Photo Credit: Open Doors.
By Aaron Sseruyigo & News Agencies
A Muslim leader in the eastern region of Uganda has condemned the hate-filled attacks on Christian converts from Islam and urged a return to peaceful coexistence among residents in the region.
Sheikh Muhammad Yusuf asserted during an interview with media, that Islam “totally forbids the killing of innocents.”
He added that attacks on Christians are “unacceptable and condemnable” and “defy the teachings of the prophet Muhammad.”
“But I want to urge some of our Christian brothers to exercise respect and discipline while carrying out their activities,” Sheikh Muhammad said. “They need not to provoke other people who belong to different faith. We all need to be tolerant with one another.”
According to World Watch Monitor, a group that tracks persecutions of Christians, Islamist extremists have for several years now intensified their campaign to convert more people to Islam in the eastern region of Uganda.
The Associated Press (AP) says many of the extremists belong to the Alliance of Democratic Forces, a Congo-based group of Muslim Ugandans.
The alliance is accused of helping stoke anti-Christian feelings in the region while calling for Islam-based sharia teachings to be promoted.
“In most cases, it’s not open persecution like you hear in other countries, where people are prohibited from praying. Vulnerable and needy persons are a soft target. Perpetrators always put pressure on people who are in need, threatening to suspend the support unless they convert to the religion they want,” Father Timothy Mayamba of St. John Bosco Catholic Parish in Bududa said in a report published 20 Dec. 2020 by online faith-based newspaper Crux.
He added: “It is a big threat because everything begins small; these small thing amounts to something big. People are instilling anger into the young people at such an age. Eventually, they make the child grow with a lot of prejudice to one another.”
Freedom of religion which includes converting from one faith to another, is guaranteed by the Uganda Constitution but is not widely practiced.
In Budaka district, Julius Musisi, 16, was killed in October after being attacked with a machete by Muslim extremists for refusing to convert to Islam. His father, Peter Mukisa, a Catholic catechist, said Julius was attacked on his way from the market and told he must convert to Islam.
“When my son refused to convert to Islam he was hacked to death,” said Mukisa, noting that the incident happened a few days after hardline Muslims also beat and drowned a 25-year-old pastor Protestant pastor and his church member in Lake Nakuwa. “We’ve been living in fear of attacks, and we need the government to protect us.”
Elsewhere, when Brenda Namutebi renounced Islam and accepted Christ as her savior, her Muslim husband and neighbors subjected her to harsh conditions, hoping she might change her mind.
Namutebi’s husband beat her severely, squeezed her throat and threatened her with death and divorce. Her neighbors cursed her and told her she would never live in the community and have peace as long as she was a Christian.
“I went through hell and I didn’t know I would survive,” said the 35-year-old mother of three young children, who was rescued by police and now lives in a rental home in Bududa. “They wanted to kill me because of my faith, but Jesus saved me. I will continue to believe in Christ, despite the troubles I’m going through right now.”
Her husband has now married another wife and disowned her children. The local sheikhs have ordered her to return her dowry of $180 and 13 cows to her husband and his family. Failure to make any payment would warrant her arrest and being detained until she pays back the dowry, she said.
“They don’t even care that I am single-handedly raising my children without a job,” Namutebi said as she broke down in tears and had to be comforted by her children.
