunman killed five women and injured five people in an attack on Christians leaving a church service in Kizlyar, in the neighbouring republic of Dagestan. Christians in the North Caucasus region are particularly vulnerable to Islamist threats, and face harassment and intimidation from the Muslim majority.

A witness unto death: bodies of Christian martyrs returned to Egypt 4

During the month of May 2018, the bodies of the twenty Egyptian Christians martyred by Islamic State (IS) in Libya in 2015, were returned to Egypt. This is a very poignant reminder of IS’s activities, their systematic killing and their brutality, when a total of twenty-one people were beheaded by IS, including one Ghanaian. According to a video of the incident posted by IS, the martyred wore orange jumpsuits and were brutally murdered at a beach location in Sirte, an IS stronghold at the time. Their bodies were recovered when the area was recaptured from IS in October last year and eventually forensically identified by doctors. These twenty were among the many displaced Egyptians who risked their lives trying to find work in an increasingly lawless and chaotic Libya, in the aftermath of Muammar Gaddafi’s downfall in 2011. Many hundreds of Christian families have since fled their homes in North Sinai in Egypt, fearing for their lives after IS issued death threats against all Christians in the region early in 2017.

Egyptian Christians often call martyrdom a “second baptism”. They consider it a glorious privilege, welcoming it and embracing it as a blessing from God. One of the twenty Egyptian martyrs in Libya, could easily have escaped death. His name was one more commonly used by Muslims than by Christians. So, when the IS militants separated the Muslim and Christian migrant workers, on the basis of their ID documents, they placed him with the Muslims. But he spoke up and protested that he was a Christian and wanted to go with his Christian brothers. He surely knew that he was in all probability going to his death, but it was death for Christ and therefore he chose it.

Martyrdom is an everyday reality in Egypt, connecting with the story of Christianity from its very beginning. In an age of cynicism and materialism, the twenty Egyptian martyrs, together with Ghanaian believer Matthew Aryga killed with them, remind us that some Christians are still willing to pay the ultimate price for their faith.

Central African Republic, DR Congo and Java

The month of May 2018, saw many Christians die in the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo. On Sunday 13 May, in Surabaya on the island of Java, a family of suicide
bombers targeted early morning services at three churches of different denominations killing thirteen. Their names are unrecorded and unknown to the wider world. Even the numbers receive little or no public mention – But, they are known to God.

‘Blood witnesses’

Many Christians will have been moved by Foxe’s Book of Martyrsaccount of the martyrdoms of figures such as Wycliffeand Tyndalewho both died at the stake in obedience to Christ during theReformation. It is difficult to imagine their suffering and faithfulness “unto death” (Revelation 2:10)in the Western church today, where Christians still enjoy relatively unrestricted freedom of belief and worship. The notion of “sacrifice”as part of Christian life has become abstract and perhaps more connected with giving up time, money, resourcesor personal comforts in Christian service.

Martyr, from the Greek word “martus” used in the New Testament, is translated “witness”. It is used in Scripture in the senses of a witness at a judicial trial, the witness of the people of God in a general sense and, lastly, to all witnesses who have sealed their testimony with their own blood. The apostles were eyewitnesses to Christ’s life, atoning death and resurrection, whereas the martyrs of Christ, past and present day, are His “blood witnesses”. We are all called to be witnesses, whether in death or in life.

1 https://tinyurl.com/y6ultuuh

2 https://tinyurl.com/yac2r2dy

3 https://tinyurl.com/y9zq7hz4

4 Barnabas ‘Christian Newsline’ 22.05.2018