Taliban to kill school girls

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Taliban extremists in Pakistan’s troubled northwest Swat valley have banned girls from attending school, threatening to kill any female students, officials said Thursday, December 25.

 

The threat was delivered this week by local Taliban commander Shah Durran in an address carried on an illegally-run radio station in the area, local officials told AFP.

 

“You have until January 15 to stop sending your girls to schools. If you do not pay any heed to this warning, we will kill such girls,” one official quoted the commander as saying.

 

“We also warn schools not to enroll any female students; otherwise, their buildings will be blown up.”

 

The mountainous Swat valley was until last year a popular tourist destination featuring Pakistan’s only ski resort.

 

But the region has been turned into a battleground since radical cleric Maulana Fazlullah, who has links to Pakistan’s Taliban movement, launched a violent campaign for the introduction of Islamic Sharia law in the valley.

 

Durran said local Taliban leaders were determined not to allow girls to attend school, saying: “We want to enforce the true Sharia in the area – for this, we are fighting and laying down our lives.”

 

Swat residents said Taliban fighters had already destroyed scores of government-run schools, leading some to set up private schools in their homes to educate girls.

 

An official at the Pakistani education ministry said there are about 1,580 schools registered in Swat – once known for its top-flight schools.

 

But the official, Naeem Khan, told AFP: “Already Taliban militants have destroyed 252 schools, mainly those where girls and boys were studying together.”

 

Education has suffered badly in Swat as a result of the ongoing fighting between Taliban-linked militants and security forces, with only a handful of schools still open in the region’s main city Mingora, Khan said.

 

The government had reached a deal with the rebels in May to gradually pull out troops and introduce an Islamic justice system in exchange for an end to rebel attacks, but the violence eventually resumed.

 

Network

Nigeria: Six pastors killed

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40 CHURCHES RAZED IN JOS VIOLENCE

As smoke clears, mayhem ignited by Muslim attacks leaves 25,000 people displaced.

 

The murderous rioting sparked by Muslim attacks on Christians and their property on Nov. 28-29 left six pastors dead, at least 500 other people killed and 40 churches destroyed, according to church leaders.

More than 25,000 persons have been displaced in the two days of violence, according to the National Emergency Management Agency.

 

What began as outrage over suspected vote fraud in local elections quickly hit the religious fault line that quakes from time to time in this city located between the Islamic north and Christian south, as angry Muslims took aim at Christian sites rather than at political targets.

 

Police and troops reportedly killed about 400 rampaging Muslims in an effort to quell the unrest, and Islamists shot, slashed or stabbed to death most of more than 100 Christians killed. Among Christians killed was Joseph Yari of the Evangelical Church of West Africa.

 

The Rev. Emmanuel Kyari, pastor of Christ Baptist Church, Tudun-Wada, told our correspondent that Yari died helping other Christians who repelled Muslim fanatics bent on burning down his church building.

“Yari was standing beside my wife when he was shot by Muslims,” Rev. Kyari said.

“In addition to Yari who was killed, there were also three other Christians who were shot, and two died instantly.”

 

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Comoros: Christians oppressed

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COMOROS: CHRISTIANS OPPRESSED ON INDIAN OCEAN ISLANDS

Muslim rule on isles east of Africa effectively criminalizes faith in Christ.

 

Christians on the predominantly Muslim islands of Pemba and the Comoros archipelago are beaten, detained and banished for their faith, according to church leaders who travel regularly to the Indian Ocean isles off the east coast of Africa.

 

These violations of religious freedom, the church leaders said, threaten the survival of Christianity on Pemba and the Comoros, with fewer than 300 Christians in a combined population of 1.1 million people.

 

Leaving Islam for Christianity accounts for most of the harm done to Christians, and this year saw an increase in such abuse as already-strained relations between the two communities deteriorated after the conversion in August of Sheikh Hijah Mohammed, leader of a key mosque in Chake-Chake, capital of Pemba.

 

A Christian from the Tanzanian island of Zanzibar who recently visited the Comoros said those suspected to have converted from Islam to Christianity face travel restrictions and confiscation of travel documents.

 

In the early part of this year, authorities expelled a missionary from the Comoros when they discovered he was conducting Friday prayer meetings.

 

“The police broke into the prayer meeting, ransacked the house and found the Bibles which we had hidden before arresting us,” said a source who requested anonymity. “We were detained for three months.”

 

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The Ministry of Quiet Living

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Humility, Waiting and Godliness; these words gather among the great Christian words, capturing the essence and produce of a life lived before the face of the Father.

The people of the Lord are regarded and positioned as guardians and practitioners of the rare art of waiting. Their duty and final joy is to serve by giving away the most precious item, for which they have been set apart as custodians, giving away the most precious item, the only item they own and have the possibility to spend namely time itself, a life, months and years to be invested, invested in worship.

 

The praying community, a nation set apart from among nations, set apart for the sake of communion. The praying community, set apart to become the community of the cross of Christ. This intimate gathering, closely attached to matters of the cross, holds a key role in the work of putting man to final rest. Theirs is an overcoming which brings rest and which is brought in as a mighty weapon of God against man’s efforts to overcome and win the battle for life which reflects the hectic, pressurising procedures and technicalities of the natural life.

 

One man named Simon stands for ever as a marker in the ways of the Ministry of Quiet Living. He belonged to the company of committed, who had wisely learnt the art of waiting on God. This man was looking for the consolation of Israel, he waited for the one would comfort Israel, waiting anxiously, looking for God to console and to comfort. And he did not miss the mark, perfectly on time, time redeemed to the uttermost simply because of quietness and patience.

 

Ours is the role of waiting for God. Ours is the role of quiet living. The title of old Simon and his friends is perfectly applicable to intercessors of the twenty-first century. Our role is one and the same as theirs, to live peacefully in the earth and therefore called the Quiet ones in the Earth. We are set apart to pray, thereby creating quiet living with godliness and gravity.

 

The strategic measurements of this Ministry of Quiet Living begin by rest, continue in waiting and end gloriously in tranquillity. The strategic measurements of this Ministry of Quiet Living include adherence to His voice, Seek my face; it adds a continuous seeking for His wisdom and a dwelling day and night in meditation on His works and statutes. This ministry is service, a servant’s steadfast waiting on the Lord. Its strength is its helplessness. Its pride is its humility. Its glory is obvious in its lack of self-appraisal. Its impact is permanent because of its silence.

 

Let us order our efforts and duties in prayer according to the patterns of this ministry. . .

 

Lars Widerberg