Persecution of Christians in Uganda: here is yet another example, among very many we have highlighted here at ChristianPersecution.com, of converts to Christianity being singled out for persecution. Making matter even worse is the fact that any family members of Zubeda Nabirye who might be sympathetic to her, and the Christians who are her friends and associates, can expect little help from authorities in this matter, as they are likely to be either sympathetic to those who attacked them, or afraid of incurring their wrath themselves. This is one of the reasons why Christian persecution worldwide is escalating: in all too many countries around the world, authorities tacitly approve of the attacks on Christians or actively instigate them, or else are afraid of standing up to the persecutors.
Among the Christians of Uganda are around 35,000 Orthodox Christians. Please pray for perseverance and strength of faith for them and all of Uganda’s Christians.
For previous ChristianPersecution.com coverage of Christian persecution in Uganda, see here.
“Muslim in Uganda Forces Christian Wife to Drink Pesticide,” Morning Star News, December 17, 2020:
NAIROBI, Kenya (Morning Star News) – A 38-year-old mother of three in eastern Uganda had secretly put her faith in Christ for three months before her Muslim husband found two Bibles in her suitcase.
On that day, Nov. 21, in Bugiri District’s Matovu village, Zubeda Nabirye’s husband asked her why she had the two Bibles, one in English and the other in their tribal language. Her husband, Umar Kyakulaga, also asked if she had converted to Christianity, she said.
“I replied to him that a friend had given me the Bibles, and that I was using it to compare it with what is written in the Koran, and after all religion is a matter of personal choice,” Nabirye told a Morning Star News contact. She also told her husband, “I was convicted and decided to embrace Christianity.”
Kyakulaga grew angry and picked up a copy of the Koran, she said.
“My husband began reading verses in the Koran that allowed men to beat their wives if they disobey them, and after that he started beating me with slaps and sticks,” she said. “As if this was not enough, he forced me to take Dithane M-45,” a toxic pesticide.
She tried not to swallow the pesticide he had forced into her mouth but ingested some while he was trying to strangle her and hitting her leg with sticks, she said. He also injured her chest, neck and thigh, Nabirye said.
When the couple moved to Matovu from Kaliro district earlier this year, they had left their three children with Nabirye’s mother-in-law due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus no one else was home when Nabirye lost consciousness.
“It was around 10 p.m. when I regained consciousness and found myself surrounded by neighbors,” she said.
Neighbors told Morning Star News that they heard crying and wailing at Nabirye’s home, but that by the time they made it there, the place was empty.
“While we were going back, we heard groaning from a nearby banana plant, and there we found Zubeda Nabirye, who had just regained her consciousness but with vomit and blood all over her body,” one of the neighbors told the Morning Star News contact. “We then arranged for her transportation to the hospital near her home in Kaliro.”
Nabirye said she suspects her husband took her to the banana plants expecting she would die there.
A relative said Nabirye would not file charges with police over the assault as it could provoke further violence….
