Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin | RLPB 699 | Wed 28 June 2023
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JUNE 2023 UPDATE & ROUNDUP
By Elizabeth Kendal
UPDATE: DURING JUNE WE PRAYED CONCERNING
HONG KONG [RLPB 696 (7 June)], after three Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-approved religious umbrella bodies – the China Christian Council, the Three-Self Patriotic Movement and the Hong Kong Christian Council – held their first ever conference on ‘The Sinicisation of Christianity’ in Hong Kong. If Beijing’s directly imposed national security law (enacted June 2020) ended the era of ‘One China Two Systems’, then the conference doubtless heralds the end of an era of ‘tolerance’. Hong Kong’s roughly 1500 churches, 35 Bible Colleges and multiple Christian media organisations will now be expected to either ‘sinicise’ – i.e. become obedient servants of the CCP – or face persecution and dissolution, as on the mainland. Please pray for the Church in Hong Kong.
NORTH KOREA [RLPB 697 (14 June)], after the arrest of five Christians who had gathered at a farmhouse for a secret time of pre-dawn prayer and worship. In North Korea, the Kim Dynasty alone is to be worshipped and obeyed. Putting God above the Kim dynasty is a political crime in North Korea, the penalty for which would normally be that the accused – along with three generations of their family – would be imprisoned in a concentration camp and condemned to hard labour. These prisons are essentially death camps, where many prisoners die from brutality and starvation. A local resident told Radio Free Asia: ‘A staff member of the judicial agency told us that the [believers] refused to tell where they got their Bibles and said, “All for Jesus, even in death”.’ Please pray for the Church in North Korea.
SUDAN [RLPB 698 (21 June)], as the conflict which erupted on 15 April in Khartoum between the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) spreads south, into South Kordofan, threatening the lives of well over a million Christians. The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army-North (Hilu faction: which represents the interests of the predominantly Christian Nuba tribes) is fighting both RSF and SAF forces. On 12 June, the SAF dropped bombs on the long marginalised, predominantly Christian Nuba Mountains for the first time since 2016. Christians in the jihad-ravaged Nuba Mountains are again facing the spectre of war, famine and death.
UPDATE: CONFLICT ESCALATES IN SOUTH KORDOFAN
Whilst most reports contain contested and unconfirmed accounts, fighting does appear to be escalating along the El Obeid – Kadugli axis, with the RSF and SAF fighting each other, and the SPLM-N (Hilu faction) forced to fight both. Responding to claims it has breached a cessation of hostilities agreement, the SPLM-N (Hilu faction) has publicly stated that it reserves the right ‘to respond to any attacks against the Nuba people in areas controlled by [its] army’. The situation is fluid; tensions are soaring, and much is at stake. Meanwhile, in Khartoum, numerous reports indicate that the RSF has taken control of most of the city by using civilians as human shields. Of course such a tactic would never work in Darfur (which is rich in gold) or South Kordofan (where most of Sudan’s oil reserves are located) or in Blue Nile (which is rich in water) as the SAF has never had a problem with bombing and strafing non-Arab civilians. The spectre of protracted devastating war looms large over the entire non-Arab periphery, including the predominantly Christian Nuba Mountains (population estimated to be around 1.5 million). Lord have mercy! Please pray.
JUNE 2023 ROUND-UP – ALSO THIS MONTH
* AZERBAIJAN: LACHIN CORRIDOR CLOSED
On 15 June Armenian and Azerbaijani soldiers engaged in a skirmish at the entrance to the Lachin/Berdzor Corridor. Each side blamed the other, and Azerbaijan responded by closing the corridor – which is the only road connecting Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh (N-K) to Armenia and the outside world. The closure extends to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) – which is responsible for getting humanitarian aid in and medical evacuations out – and Russian peacekeepers. On 20 June, Artsakh State Minister Gurgen Nersisyan lamented: ‘The situation is turning disastrous day by day, and it is incomprehensible why the world tolerates this.’ In a statement dated 23 June, the European Union described the situation as ‘very worrying’, adding, ‘It directly threatens the livelihoods of the local population and raises serious fears of a potential humanitarian crisis.’ Few doubt that Turkic Muslim Azerbaijan is eager to ethnically cleanse Artsakh/N-K of Armenian Christians. Talks are currently underway in Moscow. Please pray.
BACKGROUND: STALIN’S BORDERS
Long part of, and integral to, the historic Christian Kingdom of Armenia, Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh (NK) now exists as an Armenian Christian enclave inside Turkic Muslim Azerbaijan. In the 1920s-30s, Stalin carved up the Russian Federation into ethnic republics to create the Union of Social Soviet Republics (USSR). To ensure that the ethnic minorities of the Russian Federation’s periphery (e.g. Ukrainians, Uzbeks, Azeris etc) could not break away, Stalin made sure (by way of borders) that each SSR included a large (often 40 percent) ethnic minority. Following this strategy, Stalin placed Artsakh – which includes the mountainous NK region – inside the borders of the Azerbaijan SSR. By this means, Stalin hoped to keep the periphery restive (therefore focused on itself, not the centre) and forever tied to the Russian SSR. This is why so many Russians consider the break-up of the Soviet Union a disaster: it left millions of Russians – along with Armenians and others – stranded, as ethnic minorities, often in hostile territory, separated from their ethnic kin and co-religionists by artificial borders imposed by a mischievous dictator. Stalin’s ally, fellow Communist Bros Tito did the same in Yugoslavia. We continue to live with the consequences. Lord have mercy!
* INDIA: MANIPUR STILL BURNING
Update to RLPB 694. Manipur Burns, 17 May 2023
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| Manipur Violence: Escaping the Conflict, Kuki Families Find Safe Haven in Delhi. The Quint, 1 June 2023 |
The ethno-religious violence that erupted in Manipur on 3 May shows no sign of abating. In an open letter dated 16 June and bearing the signatures of some 550 civil society groups, advocates demand Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi end his silence over the sectarian violence that has claimed some 115 lives and displaced over 50,000 people, mostly ethnic Kuki Christians. Catholic media reports (21 June): ‘The June 16 letter called for “an immediate stop to divisive politics by the state and security forces”… Manipur is burning today in very large part due to the divisive politics played by the BJP and its governments. And on them lies the onus to stop this ongoing civil war before more lives are lost.’
On 19 June Times of Israel expressed alarm regarding the plight of Manipur’s ethnic Kuki, Jewish Bnei Menashe community, among whom one has been killed and over 1000 are now displaced (20 percent of the community), while two synagogues have been burned to the ground. An estimated 292 Bnei Menashe families have fled into the Kuki-majority hill areas within Manipur or to the nearby state of Mizoram. Times of Israel quotes researcher, Sushant Singh – who accuses state police and security forces of joining Meitei groups in targeting Kukis: ‘It has essentially been a state gone rogue acting against a minority community.’
On 20 June India’s top court declined to entertain an urgent hearing on a plea filed by the Manipur Tribal Forum to deploy army personnel to protect Kuki Christians in strife-torn Manipur. A Catholic official told UCA News (21 June): ‘Abandoned houses of displaced Christians continued to be burnt down, apparently, in a planned attempt to erase their existence there.’ Lord have mercy! Please pray.
* IRAQ: EXISTENTIAL CRISIS IN NINEVEH PLAINS
Update to RLPB 695, May Update, Iraq: An Existential Christian Crisis, 24 May 2023
In an open letter dated 19 June, five Iraqi political groups led by Christian leaders and activists protested the large-scale real estate operations underway in Northern Iraq designed to change the demographics of the Nineveh Plains. The five political groups are: the Assyrian Democratic Movement (Zowaa), the National Union of Beth Nahrain, the Abnaa al-Nahrain Party, the Assyrian National Party and the Chaldean-Assyrian-Syriac Popular Council. The ‘Babylon Movement’ – which controls four of the five seats reserved for Christian deputies in the Iraqi Parliament – did not sign. As noted in RLPB 695 (24 May) the Babylon Movement is profoundly compromised. Having won its seats on the votes of Sunni Kurds and Shi’ite Arabs, it is obliged to advance the interests of those communities, not the region’s indigenous Assyrian Christians.
The illegal real estate operation involves the municipalities of Nineveh selling residential land in the Assyrian homeland of the Nineveh Plains to individuals who are not from the region and who are not members of the Assyrian Christian community. The operation violates Iraq’s 2005 constitution Article 23.3.b – ‘Ownership of property for the purposes of demographic change is prohibited’ – and the 2013 Federal Supreme Court ruling which interpreted that article.
The signatories are appealing for Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ Al Sudani and other relevant Ministers to intervene immediately to put a stop to the illegal sale of land and real estate in the Nineveh Plains to individuals outside the indigenous Assyrian Christian community. If the Iraqi government fails, then the end of the Assyrian nation’s existence in its historic homeland is all but guaranteed. If the constitution is not upheld, then, within a few years, Muslims will come to dominate the Nineveh Plains and the indigenous Assyrians will be driven out, ending a history that spans well over three millennia. Please pray.
* NIGERIA: CHRISTIAN CRISIS PERSISTS IN MIDDLE BELT
At least 450 Christians have been killed in the Middle Belt states of Nasarawa, Benue and Plateau states since mid-May. Christianity Today reports (22 June): ‘Tens of thousands were displaced… Whole villages, dozens of church buildings and thousands of homes reportedly were destroyed. Grain was looted.’ The culprits: Muslim Fulani herdsmen. International Christian Concern reports (27 June): ‘Christian communities in Plateau State, North-Central Nigeria, were heavily hit this month by radical Fulani militants…Thirty-seven Christian farmers saw their crops destroyed and land taken over by Fulani this month.’ Christian communities are targeted in what is an orchestrated campaign of Fulani-Islamic expansion. Civilians are massacred, farms are seized, churches are burned, believers are abducted and pastors are slaughtered – all with impunity. There is no security. Lord have mercy! Please pray. [For stories and more detail see Morning Star News / Nigeria.]
* UGANDA: ISLAMIC STATE TERROR ROCKS THE WEST
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| Uganda school attack survivor speaks of ordeal. (Al Jazeera, 18 June 2023) |
On Friday evening 16 June, the roughly 60 boarding students at Lhubiriha Secondary School in Mpondwe, in Uganda’s Western Region, were singing Gospel songs (as is their custom at the end of the day) when they came under attack. The five terrorists – presumed to be Islamic State Democratic Republic of Congo (ISDRC) – first targeted the boys’ dormitory. When the boys refused to open the door, the terrorists unleashed a round of gunfire. They then dowsed the dormitory with flammable liquid and set it alight. They then moved on to the girls’ dormitory where they attacked the girls with machetes, all the while shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ (Allah is greater). The dead include 38 students, one guard and two members of the local community. Eight survivors remain in a critical condition in hospital. Six students were abducted – taken across the border into DRC’s terror-wracked North Kivu Province. Three students who had managed to escape were subsequently rescued by the Ugandan Army. A woman with two children who had been kidnapped outside the school was also rescued, together with her children.
Due to its location – close to border of Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC’s) North Kivu Province where ISDRC [formerly known as the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF)] is believed to be based [see RLPB 681 (22 Feb)] – many believe the school should have been provided with more security. By 20 June more than 20 people had been arrested, including school officials who stand accused of collaborating with the terrorists for personal gain. Please pray for the grieving families, for the wounded and traumatised, and for the school community. May justice be done, may Islamic State be defeated and may peace and security be restored in predominantly Christian Uganda and in predominantly Christian DR Congo’s long-suffering north-east.
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Elizabeth Kendal is an international religious liberty analyst and advocate for the persecuted Church. The Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin (RLPB) is a donor funded ministry. To support this ministry visit www.ElizabethKendal.com
Elizabeth has authored two books: Turn Back the Battle: Isaiah Speaks to Christians Today (Deror Books, Melbourne, Australia, Dec 2012) which offers a Biblical response to persecution and existential threat; and After Saturday Comes Sunday: Understanding the Christian Crisis in the Middle East (Wipf and Stock, Eugene, OR, USA, June 2016). She is also an Adjunct Research Fellow at the Arthur Jeffery Centre for the Study of Islam at Melbourne School of Theology.
For more information see www.ElizabethKendal.com