Christmas was a time of silence for many Christians in parts of the world, but unfortunately not “all is calm” as is sung in the favorite Christmas hymn “Silent Night.”
As believers in the United States gathered to celebrate Christ’s birth, believers in countries like India, Bangladesh, Iran, Vietnam and Nigeria were kept from such gatherings after church members were beaten, jailed and killed by Hindu, Buddhist and Muslim extremists in an effort to silence Christmas.
Christmas-related persecution began as early as Dec. 18 in India’s Maharashtra state with an attack on members of the youth group from New Life Church in Worli Koliwada, The Times of India reported.
While they were singing Christmas carols to usher in the season, local Hindu extremists began mocking them and then charged them, beating several. The extremists also threatened the Christians with harm if they persisted in holding public Christian activities.
Two days later, in Andhra Pradesh state — which has seen its fair share of Christian persecution over the past year (see story, page 5) — about 100 Hindu extremists attacked T.R. Raju, a local pastor, the day after he led a Christmas celebration with Surya, a local convert from Hinduism, the All India Christian Council reported.
After the Christmas celebration, four people confronted Raju and verbally abused him. The next day, the Hindu assailants showed up at his home and beat him until local police arrived. They continued to threaten him with harm if he didn’t leave the area, and because they also threatened his landlord, he was given a 10-day notice to vacate his property.
India’s neighbor to the east, Bangladesh, also saw a rise in Christmas-related threats. Members of the United People’s Democratic Front (UPDF), which demands that Christian converts return to Buddhism, told tribal Christians from at least seven churches in Khagrachari district, about 180 miles southeast of the capital of Dhaka, not to hold a Christmas gathering.
In the case of one of these churches, five UPDF members called a meeting of 50 Buddhists and seven Christians, including the pastor of Chotopanchari Baptist Church, on Dec. 19.
“They threatened the Christians, telling them not to celebrate Christmas in the village and not to do any other Christian activities,” an anonymous source told Compass Direct News (CDN). “The UPDF members warned the Christians that if they celebrated Christmas, they would be in grave trouble. They warned the pastor not to take care of the congregation and ordered him to go back to his previous religion, Buddhism.”
UPDF members also threatened Buddhist villagers telling them that if they allow Christians “to celebrate their festival, you non-Christian villagers will also be in trouble,” he said.
In another village, members of Kalapani Bethlehem Church could not celebrate Christmas either.
“UPDF members threatened them, saying, ‘You cannot play the harmonium, drums and sing here. You cannot even worship silently,’” another anonymous source said.
Christian elders told the UPDF leader by telephone that they had arranged food for around 100 people, and the UPDF members allowed them to eat only their rice and curry, he added.
“The UPDF leader threatened them, saying, ‘If you worship today, it will land you in unforeseeable consequences,’” the source said.
Leor P. Sarkar, general secretary of Bangladesh Baptist Church Fellowship, told CDN that tribal Christians’ religious rights were violated in the hill districts.
On Christmas Day in Iran, 25 evangelical Christians woke up to being arrested by Iranian government officials and 16 others were detained, Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) reported. This was the second year running that security services in Iran targeted Christians at Christmastime.
Of the 25 arrested, 11 have been released with 14 still remaining in prison at press time, according to CSW. In a separate case, 50 other Christians were detained in Iran on Christmas Day, but details surrounding their case are unclear.
One of the most troubling developments in the latest arrests has been the anti-Christian rhetoric used in public media by religious leaders and members of the Iranian government. Morteza Tamadon, the governor of Tehran, Iran’s capital, announced the arrest of several evangelical leaders in a speech in Tehran on Jan. 4.
“Just like the Taliban … who have inserted themselves into Islam like a parasite, they have crafted a movement with Britain’s backing in the name of Christianity,” Tamadon said. He then described the Christians as “tabshiri,” or “missionaries,” and threatened more arrests in the near future.
Vietnam’s government and Communist Party are being blamed for the arrests of Christians and the lockdown of churches surrounding Christmas festivities.
In what appeared to be part of a central government crackdown on Protestant Christianity in Vietnam, hundreds of Christians from 10 northern provinces were locked out of a Christmas celebration that was supposed to take place Dec. 19. Those who arrived at the National Convention Center in the Tu Kiem district of the capital of Hanoi for the Christmas event found the doors locked and a phalanx of police trying to send them away, CDN reported.
Some of the Christians began singing and praying in the square in front of the center, sources said. Police moved in, striking some Christians with fists and night sticks in the melee that followed. The disappointed crowd eventually left, but not before at least six people, including the event’s scheduled speaker, were arrested.
The heaviest Christmas-related bloodshed, however, occurred in Nigeria, where more than 80 were left dead, including a Baptist pastor and two church members, and dozens injured.
Violence erupted on Christmas Eve when militants of the outlawed Islamic sect Boko Haram attacked two churches in the northern city of Maiduguri. Jihadists belonging to another Muslim sect set off a series of bombs in the city of Jos.
Bulus Marwa, pastor of Victory Baptist Church, Maiduguri, was dragged from his residence, shot and killed after two choir members rehearsing for a late-night carol service were hacked to death inside the church. Two passers-by also were killed, and the church building was set ablaze. At a nearby Church of Christ, a security guard was killed and 25 people injured by bomb blasts when Boko Haram members stormed the church in two vehicles and detonated bombs.
In Jos, bombs exploded simultaneously on Christmas Eve in two Christian neighborhoods, hitting shopping centers, restaurants and a Catholic church. The death toll there stands at 80, with 120 hospitalized. An unknown Islamic group has claimed responsibility. Since the Christmas Eve violence, 20 homes have been burned and two mosques and a church vandalized.
“It’s obvious that Islamists are bent on giving us a black Christmas,” said Timothy Olonade, executive secretary of the Nigeria Evangelical Missions Association. (Compiled from news services)
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