Nigeria: Two Christians murdered in Kaduna

From Compass Direct News:

KADUNA, Nigeria, October 22 (Compass Direct News) – One man has been killed with a sword and another bludgeoned to death in this city in central northern Nigeria following Muslim leaders’ appeal to wage violent jihad against youthful Christians.

Muslim extremists on October 12 murdered Henry Emmanuel Ogbaje, a 24-year-old Christian, at an area known as Gamji Gate. The following day, church leaders said, a young Christian identified only as Basil was beaten to death with wooden clubs in the same area.

Ogbaje was a Sunday school teacher with the Military Protestant Church at Kotoko Barracks in Kaduna, while Basil, church leaders said, was a member of the Our Lady of Apostles Catholic Church. He was from Kagarko Local Government Area.

Elder Saidu Dogo, secretary of the northern Nigeria chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), told Compass that Islamic leader Sheik Gumi had urged Muslims to wage jihad against Christians during Tafsir, the reading and interpretation of the Quran, in televised broadcasts during the Islamic month-long observance of Ramadan.

“I saw Sheik Gumi on the television, NTA [Nigeria Television Authority], during that period preaching this inciting sermon – in fact, the same sermon was again broadcast by NTA Kaduna, on September 21 and 22,” Dogo told Compass. “He specifically called for a jihad, and that when they go killing they should not kill the elderly people, because the elderly have spent their years already, but that Muslims should kill young Christians.”

. . . The Rev. Joshua Magaji, assistant secretary of the Kaduna state chapter of CAN, said the killings were meant to provoke Christians into angry retaliations and trigger another religious crisis in the state, which has seen tens of thousands of deaths from religious violence in the past three decades. Violence has broken out several times since the imposition of sharia (Islamic) law in 2000.

“We thank God that Christians in the state have restrained themselves from avenging the killing of these two, and we would like to appeal that they continue in this spirit,” Magaji said. . .

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H/t to Gateway Pundit.

One in 10 Christians persecuted

From Nick McKenzie at Religious Intelligence:

ONE IN 10 Christians worldwide are subject to severe restrictions or hostilities, according to a new edition of the German yearbook Martyrs 2007.

The survey claims that at least 200 million Christians are either suffering persecution or discrimination, and for many of those the situation has deteriorated over the last year.

The Middle East, India and Pakistan are listed as some of the flashpoints, with three out of every four Iraqi Christians fleeing their homeland fearing harassment, assassination or kidnap.