From Prayer Digest, an e-mail alert for intercessors, comes these grievous updates of persecuted Christians. I pass them along to widen the prayer base.
* During the demonstrations in Cairo, 11 Christians, including four children, were killed in an attack on Christian families in the south of the country.
* Two more Christians, one of them a 27-year-old woman arrested for being found reading a Bible in her bedroom, are reported to have died in Eritrean prisons after being refused medical treatment. Several thousand Christians are said to be imprisoned without trial. There are reports of torture and fears persecution may get worse.
* Said Musa, a 45-year-old Afghan, was told by a judge in Afghanistan he would be executed within three days for converting to Christianity unless he reconverted to Islam. He has refused to renounce his faith. He claimed to have been tortured and sexually abused in prison.
* Afghan Christian Shoabib Assadullah has been in prison since he was arrested in October for giving a man a New Testament. He expected the death penalty in January, but international pressure forced the Attorney General to intervene. Some believe he is being given mind-altering drugs. He has been offered his freedom if he will deny his faith, but has refused. He has requested prayer for his family’s conversion.
* More people have died in sectarian clashes in central Nigeria. Churches, mosques and homes have been destroyed by arson. A task force charged with keeping the peace in the area is alleged to be turning a blind eye to attacks on Christians.
* Two teenage sisters said to be Christian believers were reported to have been shot dead by Islamic militants in Kashmir for reading the Bible.
* Incidents against Christians in Punjab, some of them fatal, are reported to be increasing at an alarming rate.
* Muslim protesters burned churches in Indonesia, which has the world’s largest Muslim population.
* Blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng, who was tortured and imprisoned for exposing the systematic use of forced abortion in implementing China’s one child policy, is now under house arrest, guarded day and night by security police. A video of him was released to the West on February 9. The following day he and his wife were reportedly beaten senseless in retaliation, are unable to move from their beds and are denied medical treatment.