The disturbing treatment of Shaquru Ndifuna illustrates yet again how conversion to Christianity is so often the occasion for persecution of Christians — both of the converts and of those who brought the converts the word of the Gospel.
Among the Christians of Uganda are around 35,000 Orthodox Christians.
For previous ChristianPersecution.com coverage of Christian persecution in Uganda, see here.
“New Christian Beaten Unconscious for Leaving Islam,” Morning Star News, May 8, 2023:
NAIROBI, Kenya, May 8, 2023 (Morning Star News) – A former Islamic teacher remains hospitalized after Muslim extremists in eastern Uganda on Tuesday (May 2) beat him unconscious for converting to Christianity, sources said.
Shaquru Ndifuna, 33, was receiving treatment for blood loss at a medical clinic in Iganga town in the district of the same name, area Christians said.
A former Islamic teacher at Noor Islamic Institute in Mayuge District, Ndifuna is a resident of Kaliro Town Council, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Iganga town. He put his faith in Christ in January an open-air evangelistic event in Namutumba, 39 kilometers from Iganga town.
Word of his conversion spread, a cleric at the Noor Islamic Mosque began monitoring his movements, and in April three Islamic leaders visited him at his home, said an area Christian unnamed for security reasons.
“They questioned me about my absence as a teacher at Noor Mosque,” Ndifuna told Morning Star News. “I tried to explain to them about my other commitments elsewhere. One of them mentioned about me having become a Christian, but I did not respond. Afterwards the three Muslim leaders left.”
Tuesday evening (May 2) at 7:30 p.m., four Muslims intruded into his house, he said.
“They forcefully entered into the house, shouting about me having blasphemed the Islamic religion and trying to force me to confess that Jesus is not the Son of God, and that Allah is the only God to be worshipped and Muhammad is His prophet,” Ndifuna said. “I refused to renounce Jesus as the Son of God. They started beating me up.”
His wife and three children hid in a bedroom, and his wife telephoned a family friend, saying that the assailants were beating him unconscious and that he had lost a lot of blood, the source said.
“The attackers have left, I think they thought my husband is dead – they did not touch his phone nor any property,” his wife told the friend, according to the source.
The friend drove to their home, took Ndifuna to a nearby medicine shop for first aid and later transferred him to the clinic in Iganga, the source said.
“Please take care of my children, I am not sure whether I will survive,” Ndifuna told Morning Star News at the hospital. “The Muslims who injured me were trying to force me to return to Islam, but I refused.”…
