Author: Dan Wooding
Publication: WorldNetDaily.com
Date: July 14, 1999
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.)
