Date:
Word From Yerushalaim
Simantov Allalouf
simantov@wordfromyerushalaim.com
www.wordfromyerushalaim.com
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The following article was
published a little over a month ago, but it is important to continue in prayer
in light of the increased persecution of followers of Messiah here in
Jordan
We expelled foreign Christians for illegal preaching
February
20 2008
The announcement by acting Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh is the first official acknowledgment that the government has clamped down on several foreign Christian preachers, including Americans and other Westerners, Koreans and other Asians, as well Arabs like Egyptians and Sudanese.
Judeh
said the preachers came to
Under Jordanian law, the government must sanction preaching and any religious activity, whether Christian or Muslim.
"The government was following up their illegal activities as well as the persons involved for a while," Judeh told lawmakers who questioned the government in an open parliamentary session about the rumors.
Judeh,
who is also a state minister of information, did not provide any numbers or
other details. He said that since the deportation,
He did not say if there was
pressure exerted by the
The California-based Compass Direct
newsletter, which monitors Christian persecution worldwide, said three weeks
ago that
It said authorities deported or refused residence permits to at least 27 expatriate Christian families and individuals in 2007, a number of them working with local churches or studying at a Christian seminary.
Rumors have been rife for some time in Jordanian Christian circles that at least 40 Christian workers had been deported and that their visas had been revoked because of preaching activities.
Government officials had long declined to comment and church leaders remained tight-lipped. But some followers of the local Baptist Church and the Assemblies of God admitted privately that some of their foreign peers "have been in trouble," declining to go into details.
Last week, a Jordanian group comprised of the mainstream Catholic and Orthodox churches broke the silence over the issue, defending the government's actions as in the interests of the state, which was widely interpreted as an attack on the Protestant denominations they accuse of stealing their parishioners.
In all save one case, officials refused to provide written explanations for the decisions, but many of those expelled told Compass that they had been questioned by intelligence officers regarding evangelism of Muslims.
"They said that I am a threat to Jordanian security and I am making the society unstable," said Hannu Lahtinen, a Finnish pastor deported in December. "They have a thousand ways to say you are preaching the gospel."
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1203518554432
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One personal testimony
I
am a Jordanian Christian who can shed some
light on this subject. I will tell you from my experience what exactly happen
to me personally. I was taken by the Jordanian Intelligence Dept. (JID) and was
interrogated for two days accusing me of Baptizing Muslims. I was emotionally
tortured and humiliated. After this experience I was denied Jobs everywhere and
I had no way to make living so I decided to leave. The Churches they are
talking about in the government response are Catholic Churches,
they don't like the competition of the other Christian denominations. US should
put more pressure on
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