By Theodore Shoebat

Arrests and deportations of Christians in Sudan are becoming more momentous in Bashir’s government. On April 12 the secretary general of the Sudan Catholic Bishops’ Conference was ousted out of North Sudan into South Sudan.

As a church elder in Khartoum was praising God in his church, government officials from the Security Service (NISS) seized and interrogated him for information on Christian missionaries in North Sudan. He said

They told me to reveal to them 12 names of Christians who are active in evangelism in Sudan, but I told them I have no idea

NISS officers is an Islamic gestapo, and they are doing the same sort of inquisition that the Nazis did before the holocaust. They apprehended a number of Christian staff members of a university based ministry and interrogated them for a week. One of the Christian workers arrested reported:

The security officers verbally threatened to bury us alive if we did not give information on who was supporting these Christian activities

After they were released they were told for two weeks that they had to report to the NISS for interrogation on any links with Christian organizations. The NISS also confiscated the group’s equipment, vehicles, and documents.

After their phone conversations and movements were monitored for some time, three of the group’s members were driven out of North Sudan, into South Sudan. One of the exiled men said

They gave me only 72 hours to leave the country … They came to my house while I was away and took five laptops of my sisters, as well as my documents, identity cards, school documents and mobile phone. I thank God that He has been with me during the interrogation with the Security.

All of this persecution is a result of Bashir’s vowing to make North Sudan a Sharia state after the South succeeded in 2011. He has striven by violence to enforce that the Arabic language be dominant, being in accordance with the Babel revival of Islam. Bashir gave the Christians till March 1 of 2012 to leave North Sudan; but, around half a million of them were stranded in the North on account of job losses, poverty, absence of transportation, and tribal violence.

Bashir’s regime has bulldozed churches once used by Christians and has recently declared that it would no longer issue licenses to build new churches.

Days prior to this announced decree a senior South Sudanese priest, Father Maurino, alongside a French missionary and an Egyptian missionary, were deported. According to Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), since December there has been

an increase in arrests, detentions and deportations of Christians and of those suspected of having links to them, particularly in Khartoum and Omodorum, Sudan’s largest cities. There has also been a systematic targeting of members of African ethnic groups, particularly the Nuba, lending apparent credence to the notion of the resurgence of an official agenda of Islamisation and Arabisation. …The campaign of repression [has] continued into 2013, with foreign Christians being arrested and deported at short notice and those from Sudan facing arrest, detention and questioning by the security services, as well as the confiscation of property such as mobile phones, identity cards and laptops. In addition to the arrests and deportations, local reports cite a media campaign warning against ‘Christianisation.

In February at least 55 Christians were arrested without charge, the cultural center for the Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church in Khartoum was overran by the National Intelligence and Security Services who confiscated property and arrested three Christians in the premises. This may sound like a small deal but one could have expressed the same sentiments before the Holocaust. Dorothy Thompson gave this description of Germany in the 1930s:

[O]f the leadership in the German Protestant revolt against the Nazifying of the church is German Nationalist, and the Nazi party has proceeded against these courageous Christians, arresting many of them, inflaming their congregations against them, insisting that they are traitors to the new Germany.

Persecution is greatly occurring in Mali, where Churches are being ransacked and pillage. Just take a look at this video done this year:

Notice in the video that the Muslims graffitied on one of the church walls that there is “only one god”; this is because Islam is a unitarian religion, and strives to destroy all those who believe in the Holy Trinity.

In Egypt persecution is only worsening. I remember that when the claws of the Islamists were quickly sinking into the Egyptian government Hillary Clinton stated that the Obama administration would make sure that every Egyptian is treated equitably by the new government. Well, anybody with knowledge on Leftist governments knew that this was not going to happen. Now we have Copts screaming,

We need justice! Obama, Obama, where are you?

But Obama is no where to be found amongst the Christians in Egypt, instead he is supporting their very persecutors, the Muslim Brotherhood. The Obama administration is already shipping tanks and fighter jets to the Egyptians, and now eight more F-16s will be given to Egypt by the end of the year, and an additional two hundred Abrams tanks will also be sent.

With all of this I am reminded of the horrid persecutions which were done by the Chechen Muslims in the 1990s, and of the martyr Fr. Anatoly Chistousov. While on mission in the Chechen city of Grozny, the church that Anatoly was in was shelled substantially, but he continued on by conducting church services in the sanctuary’s cellar. He went to the battlefield to assist Russian soldiers, and in the presence of bullets he gave Communion and baptized. His cassock was shot multiple times, but with God’s help and with immense faith he persevered and saw to it that those who were waiting for him were served.

With impenetrable courage he headed a parish and stayed with his flock, amidst flying bullets and terrifying explosions. In 1996 Anatoly, alongside Fr. Sergius, went on a mission to visit Chechen warlord Akhmed Zakayev to negotiate the release of a Russian soldier. On the way they were ambushed and captured and placed in a concentration camp by the same Zakayev.

Even in captivity Anatoly observed Communion. He was tortured to renounce his Faith and convert to Islam, but he refused and was soon martyred.

The Russians charged Zakayev for having involvement in the murder of this saint. A leftist British actress, Vanessa Redgrave, payed off Zakayev’s bail with 50,000 pounds, enabling him to have asylum in England where he still resides.

What does this mean? The Left is what is empowering the Islamists, in a war against Christians. Let us always remember the travails of Anatoly, and let us always keep in mind that the Church is a light which the darkness will constantly try to engulf.

Here is a rememberable photo Anatoly:

Theodore Shoebat is the author of the book, For God or For Tyranny