Coptic student in Egypt murdered by classmates for wearing a cross

Ayman Nabil Labib
Photo: Assist News

Seventeen-year-old Ayman Nabil Labib was murdered following a classroom altercation in Mallawi, Minya province, on October 16, reports the Assyrian International News Agency and Christian Solidarity Worldwide.

Although Egyptian media reported the incident as non-sectarian, his parents reported that their son was murdered "in cold blood because he refused to take off his crucifix as ordered by his Muslim teacher."

Ayman also had a cross tattooed on his wrist, as per the Coptic tradition, as well as another cross which he wore under his clothes. According to witnesses, he was told to cover up his cross tattoo, but refused and defiantly exposed the second cross he wore under his shirt.

While official sources reported that Ayman was beaten up in the school yard, in reality he was severely beaten in the classroom in the presence of the teacher, who allegedly attempted to choke him. Ayman was then followed as he fled to the washroom, where the attack continued.  He was still breathing when a supervisor took him to his room, but was dead an hour later when an ambulance transported his body.

Two Muslim students were detained in connection with the murder. However, there are grave concerns that local officials may be "hiding" the evidence and trying to influence witnesses, claiming that the attack took place as a result of friction between students.

Meanwhile the governor of Minya has suspended the school's headmaster, two supervisors, and two social workers who were on duty when Ayman was killed. Since then, all five have reportedly disappeared.

Please pray.

• Please pray the Lord will comfort this family and the entire Coptic community over this most recent tragedy. 
• Please pray the perpetrators will be brought to justice. 
• Pray that the Lord will use this difficult situation to spread His goodness and grace throughout Egypt.

Go to our Egypt Country Report for more details on the persecuted Church in Egypt.

Muslims threaten to kill priest in Egypt

Recently there has been an increase
of reports of Christian persecution in
Egypt’s Minya region.

Last week, we told you about the kidnapping of two Christian girls in the province of Minya, Egypt – an incident that added to an already long list of violence in the area.

The Assyrian International News Agency reports a Coptic priest in the same region was threatened late last week by a mob of Muslims that surrounded the church of St. George.

Father George Thabet was serving the morning mass when hundreds of Muslims, some armed, surrounded the church vowing to kill him.

Eye-witnesses reported the Muslims chanted, “We will kill the priest, we will kill him and no one will prevent us." One Muslim said they would "…cut him to pieces."

Security forces arrived and escorted Father George in a police car to the Coptic Diocese in Minya. Youth from the church remained to defend the building from the Muslims.

The Muslim attacks on St. George church began when the church began legal renovations on their building. The Muslims demanded they cease construction and ordered Father George to leave the area, giving him a 50-day time limit.

Muslims have been gathering around the church since June 21 when they learned that Father George had returned.

Pray for Egyptian Christians!

• Pray for safety for Father George and his family amidst the threats on his life.
• Pray that the ministry of churches in Egypt will continue and that the Gospel will be preached throughout this nation.
• Pray that Muslims in Minya will come to faith in Jesus Christ.

Muslim mob besieges Egyptian church

Thousands of Muslims protested the reopening of the St. Mary and St. Abraham Church in the Cairo neighbourhood of Ain Shams on May 19, reports Assyrian International News Agency.

The church was forced to close in 2008 because of severe protests occurring against Christians. When the church attempted to reopen, the priests were met with the same protests and violence.

Muslims are protesting the church's dome and cross, which reportedly violate the Muslim custom of "dhimmitude." The custom considers displays of faith by religious minorities to be intolerable.

Eight Coptic Christians were arrested and charged with rioting and violence, three of whom have been sentenced to five years in prison for firearms and weapons possession. Although these three maintain that the evidence was planted, their criminal charges remain. Conversely, the three Muslims arrested during the riots were released.

You can help by praying!

• Pray for justice for the imprisoned Christians.
• Ask the Lord to strengthen the faith of the believers in the community and pray they will exemplify the love of God through consistent love and prayer for those who persecute them (Matthew 5:43-48).

 

Muslims attack Christians in Egypt; 12 killed

Please pray for Egyptian Christians!

Two churches were set ablaze and at least 12 people killed in clashes between Coptic Christians and Muslims in Cairo over the weekend, reported a number of news agencies, including Assyrian International News Agency (AINA).

Street battles broke out across the neighbourhood of Imbaba, in the western part of Egypt’s capital, after Salafi Muslims turned out in force to demonstrate outside Saint Menas Church Saturday night.

The hardline Muslims were angry over rumours that a Christian woman was being held against her will inside the church because she wanted to convert to Islam and marry a Muslim man. Christians deny the claims.

The Salafis set the front of the church ablaze while Christians were still inside the building, and threw petrol bombs at homes and shops.

As the violence spiralled, Christians and Muslims threw stones at one another and gunshots could be heard. The nearby Virgin Mary Church was also set ablaze.

Riot police moved in to quell the violence with tear gas and by firing warning shots into the air, but some Christians say they did not do enough to bring the situation under control.

Read full stories about the attacks here, here and here.

Please pray that:

• The bereaved will know the comfort of Jesus
• The wounded and traumatized will know the healing touch of Jesus
• Church leaders will know the Spirit's enabling as they pastor their congregations and deal with community leaders
• The authorities will fulfil their commitment to bring all perpetrators of sectarian violence to justice in this and any future incidents
• False rumours of people being imprisoned in Church property will be effectively squashed by community leaders
• All officials involved will love mercy, act justly, learn about Jesus and choose to follow Him

Iraqi Christians speed exodus to North Iraq

Pray for believers in Iraq!

The Assyrian International News Agency reported yesterday that an exodus of Christians to the autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq's north has accelerated after a spate of attacks against the minority group, according to the International Organization for Migration.

An official from the organisation also spoke Sunday of reports that many Christians were either leaving Iraq, or planning to emigrate.

By the end of January, 1,078 families had moved to the three provinces that comprise Iraqi Kurdistan since an October 31 attack on a church in Baghdad by al-Qaida militants, IOM figures show. A total of 331 families moved in the six weeks immediately following that attack, while a further 747 have left the rest of Iraq for Kurdistan between December 15 and the end of January.

IOM monitoring shows that an average Christian Iraqi family consists of four to five members.

The report noted that "monitors in Baghdad report that Christians continue to face grave threats" and "despite increased security measures an atmosphere of extreme insecurity persists among Christians remaining in Baghdad and many still intend to move or emigrate."

Between 800,000 and 1.2 million Christians lived in Iraq before the U.S.-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein in 2003, but that figure now is estimated by religious leaders at 400,000.

You can read the full report here.

Unrest in Egypt signals danger for Christians

Pray for Egypt today!

As growing unrest in Egypt leaves the country on the brink of revolution, there are fears that radical Islamists may capitalise on the crisis to seize power, signalling danger for the Christian community, reported Barnabas Aid today.

Protests against President Hosni Mubarak's regime have been gathering momentum throughout this week. Off the back of the Tunisian uprising, which resulted in the ousting of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, there is the mood and momentum for radical change in Egypt.

The unrest gained new impetus when the largest opposition movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, said it would back demonstrations. The banned Islamist group demanded that Mubarak dissolve the nation's recently formed parliament and hold a new election, threatening in a statement on its website that if the Egyptian government "does not move fast and shoulder responsibility to start a serious reform process, stability might not last for long.”

Many commentators have warned of a domino effect from Tunisia across the Arab world, as instability grows in Algeria, Lebanon, Yemen and Jordan. If Egypt is taken over by Islamists, the consequences for the region could be very serious.

“An Islamist Egypt would give dramatic impetus to radical Islam throughout the Arab world,” warned Global intelligence analyst George Friedman of Stratfor. “The transformation of Egypt into an Islamist country would be the single most significant event we could imagine in the Islamic world, beyond an Iranian bomb.”

Barnabas Aid said the protests in Egypt follow targeted attacks against the country's Christians, most notably the suicide bombing at a church in Alexandria on New Year's Day that killed at least 21 worshippers. Egyptian Christians are already second-class citizens in their own country. They suffer severe discrimination in many areas of life, such as in education and employment. If the Muslim Brotherhood were to seize power, they could rapidly be subjected to even more humiliating regulations, designed to exclude and degrade them further.

Please pray for believers in Egypt!

South Sudan referendum: 99% vote for independence

South Sudan looks to split from the North.

BBC News said yesterday that 99 percent of South Sudanese voted to secede from the north, according to the first complete results of the region’s independence referendum, reported the Assyrian International News Agency.

The referendum commission said that 99.57 percent of those polled voted for independence.

Final results from the January 9-15 vote are expected next month. Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has said he will accept the results.

If the result is confirmed, the new country will formally declare its independence on July 9.

You can read the full BBC News report here.

Continue to pray for believers in Sudan. Bishop Eduardo Hiiboro Kussala of Tombura-Yambio, in the southern region of Sudan, says his people have strong "expectations of change for the better" and urged continued prayers worldwide for "permanent peace in Sudan." Many Christians have reportedly left the North and capital city of Khartoum for the South out of fear that President Bashir's regime will shift toward "radical Islamization" in the wake of the referendum.

Thank the Lord for a peaceful voting process. Pray for the shalom of God to reign throughout Sudan. Pray Sudanese Christians will continue to courageously proclaim Christ's way of compassion and love, even to those who seek to oppress them.

Ethiopian Muslims warn Christians to convert, leave city or face death

Pray for believers in Ethiopia today.

International Christian Concern has learned that Christians in the Ethiopian city of Besheno are being harassed and physically abused after Muslims posted notices on the doors of Christian homes, warning them to convert, leave the city or face death, reported the Assyrian International News Agency.

Three Christian leaders were forced to flee the city and two Christians have been forced to convert to Islam. In the Muslim majority city, the entire evangelical Christian community consists of about 30 believers.

Evangelist Kassa Awano remains in critical condition after Muslims attacked him on November 29, 2010. A few days after the attack, nearly 100 Muslims surrounded a vehicle carrying Christian leaders on their way to negotiate for peace with Muslim leaders. Two men, Tesema Hirego and Niggusie Denano, were seriously wounded, and the other leaders suffered minor injuries. On January 2, Muslims assaulted Temesgen Peteros with a knife after he testified about the attacks on these Christians in court.

Christians in Besheno have been targeted by Muslims for many years. Unfortunately, the local Muslim officials of the city refuse to protect the Christians. The officials ignore their appeals for justice, declining repeated requests for the building of a place of worship and a cemetery.

Besheno is a city located in the province of Alaba in Southern Ethiopia. According to the 2007 national census, 93.84 percent of the population of the province is Muslim. Christians make up 5.82 percent of the population.

You can read the full report here.

Bombing in Egypt is latest assault on Christians in Middle East

Copts are Egypt's largest
religious minority group and the
largest Christian community
in the Middle East.

Twenty-one people are dead following a New Year’s Day terrorist bombing at a Coptic church in Egypt, reports the Assyrian International News Agency. The attack is the latest in a series of assaults on Middle Eastern Christian communities.

The car bomb explosion also injured 79 people just after midnight Saturday, as worshipers were leaving Mass at the Saints Church in east Alexandria, Egyptian officials said. The bombing sparked street clashes between police and angry Copts, who hurled stones, stormed a nearby mosque and threw some of its books into the street.

The attack was among the deadliest on Egyptian Christians in recent memory and the worst terrorist incident in the country since 2006.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak accused unnamed foreign elements of being behind the attack.

"This act of terrorism shook the country's conscience, shocked our feelings and hurt the hearts of Muslim and Coptic Egyptians," he said in an emergency address to the nation. "The blood of their martyrs in the land of Alexandria mixed to tell us all that all Egypt is the target and that blind terrorism does not differentiate between a Copt and a Muslim."

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, which is being described as a suicide bombing.

You can read the full report here.

500+ Iraqi Christian families flee

The Assyrian International News Agency is reporting that Iraqi Christians are continuing to flee their country, with 507 families moving to the Kurdish north, where security measures are relatively stable. Many more families have fled directly abroad, mainly to Syria, Jordan and Turkey.

Despite calls for them to stay, many Iraqi Christians feel they have no future left in the country. This follows violent attacks against Iraqi Christians, which you can read about here, here and here.

Churches in Baghdad are reported to be almost empty with senior Christian clergymen fearing that Iraq is on its way to losing its Christian minority. Baghdad was the last remaining city with a sizeable Christian community, but thousands have fled the latest upsurge in anti-Christian violence.

Pray for the nation of Iraq. Pray for anointed leaders who can act with wisdom, courage and integrity. Pray that God will heal this land and its people. Pray that Christians might persevere in this difficult situation; pray also for their protection.

You can read the full story here.

Pakistani Muslim leaders threaten protests if Asia Bibi is released

CNN is reporting that two prominent Pakistani Muslim leaders threatened today to call for nationwide protests if the president pardons Asia Bibi, a Christian woman sentenced to death for insulting the Muslim prophet Mohammed.

"If the president pardons Asia Bibi, we will raise our voices across the country until he is forced to take his decision back," nationally known mufti Muneer Ur Rehman said. Hafiz Ibtisam Elahi Zaheer, a leading cleric in Lahore, said pardoning the woman would be "criminal negligence" and would cause inter-religious tension.

Punjab Gov. Salman Taseer told CNN Tuesday that President Asif Ali Zardari would pardon Bibi if the High Court did not grant her request for mercy.

A spokesman for Zardari said today that no action has been taken, but the president will pardon her if necessary.

You can read the CNN story here.

For a more complete report, visit the Assyrian International News Agency.