ASSIST News Service (ANS) – PO Box 609, Lake Forest, CA 92609-0609 USA Visit our web site at: www.assistnews.net — E-mail: assistnews@aol.com Wednesday, May 16, 2012 Samaritan’s Purse UK Calls for Urgent International Action to end South Sudan’s Escalating Humanitarian Crisis News Release Samaritan’s Purse LONDON, ENGLAND (ANS) – UK Christian relief charity Samaritan’s Purse is calling on the international community to act urgently to prevent the escalating humanitarian refugee crisis in South Sudan. Samaritan’s Purse UK Executive Director Simon Barrington “Having just returned from seeing first hand the desperate plight of more than 120,000 refugees in South Sudan who are fleeing conflict and hunger after being bombed by their own government in Sudan, I’m outraged that more isn’t being done by the international community to act now to prevent this crisis,” said Samaritan’s Purse UK Executive Director Simon Barrington. Franklin Graham, the president of Samaritan’s Purse, has also called on US President Barack Obama to intervene in Sudan to halt bombing raids that have prevented humanitarian agencies from helping refugees in South Sudan as well as those displaced by fighting in Sudan. Jamam refugee children under their basic shelter Barrington said, “I personally saw this crisis escalating as hundreds if not thousands more displaced civilians are pouring into these refugee camps on a daily basis desperate for food, water and shelter. “To add to this refugees will be trapped by the rainy season that’s coming, which could destroy their basic shelters and will make the roads impassable to get vital aid to the camps. “Therefore with little prospects of the bombing ceasing and these refugees caught in a trap, I’m calling on the UK Government to act now and to act decisively to raise the profile of this issue within the International Community and to work tirelessly for peace in the region and a return home for the refugees.” YouTube Video: A view from refugee camps: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-ne6QS0KOc Samaritan’s Purse, one of the few humanitarian agencies to be there right from the beginning has already sent £90,000 from their UK donors in response to the crisis. Working in partnership with the World Food Program, Samaritan’s Purse is helping distribute food supplies for all the refugees, but these rations are barely enough for these families to survive on. In Mbane State Samaritan’s Purse has taken on the logistical challenge of feeding 90,000 refugees at the Doro and Jamam refugee camps. People queue in long lines to receive their rations monthly as the Samaritan’s Purse team can work for up to 12 hours at a time in the searing heat to ensure everyone gets their supplies of maize, sorghum, beans, and cooking oil. The charity oversees the only hospital in the Doro region that is providing surgery to wounded civilians, an outpatient clinic treating malaria and a stabilisation centre for those with acute malnutrition. The long wait for water supplies At Yida refugee camp, home to more than 30,000 refugees, there is often a long wait for mothers and their children to fill their buckets/jerry cans with water at the vital pumps that have been provided by Samaritan’s Purse. The charity has also set up a child protection centre for un-accompanied girls from the Nuba Mountains. “In this compound we’re providing food, shelter and water for 561 girls. Many of them had to flee their boarding school that was being bombed,” said child protection officer Gaby Ovington. She added: “We’re also teaching them life skills and providing counselling to help them deal with the trauma they’ve been through.” Hundreds of malnourished children are also brought to the Samaritan’s Purse nutrition centre, where many times these young lives are being saved. Simon Barrington concluded: “With this very small window of opportunity to intervene, we need to act now to advocate for peace in the region so that these people can return home.” Samaritan’s Purse (UK & Ireland) is an international relief and development organisation that works through local churches to proclaim and demonstrate the love of God amongst communities in need in 18 countries across Africa, Eastern Europe and Central Asia. To find out more about Samaritan’s Purse in the UK, visit www.samaritans-purse.org.uk To request a media interview with Samaritan’s Purse UK Executive Director Simon Barrington contact Dave Vann – via email dave.vann@samaritans-purse.org.uk  or phone +44 7779 448758.   ** You may republish this story with proper attribution. Send this story to a friend.   Share <!–BYLINE:By Peter Wooding Europe Bureau Chief for ASSIST News Service–>

ASSIST News Service (ANS) – PO Box 609, Lake Forest, CA 92609-0609 USA Visit our web site at: www.assistnews.net — E-mail: assistnews@aol.com Wednesday, May 16, 2012 Aceh, Indonesia: new governor advances Islamisation – a call to pray for the Christian community in Aceh By Elizabeth Kendal Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin (RLPB) 159 Special to ASSIST News Service AUSTRALIA (ANS) – Acehnese went to the polls on 9 April to elect a new governor. The incumbent, Irwandi Yusuf, running as an independent, had been favoured to win. However, in the end the people chose to put their loyalty behind the Aceh Party’s candidate Zaini Abdullah (72). Founded in 2008, the Aceh Party (Partai Aceh, PA) has dominated the parliament since 2009. PA is the political party of the now defunct separatist guerrilla Free Aceh Movement (Gerakan Aceh Merdeka, GAM). Both Irwandi and Zaini have their origins in GAM. But in 2006, after GAM put Irwandi forward as its candidate for governor, GAM strongman Malik Mahmud overruled and put his own man forward, splitting the movement and forcing Irwandi to run (and win) as an independent. The political rivalry continues. All through 2011, the PA tried but failed to have Irwandi banned from the contest. Furthermore, the increasingly autocratic and militant PA has been blamed for the deadly political violence that has struck Irwandi’s team and supporters. Moreover, the PA played the populist ‘religion card’, vowing to advance a more ‘pure’ form of Quranic Sharia (Islamic law). On 17 April governor-elect Zaini Abdullah pledged to ‘strengthen peace across Aceh’ and ‘eradicate corruption’. Claiming that ‘moderate Islam’ is what is ‘in line with the Koran and Prophet Muhammad’s hadiths’ (i.e. is fundamentalist!), he pledged to raise awareness of right and wrong by means of Islamic education, so that Islam in Aceh ‘can return to where it was during the Sultan Iskandar Muda era’. (Iskandar Muda was a cruel 17th Century Islamic autocrat who shed much blood in making Aceh strong, expansive and Islamic.) Aceh is around 98 percent Muslim and one percent Christian (mostly Protestant). At the southern-most tip of Aceh, Singkil district has the highest proportion of Christians of any district or city in Aceh, with Christians making up about one-sixth of the 120,000 population. Despite this, the administration has ruled that Singkil is only permitted to have one church and four ‘undung-undungs’ (small prayer rooms without exterior crosses). On 30 April hundreds of Islamic hard-liners from the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) and the Aceh Singkil Muslim Forum held a rally in Singkil demanding the undung-undungs be closed. The administration subsequently shut down 17 Christian places of worship in four sub-districts of Singkil on the grounds that they were built without permits. A spokesman for the group ‘Pro-Democracy People’, Agusta Mukhtar, denounced the administration for acquiescing to hard-liners and failing to promote religious tolerance. ‘The religious peace here has been shattered,’ he said, ‘by this anarchistic action that seeks religious domination for an inflexible faith. This is a dark time in the history of religious freedom and tolerance in Aceh.’ Everything indicates life is about to get even more difficult for Aceh’s minority Christian community. (see Jakarta Globe) PLEASE PRAY SPECIFICALLY THAT GOD WILL – fill Acehnese Christians with full assurance of his presence. May they find their security, wisdom and strength in him in these darkening days. embolden Aceh’s many secular, moderate and folk Muslims, awakening them to the fact that Quranic Islam brings cruel repression and culture change (Arabisation), not the utopia the Islamists promise.  work all things for good, so that repression will be replaced with beauty and liberty; may Aceh know revival, for ‘ . . . where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom’ (2 Corinthians 3:17 ESV). SUMMARY FOR BULLETINS UNABLE TO RUN THE WHOLE ARTICLE ———————————————————————- NEW GOVERNOR IN ACEH, INDONESIA, ADVANCES ISLAMISATION Aceh, on the north-west tip of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, is around 98 percent Muslim and one percent Christian (mostly Protestant). Acehnese went to the polls on 9 April to elect a new governor. The winner, Zaini Abdullah (72) of the dominant and increasingly autocratic and militant Aceh Party, ran on a platform that included a vow to advance a more ‘pure’ form of Quranic Sharia (Islamic law). On 30 April hundreds of Islamists protested in Aceh’s southern-most district of Singkil, which has the highest proportion of Christians of any district in Aceh. The Islamists demanded the closure of Singkil’s supposedly ‘illegal’ churches and prayer houses. The administration quickly acquiesced and 17 places of Christian worship across Singkil have since been closed. Please pray for Aceh’s minority Christian community. Elizabeth Kendal is an international religious liberty analyst and advocate. This prayer bulletin was initially written for the Australian Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission (AEA RLC). Elizabeth Kendal’s blogs: Religious Liberty Monitoring and Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin ** You may republish this story with proper attribution. Send this story to a friend.   Share <!–BYLINE:By Elizabeth Kendal Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin (RLPB) 159 Special to ASSIST News Service–> <!–LEAD:Acehnese went to the polls on 9 April to elect a new governor. The incumbent, Irwandi Yusuf, running as an independent, had been favoured to win. However, in the end the people chose to put their loyalty behind the Aceh Party's candidate Zaini Abdullah (72). Founded in 2008, the Aceh Party (Partai Aceh, PA) has dominated the parliament since 2009. PA is the political party of the now defunct separatist guerrilla Free Aceh Movement (Gerakan Aceh Merdeka, GAM). –>

ASSIST News Service (ANS) – PO Box 609, Lake Forest, CA 92609-0609 USA Visit our web site at: www.assistnews.net — E-mail: assistnews@aol.com Tuesday, May 15, 2012 Egyptian Policeman Sentenced to Death for Killing Christians By Jeremy Reynalds Senior Correspondent for ASSIST News Service EGYPT (ANS) – An Egyptian court in Minya has sentenced a Muslim man to death for the killing and wounding of six Christians. Amer Ashour Abdel-Zaher (Photo via AINA) According to a story by Mary Abdelmassih of the Assyrian International News agency (AINA), Judge Mahmoud Salama pronounced the sentence against 29-year-old policeman Amer Ashour Abdel-Zaher. AINA said during its previous session, the court had referred the case to the Egyptian Grand Mufti, as is usual with a death penalty verdict, who supported the court’s decision. The court session was to pronounce the verdict. In Dec. 2010 Abdel-Zaher, who worked as a policeman at the Bani Mazar police investigations unit, was on a train going to Cairo from Assiut in the upper Egyptian town of Samalut. He fired his gun at six Copts after chanting “Allahu Akbar.” AINA said according to eyewitnesses, he walked up and down the train car, looking for passengers with the sign of the cross tattooed on their wrist, which the majority of Copts have, or any other sign revealing their Christian identity. He aimed at six Copts sitting together, dressed in western-style clothes and singing Christian hymns. He opened fire on them, killing a 71-year-old Fathy Ghattas, who died immediately as he slept. AINA said another five Copts were seriously injured including the murdered man’s wife, Emily Hanna, who underwent an operation to remove her left kidney and spleen. Another Coptic woman, Sabah Saniod, 54, underwent an operation on her liver. Three young Copts, Marianne, Maggie and her fiance Ashraf were severely wounded and were taken by helicopter to a Cairo hospital. AINA said Abdel-Zaher attempted to escape, but was caught by a passenger. According to AINA, the Egyptian Interior Ministry issued several statements to “cover up” the sectarian motives behind the incident. The Ministry said the assailant shot indiscriminately at passengers, was “mentally unstable,” and had previously undergone medical treatment. AINA said today’s verdict was a surprise to the Egyptian Christians, as “usually killers of Christians, literally get away with murder,” commented Coptic activist Mark Ebeid. He added, “They are usually referred to hospital for being ‘mentally unstable,’ and after the matter has died down, they are just quietly discharged from hospital for being cured and this is usually the end of the story for the families of victims.” AINA said Coptic activist Mina Yacoub, of the Maspero Coptic Youth Federation, was less optimistic. He said the ruling is because of this week’s Egyptian presidential elections, where Islamists are hoping to get some of the Coptic votes and are trying to prove to them that ‘Islam is a ‘just religion’ and they have nothing to worry about with the application of Sharia, which they are advocating.” Yacoub added, “Why has the death penalty never been passed on a Muslim for killing a Christian, it is because Islam plainly says in Hadith 9:50, 57 ‘No umma (a member of Muslim community) should be killed for killing a Kafir (infidel), and this has been applied diligently by judges.” AINA said referring to the death penalty passed in Jan. 2011 on Muslim Hammam el-Kamouni, who shot dead six Copts as they left church on Coptic Christmas Eve on Jan. 6 2010 in Nag Hammadi, he explained that with the six murdered Copts was a Muslim policeman who died by mistake and this death penalty was in lieu of his blood. Jeremy Reynalds is Senior Correspondent for the ASSIST News Service, a freelance writer and also the founder and CEO of Joy Junction, New Mexico’s largest emergency homeless shelter, http://www.joyjunction.org He has a master’s degree in communication from the University of New Mexico, and a Ph.D. in intercultural education from Biola University in Los Angeles. His newest book is “Homeless in the City.” Additional details on “Homeless in the City” are available at http://www.homelessinthecity.com. Reynalds lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. For more information contact: Jeremy Reynalds at jeremyreynalds@comcast.net. ** You may republish this story with proper attribution. Send this story to a friend.   Share <!–BYLINE:By Jeremy Reynalds Senior Correspondent for ASSIST News Service–>

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