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Today’s Headlines:

VIETNAMESE COURT HANDS DOWN HARSH SENTENCES TO CHURCH WORKERS CHURCHES ATTACKED AS RELIGIOUS TENSIONS MOUNT IN NETHERLANDS DEATH PENALTY QUASHED FOR NIGERIAN WOMAN CHARGED WITH ADULTERY CUBAN AUTHORITIES FREE LEADING DISSIDENT FROM ISOLATION CELL CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS BRING HOPE TO SUDAN AFTER 21 YEARS OF CIVIL WAR IBS TO DISTRIBUTE 100,000 NEW TESTAMENTS VIA DAILY NEWSPAPER

Today’s News Stories:

VIETNAMESE COURT HANDS DOWN HARSH SENTENCES TO CHURCH WORKERS The People’s Court of Ho Chi Minh City handed out harsh sentences to six Vietnamese Mennonite church workers in a four-hour trial that ended at noon Friday, Nov. 12. Rev. Nguyen Hong Quang and five colleagues were charged with “resisting officers of the law while doing their duty” in connection with a March 2 incident involving two undercover government operatives. The court sentenced Quang, general secretary of the Vietnam Mennonite Church, to three years in prison. Evangelist Pham Ngoc Thach received a two-year sentence while evangelists Nguyen Thanh Phuong and Nguyen Thanh Nhan, church worker Le Thi Hong Lien and elder Nguyen Hieu Nghia received sentences ranging from nine to 12 months. Quang and his associates confronted the undercover officers on March 2 outside the gate of the Mennonite church which houses the denomination’s offices and serves as the Quang residence. The Mennonites say the two agents had harassed and physically abused church workers who visited the building. The undercover officers tried to flee on a motorcycle but fell. Within 30 minutes, dozens of officers from district police Special Unit 113 and other security forces were dispatched to the scene. Armed with guns and cattle prods, they seized Nghia and took him to the local police station. A Vietnamese lawyer who asked to remain anonymous insisted that “on the basis of the legal issues and the realties of the case, we affirm that Rev. Nguyen Hong Quang and his fellow workers are not criminals guilty of the charges brought against them.” (Compass)

CHURCHES ATTACKED AS RELIGIOUS TENSIONS MOUNT IN NETHERLANDS Arsonists attempted to burn down two churches in the Netherlands last week in a continuing series of attacks following the murder of a controversial Dutch filmmaker, police reported Thursday, Nov. 11. The attacks came after filmmaker Theo Van Gogh was shot and stabbed to death by an Islamic extremist on Nov. 2. Some 18 religiously linked sites have been attacked since the murder. Unidentified persons threw Molotov cocktails at Protestant churches in Rotterdam and Utrecht, causing only minor damage. Meanwhile, in Eindhoven, the same city where a bomb exploded at a Muslim school on Monday, Nov. 8, a school classroom was seriously damaged in an overnight fire, police spokesman Pieter van Hoof told the Associated Press. Although the school is predominantly Catholic, it is attended by students from various religious backgrounds. Dutch authorities say the arsonists’ attempts to burn down the Protestant churches were in retaliation to recent attacks on Muslim sites in what they fear are part of reprisals after Van Gogh’s killing. He was one of the most outspoken critics of fundamentalist Muslims, The New Times reported. Van Gogh’s last film, “Submission,” criticized the treatment of women under Islam. For many years, such criticism was considered taboo. That began to change, however, after the 9/11 attacks when the Netherlands, like many other countries, began to consider the dangers posed by radical Muslims. (WorldWide Religious News/Christian Post)

DEATH PENALTY QUASHED FOR NIGERIAN WOMAN CHARGED WITH ADULTERY An Islamic court in northern Nigeria Wednesday, Nov. 10, threw out a death by stoning sentence against a pregnant 18-year-old woman who had been condemned for adultery. Judge Mohammed Mustapha Umar of the Upper Sharia Court in Dass, a rural town in Bauchi state, said a lower court was wrong to have convicted Hajara Ibrahim. The judge said it was an error to sentence Ibrahim both to death for adultery and 100 lashes of the cane — the punishment for premarital sex. The accused also was not given a chance to defend herself, the judge said. “Based on these reasons, this court hereby nullifies the lower court’s judgment,” Umar said. Ibrahim, now seven months’ pregnant, was convicted of adultery on Oct. 5 by an Islamic court in the remote town of Lere. A man whom she said was responsible for the pregnancy was freed for lack of evidence. Her lawyer, Abubakar Suleiman appealed, saying Ibrahim was never married and, therefore, could not be guilty of adultery. Ibrahim was one of two women sentenced to death by stoning by an Islamic court in Bauchi state in recent months. The sentences were the first of their kind in more than a year in the mainly Muslim north where 12 states have introduced controversial Islamic sharia criminal codes since 1999. None of the stoning sentences have been carried out. (WorldWide Religious News/Associated Press)

* HCJB World Radio, together with partners In Touch Ministries, SIM and the Evangelical Church of West Africa, began airing weekly half-hour programs to Nigeria in the Igbo language in 2000. In 2003 weekly broadcasts were added in two additional languages, Yoruba and Hausa. HCJB World Radio also has helped plant radio ministries in five cities with more in the planning stages.

CUBAN AUTHORITIES FREE LEADING DISSIDENT FROM ISOLATION CELL Dr. Oscar E. Biscet, one of Cuba’s leading Christian dissidents, has been released from an isolation cell where he had been confined since July. Biscet was taken from his cell on Thursday, Oct. 21, in Prison Kilo 8 in the province of Pinar del Río after carrying out a 10-day hunger strike to protest his “inhumane imprisonment,” dissident sources reported. He now shares a prison with an American citizen who reportedly has been charged with human trafficking. Biscet, a pro-life medical doctor who is also opposed to capital punishment and the communist regime, was sentenced to 25 years on April 7, 2003, as part of a massive crackdown on human rights activists across the island. He was earlier sentenced to a three-year term on charges of “disrespecting patriotic symbols” after hanging a Cuban flag upside-down during a news conference. In a statement obtained by BosNewsLife his wife, Elsa, said she was concerned about the health of her husband “after so any days in an isolation cell without any exposure to sunlight.” She noticed during a visit to the prison on Oct. 30 that he had “lost weight and was pale” but was “emotionally strong.” (BosNewsLife)

CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS BRING HOPE TO SUDAN AFTER 21 YEARS OF CIVIL WAR While fighting continues in Darfur in western Sudan, people in the southern part of the country are struggling to recover from a 21-year-old civil war. The war left behind a humanitarian crisis of immense proportions, says Dale Dieleman of Worldwide Christian Schools. After years of fighting, many refugees fled to the mountains, abandoning their farms, resulting in a scarcity of food and making it difficult for the region to start the rebuilding process. During the fighting, schools were also forced to close, disrupting education and routine for thousands of the children. In response to the problem, Worldwide Christian Schools is working in partnership with Sudan Christian Schools for Orphans. “We’re really trying to establish schools which will be, basically, the only schools in the region,” he said. Dieleman adds that the ultimate purpose of the ministry is to share the hope of Christ. “I think that it’s really planting the seeds of the gospel . . . in terms of how do you live out the gospel. I think this is the vision, trying to help the young people grasp and then go from there and be empowered.” (Mission Network News)

IBS TO DISTRIBUTE 100,000 NEW TESTAMENTS VIA DAILY NEWSPAPER The International Bible Society is targeting its home city of Colorado Springs, Colo., with its CityReachers project. On Sunday, Dec. 19, 100,000 New Testaments specially designed for Colorado Springs will be distributed with the city’s daily newspaper. “We know that the Word of God is relevant, but we do the best we can do to make the Bible [attractive so] that people will want to pick it up,” said IBS spokesman Bob Jackson. “As they look at this and see the title — Our City God’s Word — and see the images on the outside, we’re convinced that many who wouldn’t perhaps pick up a black Bible with gold lettering will pick this up and perhaps read some of it.” More than 130 local churches and organizations have joined this effort. “We believe that there are going to be some things happening here that perhaps have never happened before,” Jackson said. “At least some people will come to know the Word of God, and hopefully some lives will be transformed.” (Mission Network News)

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• Pray for the World (January 31, 2012)

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