JustEndPersecution issues an action regularly, suggesting letters that can be written (and prayer points). Some examples of action taken by the End Christian Persecution Network include:

• arrest warrants were issued in late 2007 against the four members of the Filipino security forces responsible for the abduction and torture of Pastor Berlin Guerrero on 27 May 2007;
• Fr Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly, a Vietnamese Catholic priest, was imprisoned on October 2001 with a sentence of 15 years (his ‘crime’ was writing a submission to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom and the Congressional Human Rights Caucus) but Fr Thadeus was subsequently released in 2004 after an international campaign for his release;
• in late 2006, three Muslim men were tried and convicted in Indonesia for the 29 October 2005 murders of three Christian teenage school girls who were beheaded with machetes as they were walking home from school in Poso, Central Sulawesi (a fourth girl escaped with wounds);
• Joel Flores, accused of having murdered United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) member Jose Doton (gunned down by two men on a motorcycle on 16 May 2006), was brought to trial for the murder on 3 October 2007 (it was the first case of the murder of a UCCP member since 2004 in which someone has been arrested for murder and brought to trial); and,
• Pastor Rinaldy Damanik, who was released from imprisonment in Indonesia on false weapons charges in November 2004 (he received 76,000 letters of support internationally while he was in prison).

United Church of Christ in the Philippines Member Murdered

Prepared June 2010

The way of death is persecution of the good, pursuing revenge, not pitying a poor man, not labouring for the afflicted, advocating for the rich, lawlessly judging the poor. Be delivered, children, from all this.

(Didache, late first/early second century) (Paraphrased)

On Sunday 16 May, Samson “Mike” Rivera, an active member of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP), was shot dead shortly before he was to attend a church service in Calapan. He got out of a car at 9:15 am in front of the Calapan United Evangelical Church when two men shot him in the head and chest.

Mike Rivera was the Chairperson of the UCCP United Evangelical Church in Calapan City, member of the council of the UCCP Mindoro Conference (a ‘Conference’ being a regional grouping of churches in the UCCP, similar to a Presbytery in the Uniting Church in Australia) and a well known anti-mining activist. He was an office bearer in the non-government organisation Kaunsayan Formation for Community Development (Kafcode), which advocates for environmental protection amongst other things. His wife, Doris, is currently director for Kafcode. Mike Rivera worked for the provincial government. The UCCP has condemned his brutal murder.

Mike Rivera, Martyr

Take Action Now: points to include in your email (see below – You Can Help)

Points to make in your email:

• Express your deep concern and regret at the brutal murder of Samson Rivera in front of the church he attended on Sunday 16 May.
• Seek assurances that the murder will be thoroughly investigated and those responsible for planning it and carrying it out will be brought to justice.

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