More than 2,000 Eritrean citizens, mostly Christian, are known to be jailed solely for their religious beliefs. In October, Eritrean authorities detained 150 Christians from at least five unrecognized churches. Local sources confirmed to Compass that police authorities were subjecting the detained Christians to beatings and other physical mistreatment. According to eyewitnesses, at least 10 nursing mothers were among the new prisoners, all of them forced to leave their infants behind. In May, two days after a Christian mother was arrested from her home and jailed by Eritrean police, her 6-month-old son died on his sickbed in Nefasit, 10 miles east of Asmara. Ghenet Gebremariam was arrested on May 8 with two other Protestant women who are also mothers with children and members of Nefasit’s banned Full Gospel Church. They were detained on accusations of “actively witnessing about Christ.” Two days later, Gebremariam’s baby, Hazaiel Daniel, died of unknown causes. Subsequently Gebremariam was released on bail.

In September, the Eritrean government demanded that Kale Hiwot Church surrender all its property and physical assets to the government – all church buildings, schools, vehicles and other assets. While Eritrea has banned all such independent religious groups not under the umbrella of the government-sanctioned Orthodox, Catholic, Lutheran or Muslim faiths since May 2002, in 2006 restrictions and controls on even the four recognized religions accelerated to unprecedented levels. In December, the regime wrested financial and personnel control from the Eritrean Orthodox Church, demanding that all offerings and tithes be deposited directly into a government account. The monthly salaries of all Orthodox priests were to be paid from this government-controlled fund of church income. The government also announced new limits for the number of priests to be allowed to serve in each parish, specifying that any “extra” priests beyond quota would be required to report to the Wi’a Military Training Center to perform required military service. The regime of President Isaias Afwerki had removed the church’s ordained Patriarch Abune Antonios from office in August 2005 and placed him under house arrest.

3 – Christians Targeted in Iraq

Christian leaders were increasingly targeted by Muslim militants in Iraq who have found kidnapping lucrative. Muslim extremists in Iraq murdered a Presbyterian Church elder after kidnapping him following worship services at the National Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Mosul on November 26. The body of the clergyman, identified only as 69-year-old Elder Munthir, was found on a Mosul street on November 30 with a single bullet to the head. The kidnappers had said by telephone that they would “kill all the Christians, and we will start with him.” In October, Muslim kidnappers abducted and beheaded a Syrian Orthodox priest, leaving his corpse in an outlying suburb of Mosul. Father Boulos Iskander, 59, was kidnapped on October 9. The kidnappers had demanded US$350,000 ransom, and then reduced their demand to US$40,000 with the stipulation that the priest’s church publicly repudiate Pope Benedict XVI’s remarks about Islam in September. The family paid the ransom, and the St. Ephram parish of the Syrian Orthodox Church placed 30 large signboards on walls around the city, distancing itself from the pontiff’s comments – all to no avail.