Christian Religion Persecution by Islam
A DESPERATE PLEA FROM A PAKISTANI CHRISTIAN CONVERT
23/05/07 11:05 Permalink
Persecution of Christians is intensifying in Pakistan. There seems to be no end to the reports of Muslim on Christian violence. Christians are being driven from their homes, while Islamic legislation that would subject males to a death sentence for conversion to Christianity is gaining acceptance. Pakistan's Christians which comprise only three percent of a population of 160 million may be facing nothing less than elimination and extermination.
I recently received a desperate email from a man who claimed to be a Christian convert in Pakistan. He is desperate to find safety and security from muslims that are aware of his conversion and seek to kill him. He also desires true Christian fellowship. I have decided to publish his emails in the hopes that it will raise our awareness of the dire circumstances that Christians are facing all over the world, and in the hopes that we can assist him. I will let you be the judge as to the authenticity. His emails follow. I have excised his name and address for security reasons. I also have taken the liberty of underlining certain portions of his emails. If you would like to correspond with him his email is: believeonfacts@yahoo.com. He has also provided his phone number below.
"39,m,sialkot(pakistan).I'm (*******), converted from muslim to christian since 5 yrs. My family is muslim. My life is very distroubed after facing tortures, threatnings to kill,and socialy bycating by my family n muslim community. They r trying to finish my running bussines, wealth and charms from my life. Whenever i changed my relegion no churchs and christians r helping me to make my life as a common free christian. I'm a skillfull bussines minded person. But i'm very confused by pastors. also i got beptizm on net when i was in dubai(u.a.e). I went many churchs like sent merry in dubai, chatholic, penticastl & other churches in sialkot n pakistan. Fortunatly, i like to be a real catholic but i'm not free to prey lord safly because of muslim's behave. Now they r planning to kill me, my family is also involved in it. I'm still single, living with my muslim family n don't have anyother shelter. Some christians friends told me to leave my native city soon and sattle in anyother city where can i prey safly and live freely. Freedom & joys r over from my life by facing much mental torture n tensions. I'm alone in my world. Is it ok to leave a person alone when he got beptizm? plz protect my life. Plz i need only any ngo's or ministry's help n addresses or e.mails in pakistan or w.wide., which can adopt me to meet kindness & humanity in my life. By which i can stand on my foot to earn my neccassities of life. I'm not requesting for fundings but assistance. I still have save money for resattlement of life in any other city. There no peoples will know about my past ( in new city). I'm a marketer n supply sugessted items by networking n marketing. I'm bagging for humanity n attention by net now but still no body replying me. In christianity, it is not ok to make a person helpless. Pls justify that without having community relations, i would become a abnormal human because i have lost my muslim socity n friends. They r not accepting me as a converted person n want to become muslim again. Jesus has protect my life two times from them. i'm afraid. Plz contact me to save my tearfull life soon for jesus name or refer it to any concerning body, if it neccassiry. I would be very thankful to u. My cell no.00923348090464.e.mail.(believeonfacts@yahoo.com )Address is.(*********) The pastour of this (*******) knows all about me & teached me about christianity. Here in Sialkot all of my broderhoods n christian socity know about my case n truth. I'm ready for all inquireis. Lord bless all. Waiting for ur kind anticipation. Good bye (plz for jesus name don't leave me alone, contact r reply me as soon as possible or refer it to other concerning bodies or ngo's)). Thanks a lot. Bye"
I wrote to him and he responded as follows:
"Thanks for ur reply. I understand all. Pls be notify that in my previous mail, i didn't told u for funding. Becase i have my own small bussiness but its going not well because of socialy bycating of muslim community. I only want any ngo's help by which i could live safly n freely. I have to leave my family n city soon. So that i need a shelter anywhere. I want some ministries help to prey safly in my muslim country. Any christian ngo's can help for my resattlements & safe live. I'm afraid by muslims tortures n threatnings to kill. Freedom for prey & joys n happinesses r basic neccassities of every human. But no christian community r helping me. Every body asking me that its my own problem. They afraid from muslims. I'm an educated man. I have to know by reading newspapers that there r many christian ngo's in Pakistan or w.wide which help for converteds giving them temporary shelter n assistance for saving their lives from muslims. I need any of this ministry or ngo's help in Pak. Or w.wide. Since 5 yrs i'm looking for humanity n christianity form my brothers but nothing. Also i lost many importantance of life. Where is humanism and human's wright? I'm tired. I don't need funds but assistance. I have some save money n experience to restart my own bussiness in any other city. I'm a marketer. I supply various items to my costomers through networking n marketing .But as i told i'm alone now after convertion. So i need some basic help. I need any ministry or ngo's help to restart my life. Conversion of relegion is a stopping stone for converteds. After covertion i got many changes in my life. It finished all of enjoys,works,n stopped basic neccasities of life. As Pakistan is not a secular country. Peoples r fundmentles. I'm worried much about my future. So pls don't leave me alone. For christianity n Lord Jesus do in touch with me until i got basic requirments to live a life freely .Pls don't disapoite me. I would be very thankful to u. And pls refer my case to anyother concerning body for its solution, if neccassery. Pls give me ur officers contact nos., to talk on some suggetions. Lord bless all. Goodbye. My contact no.00923348090464. Bye"
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CHRISTIANS ORDERED TO CONVERT TO ISLAM
12/05/07 03:35 Permalink
From Gulf Daily News PESHAWAR: Christians in northwest Pakistan have received threatening letters warning them to shut their churches and convert to Islam, officials said yesterday.
Copies of the handwritten letter were delivered to two churches and several Christians' homes in Charsadda, a northwestern Pakistan town where the federal interior minister last month escaped a suicide attack that killed 28 people.
Christians have alerted police to the letters and security has been stepped up at churches, said police.
Police are investigating who sent the unsigned notes, which gave the Christians 10 days to convert.
The letter did not say what consequences they might face if they did not comply with the ultimatum, which expires May 17.
The threats come amid a spate of reports about how religious extremists are trying to impose Taliban-style social strictures across an expanding swath of Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan.
Other recent examples are bombings of music stores - including two blasts in Charsadda last week - threats to barbers not to shave customers' beards and pressure for the closure of schools for girls.
Iqbal Khan, another local police official, said a small bomb tied to a motorcycle exploded in Charsadda late Wednesday, damaging several CD shops. Authorities had yet to make any arrests over the bombings.
"THEY ARE TRYING TO TAKE OUR COUNTRY AWAY, TAKE OUR
RELIGION AWAY"
19/04/07 09:53 Permalink
This gruesome
crime may have escaped your notice with the all of
the news coverage of the Virginia Tech murders. Three
Christians working at a bible publishing house in
Turkey were bound and their throats slit. Here are
the details of the investigation:
From IOL
Malatya - Turkish police have detained five more suspects in the gruesome murder of three people at a publishing house that distributed bibles and Christian literature, officials said on Thursday.
A total of 10 have now been taken into custody over the killings on Wednesday in the eastern city of Malatya that shocked the country and fuelled fears among Turkey's tiny Christian community.
The three victims, one of them a German, were found tied to chairs with their throats slit at the Zirve (Summit) publishing house that had previously received threats for dealing in Christian literature.
Five of the suspects, including a man who jumped out of a window to escape capture, were caught at the crime scene.
Announcing the arrest of the other five, Malatya governor Halil Ibrahim Dasoz gave no details, but said they were all of the same age group - young men aged 19 and 20.
Turkish Newspapers said all the suspects detained at the crime scene were found carrying a letter that read: "We did it for our country. They are trying to take our country away, take our religion away."
Police have yet to make a statement on the motives for the murders, but the press on Thursday were united in the belief that nationalist and religious zeal were the likely root cause.
"Religious brutality in Malatya," read the headline of the left-leaning daily Cumhuriyet, while the liberal Radikal condemned "The massacre of missionaries."
Several newspapers linked the attack to others against Christian minorities in overwhelmingly Muslim Turkey, including the killings of a Roman Catholic priest last year and an ethnic Armenian journalist in January.
"Ultimate treason number two," headlined the mass-circulation Sabah.
The victims of the attack were named as 46-year-old German Tilman Geske and Turkish citizens Necati Aydin and Ugur Yuksel.
Aydin was the pastor of the 30-strong Protestant community of Malatya, Ihsan Ozbek, the chairperson of the Alliance of Protestant Churches in Turkey, told AFP.
Ozbek described Tilman as a "simple member" of the Protestant community in the city and said Aydin and Yuksel worked for the publishing house.
"The community in Malatya never received any threat," said Ozbek, who is also the pastor of the Salvation Protestant Church in Ankara.
"There was only one incident in 2005, a protest against the publishing house", which is owned by the Protestant community, he said.
Media reports said the publisher had been the target of protests by nationalists accusing it of seeking Christian converts.
An aide to the Malatya governor told AFP that Zirve "was engaged in missionary activities."
Proselytising is generally viewed with suspicion in Turkey, whose population is 99 percent Muslim. Small Greek Othodox, Catholic, Armenian and Jewish communities are concentrated mainly in Istanbul.
Turkey, which is seeking to join the European Union, prides itself on religious tolerance, but a recent series of attacks has raised concerns that nationalism and anti-Christian hostility are on the rise.
In February 2006, Italian Catholic priest Andrea Santoro was shot dead as he prayed in his church in the northern city of Trabzon. A teenager was convicted of the murder and jailed for nearly 19 years.
Five days after the murder, a Roman Catholic priest in Izmir, western Turkey, was harassed by a group of young men and, in July, another Catholic priest was stabbed and wounded by a man officials described as "mentally disturbed" in the Black Sea port of Samsun.
In January, journalist Hrant Dink, a prominent member of Turkey's Armenian community, was gunned down in the street in Istanbul. A 17-year-old, detained along with 11 other suspected ultra-nationalists, confessed to the killing.Malatya - Turkish police have detained five more suspects in the gruesome murder of three people at a publishing house that distributed bibles and Christian literature, officials said on Thursday.
From IOL
Malatya - Turkish police have detained five more suspects in the gruesome murder of three people at a publishing house that distributed bibles and Christian literature, officials said on Thursday.
A total of 10 have now been taken into custody over the killings on Wednesday in the eastern city of Malatya that shocked the country and fuelled fears among Turkey's tiny Christian community.
The three victims, one of them a German, were found tied to chairs with their throats slit at the Zirve (Summit) publishing house that had previously received threats for dealing in Christian literature.
Five of the suspects, including a man who jumped out of a window to escape capture, were caught at the crime scene.
Announcing the arrest of the other five, Malatya governor Halil Ibrahim Dasoz gave no details, but said they were all of the same age group - young men aged 19 and 20.
Turkish Newspapers said all the suspects detained at the crime scene were found carrying a letter that read: "We did it for our country. They are trying to take our country away, take our religion away."
Police have yet to make a statement on the motives for the murders, but the press on Thursday were united in the belief that nationalist and religious zeal were the likely root cause.
"Religious brutality in Malatya," read the headline of the left-leaning daily Cumhuriyet, while the liberal Radikal condemned "The massacre of missionaries."
Several newspapers linked the attack to others against Christian minorities in overwhelmingly Muslim Turkey, including the killings of a Roman Catholic priest last year and an ethnic Armenian journalist in January.
"Ultimate treason number two," headlined the mass-circulation Sabah.
The victims of the attack were named as 46-year-old German Tilman Geske and Turkish citizens Necati Aydin and Ugur Yuksel.
Aydin was the pastor of the 30-strong Protestant community of Malatya, Ihsan Ozbek, the chairperson of the Alliance of Protestant Churches in Turkey, told AFP.
Ozbek described Tilman as a "simple member" of the Protestant community in the city and said Aydin and Yuksel worked for the publishing house.
"The community in Malatya never received any threat," said Ozbek, who is also the pastor of the Salvation Protestant Church in Ankara.
"There was only one incident in 2005, a protest against the publishing house", which is owned by the Protestant community, he said.
Media reports said the publisher had been the target of protests by nationalists accusing it of seeking Christian converts.
An aide to the Malatya governor told AFP that Zirve "was engaged in missionary activities."
Proselytising is generally viewed with suspicion in Turkey, whose population is 99 percent Muslim. Small Greek Othodox, Catholic, Armenian and Jewish communities are concentrated mainly in Istanbul.
Turkey, which is seeking to join the European Union, prides itself on religious tolerance, but a recent series of attacks has raised concerns that nationalism and anti-Christian hostility are on the rise.
In February 2006, Italian Catholic priest Andrea Santoro was shot dead as he prayed in his church in the northern city of Trabzon. A teenager was convicted of the murder and jailed for nearly 19 years.
Five days after the murder, a Roman Catholic priest in Izmir, western Turkey, was harassed by a group of young men and, in July, another Catholic priest was stabbed and wounded by a man officials described as "mentally disturbed" in the Black Sea port of Samsun.
In January, journalist Hrant Dink, a prominent member of Turkey's Armenian community, was gunned down in the street in Istanbul. A 17-year-old, detained along with 11 other suspected ultra-nationalists, confessed to the killing.Malatya - Turkish police have detained five more suspects in the gruesome murder of three people at a publishing house that distributed bibles and Christian literature, officials said on Thursday.
CHRISTIANS MUST PAY PROTECTION TAX TO MUSLIMS
19/03/07 15:17 Permalink
Asia News
Reports:
Islamic groups impose tax on Christian “subjects”
Islamic militias in Baghdad and Mosul order Christians to pay the jizya, a poll tax which dates back to the period of the Ottoman Empire, which guaranteed non Muslims the right to practise their religion as well as Muslim protection; the groups are ordered “not to reveal their activities” to Iraqi authorities while all contributions are given in alms to the Mosques.
Baghdad (AsiaNews) – “Non Muslim subjects must pay a contribution to the jihad if they wish to be allowed to live and practise their faith in Iraq”. These orders are being imposed on the Christians of Mosul and Baghdad by Islamic militias. Besides these threats of extortion, thousands of non Muslims are also being forced to leave their homes by letters assigning their house to Muslim citizens. The initiative is part of the general campaign to Islamafy the entire country, which begun with the imposition of the veil on all women. The website Ankawa.com was the first to carry news of this latest development; the website has eye witness accounts of Iraqi refugees in Erbil, in the semi autonomous region of Kurdistan.
The fourth anniversary of the US military’s arrival in Baghdad, March 20th 2003, brings with it little improvement in the conditions of the ever decreasing Christian community. Bomb attacks, kidnappings and threats continue to mark the daily existence of those few who so far have not been able to leave. The latest sign of the increasingly worrying situation is news that the community is now being forced to pay the jizya, a “poll tax” requested from non Muslims according to the Koran, guaranteeing “protection” form the Islamic umma. The tax was once extracted by the Ottoman Empire until its collapse in 1918, but now Baghdad and Mosul’s Mosques have ordered it be put in place again, “without revealing it to authorities”.
According to local Christians it really is a contribution to the holy war, which – the jihad maintains - will also protect their community from external aggression. The monies collected are then given over to Mosques, but “without the knowledge of authorities”.
Other accounts tell of letters being left in gardens or the entrance to Christian homes, notifying the families that they must leave their dwellings because they have been assigned to others, whose names and surnames are listed in black and white in the letters.
Islamic groups impose tax on Christian “subjects”
Islamic militias in Baghdad and Mosul order Christians to pay the jizya, a poll tax which dates back to the period of the Ottoman Empire, which guaranteed non Muslims the right to practise their religion as well as Muslim protection; the groups are ordered “not to reveal their activities” to Iraqi authorities while all contributions are given in alms to the Mosques.
Baghdad (AsiaNews) – “Non Muslim subjects must pay a contribution to the jihad if they wish to be allowed to live and practise their faith in Iraq”. These orders are being imposed on the Christians of Mosul and Baghdad by Islamic militias. Besides these threats of extortion, thousands of non Muslims are also being forced to leave their homes by letters assigning their house to Muslim citizens. The initiative is part of the general campaign to Islamafy the entire country, which begun with the imposition of the veil on all women. The website Ankawa.com was the first to carry news of this latest development; the website has eye witness accounts of Iraqi refugees in Erbil, in the semi autonomous region of Kurdistan.
The fourth anniversary of the US military’s arrival in Baghdad, March 20th 2003, brings with it little improvement in the conditions of the ever decreasing Christian community. Bomb attacks, kidnappings and threats continue to mark the daily existence of those few who so far have not been able to leave. The latest sign of the increasingly worrying situation is news that the community is now being forced to pay the jizya, a “poll tax” requested from non Muslims according to the Koran, guaranteeing “protection” form the Islamic umma. The tax was once extracted by the Ottoman Empire until its collapse in 1918, but now Baghdad and Mosul’s Mosques have ordered it be put in place again, “without revealing it to authorities”.
According to local Christians it really is a contribution to the holy war, which – the jihad maintains - will also protect their community from external aggression. The monies collected are then given over to Mosques, but “without the knowledge of authorities”.
Other accounts tell of letters being left in gardens or the entrance to Christian homes, notifying the families that they must leave their dwellings because they have been assigned to others, whose names and surnames are listed in black and white in the letters.
MUSLIMS IN NIGERIA KIDNAP, CONVERT CHRISTIAN CHILDREN
15/03/07 12:50 Permalink
My family had
the pleasure of befriending a Nigerian Priest.
He had plenty of stories to tell about the Muslim
militant domination in Nigeria. He always said
that Africa needed to be re-colonized while the West
needed to be re-evangelized. He ended up
returning to Nigeria out of a sense of obligation to
his people who were suffering under muslim
oppression.
Journal Chretian is reporting:
Beginning in November of last year, 13-year-old Victor Udo Usen, a member of the Christ Apostolic Church in this northern Nigeria city, went missing.
On February 20, news that young Victor was spotted in a Muslim neighbor’s house jolted his family. A young Christian girl had raced to the Usens’ home in the Mabera area of Sokoto city with the news.
Victor’s mother, Esther Udo Usen, told Compass that she ran to the house where her son had been seen. She met him, however, even as he was making frantic efforts to escape from the house where he has been held incommunicado for six months.
“I quickly held his hands and dragged him along with me towards our house,” she said. “But within a twinkle of an eye, I heard shouts of ‘Allahu Akbar ! Allahu Akbar ! Allahu Akbar [God is great] !’ I was shocked as I saw a large number of Muslims rushing towards us.”
The mob surrounded them and snatched her son away from her, she told Compass with tears in her eyes.
Before she could send for her husband, who was not home at the time, members of the mob told her that her son was now a Muslim and that she and her husband were no longer his parents.
“They abducted him in November last year, and I only saw him today,” she told Compass. “How can someone force my son into his religion ?”
Victor’s father, Udo Usen, told Compass that when he received the distressed call from his wife, he rushed home only to discover that the boy had been abducted anew.
“I thought, ‘If I force myself into the house of that Muslim to get my son, I will not only be placing the lives of my family at risk but also creating room for them to attack other Christians in Sokoto,’” Usen said.
Instead, Usen contacted his pastor, and together they reported the matter to other Christian leaders – as well as to police and the state security service.
“The police told us that they cannot do anything at the moment until the Sultan of Sokoto, the leader of Muslims in Nigeria, returns from his trip,” he said. “They have held this boy for six months without our consent. They have forced him into Islam. How can they do this to a 13-year-old child ?”
Kidnapped and Converted
Esther Thomas Tambari, a Christian neighbor of the Usens, corroborated the facts of the abduction to Compass. “The Muslims, we learned, have changed Victor’s name to Abdulkarim,” she said.
Tambari said the Muslims had also threatened her son, Simon Thomas Tambari, several times.
“When the Usens had their son abducted, as a Christian I had concern for them and decided to help in any way I can to enable them to find their son,” Tambari said. “I took Victor’s mother to my pastor, who in turn asked her to report the matter to the police. Now the Muslims are after my son, Simon, and me. My landlady, who happens to be a Muslim, has threatened me with ejection from her house, and my son’s life is at stake.”
The Usens are not the only Christian family in Sokoto who have had one of their children abducted and forced into Islam ; Christian leaders there say abduction of teenage Christian boys and girls has become a common phenomenon in majority-Muslim Sokoto state.
“Sometimes Muslims force our young boys and girls into Islam,” said Kevin Aje, Roman Catholic Bishop of Sokoto. “These are some of the challenges facing Christians here in Sokoto.”
The Rev. Reuben Yaro, chairman of the Sokoto district of the Evangelical Church of West Africa, has received reports of child abduction. In one case, Muslims forcefully took away a son and a daughter from a family in his church because the mother was a convert from Islam, he said.
“She gave her life to Christ, eventually got married to a Christian man and the marriage was blessed with the two kids,” Yaro said. But intense persecution followed, he said, with Muslims abducting the children and placing them in the custody of a Muslim cleric.
“The two children have been forced into Islam and are receiving Islamic education,” he said.
The Islamists also seized the mother of the two children – her fate is unknown – and forced the father to leave Sokoto in order to save his life, Yaro said.
Yaro said he has reported another case of kidnapping and forced conversion to the Christian Association of Nigeria, Sokoto state chapter, which is investigating it.
Pastor Tayo Atiniku, Secretary of Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, Sokoto state chapter, also corroborated claims of abductions of teenage Christian boys and girls in Sokoto. He cited two examples.
“Grace, a girl, 17 years old, was three years ago abducted by the Muslims here,” Atiniku said. “Her parents are members of the Redeemed Christian Church of God here in Sokoto, and her whereabouts are still unknown.”
Another Christian girl, daughter of a Christian police officer in Talata Mafara town, also was recently abducted, forced into Islam and married off to a Muslim man without the consent of her parents, he said.
“It took the father the use of a gun for him to rescue her from these Muslims,” Atiniku added.
Christian leaders are worried that the kidnapping trend is on the increase, creating tensions between Muslims and Christians. The Nigerian government, they concur, knows of the abductions but has done nothing to protect Christian children from religious predators.
Journal Chretian is reporting:
Beginning in November of last year, 13-year-old Victor Udo Usen, a member of the Christ Apostolic Church in this northern Nigeria city, went missing.
On February 20, news that young Victor was spotted in a Muslim neighbor’s house jolted his family. A young Christian girl had raced to the Usens’ home in the Mabera area of Sokoto city with the news.
Victor’s mother, Esther Udo Usen, told Compass that she ran to the house where her son had been seen. She met him, however, even as he was making frantic efforts to escape from the house where he has been held incommunicado for six months.
“I quickly held his hands and dragged him along with me towards our house,” she said. “But within a twinkle of an eye, I heard shouts of ‘Allahu Akbar ! Allahu Akbar ! Allahu Akbar [God is great] !’ I was shocked as I saw a large number of Muslims rushing towards us.”
The mob surrounded them and snatched her son away from her, she told Compass with tears in her eyes.
Before she could send for her husband, who was not home at the time, members of the mob told her that her son was now a Muslim and that she and her husband were no longer his parents.
“They abducted him in November last year, and I only saw him today,” she told Compass. “How can someone force my son into his religion ?”
Victor’s father, Udo Usen, told Compass that when he received the distressed call from his wife, he rushed home only to discover that the boy had been abducted anew.
“I thought, ‘If I force myself into the house of that Muslim to get my son, I will not only be placing the lives of my family at risk but also creating room for them to attack other Christians in Sokoto,’” Usen said.
Instead, Usen contacted his pastor, and together they reported the matter to other Christian leaders – as well as to police and the state security service.
“The police told us that they cannot do anything at the moment until the Sultan of Sokoto, the leader of Muslims in Nigeria, returns from his trip,” he said. “They have held this boy for six months without our consent. They have forced him into Islam. How can they do this to a 13-year-old child ?”
Kidnapped and Converted
Esther Thomas Tambari, a Christian neighbor of the Usens, corroborated the facts of the abduction to Compass. “The Muslims, we learned, have changed Victor’s name to Abdulkarim,” she said.
Tambari said the Muslims had also threatened her son, Simon Thomas Tambari, several times.
“When the Usens had their son abducted, as a Christian I had concern for them and decided to help in any way I can to enable them to find their son,” Tambari said. “I took Victor’s mother to my pastor, who in turn asked her to report the matter to the police. Now the Muslims are after my son, Simon, and me. My landlady, who happens to be a Muslim, has threatened me with ejection from her house, and my son’s life is at stake.”
The Usens are not the only Christian family in Sokoto who have had one of their children abducted and forced into Islam ; Christian leaders there say abduction of teenage Christian boys and girls has become a common phenomenon in majority-Muslim Sokoto state.
“Sometimes Muslims force our young boys and girls into Islam,” said Kevin Aje, Roman Catholic Bishop of Sokoto. “These are some of the challenges facing Christians here in Sokoto.”
The Rev. Reuben Yaro, chairman of the Sokoto district of the Evangelical Church of West Africa, has received reports of child abduction. In one case, Muslims forcefully took away a son and a daughter from a family in his church because the mother was a convert from Islam, he said.
“She gave her life to Christ, eventually got married to a Christian man and the marriage was blessed with the two kids,” Yaro said. But intense persecution followed, he said, with Muslims abducting the children and placing them in the custody of a Muslim cleric.
“The two children have been forced into Islam and are receiving Islamic education,” he said.
The Islamists also seized the mother of the two children – her fate is unknown – and forced the father to leave Sokoto in order to save his life, Yaro said.
Yaro said he has reported another case of kidnapping and forced conversion to the Christian Association of Nigeria, Sokoto state chapter, which is investigating it.
Pastor Tayo Atiniku, Secretary of Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, Sokoto state chapter, also corroborated claims of abductions of teenage Christian boys and girls in Sokoto. He cited two examples.
“Grace, a girl, 17 years old, was three years ago abducted by the Muslims here,” Atiniku said. “Her parents are members of the Redeemed Christian Church of God here in Sokoto, and her whereabouts are still unknown.”
Another Christian girl, daughter of a Christian police officer in Talata Mafara town, also was recently abducted, forced into Islam and married off to a Muslim man without the consent of her parents, he said.
“It took the father the use of a gun for him to rescue her from these Muslims,” Atiniku added.
Christian leaders are worried that the kidnapping trend is on the increase, creating tensions between Muslims and Christians. The Nigerian government, they concur, knows of the abductions but has done nothing to protect Christian children from religious predators.