***News Release***
Save the Persecuted Christians Coalition Signs Letter to Mike Pompeo Warning of Sudan Engagement
85 Signers Say Sudan’s National Intelligence and Security Service Facilitates Global Terrorism and Harasses, Arrests, Tortures and Falsely Accuses Moderate Muslims and Christians
WASHINGTON—The Save the Persecuted Christians (STPC) Coalition has joined 84 other signers to send an important letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo with a warning regarding U.S. engagement in Sudan.
The signers, which include Sudanese people, friends of the Sudanese and longtime observers of the Sudan regime, wrote that the leaders of Sudan have outlasted and outsmarted several U.S. administrations because they and their counterparts in the Muslim Brotherhood are committed to a long-term vision.
“They succeed at advancing their agenda because they can count on the U.S. and the international community to focus on short-term gains at the expense of long-term transformational objectives that yield real and sustainable international peace and security,” the letter stated. “The U.S. government seems to believe it has found a reliable source of intelligence in the Sudan regime. The Sudan regime knows what the U.S. wants and it is willing to temporarily and partially cooperate to gain access to financial markets. Once Sudan has what it wants, what will be the incentive for it to continue to cooperate with the United States? The Sudan regime is loyal to no one as evidenced by its opportunistic relationships with Russia, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Egypt and a variety of terrorist groups in Libya, in Mali, Hamas, the LRA, al-Shabab and al-Qaeda, and others in the region.
“If the U.S. removes Sudan from the list of states that sponsor terrorism, a designation that accurately defines the regime, the financial fortunes of the regime (not the people of Sudan) will improve and the U.S. will have empowered a regime guilty of supporting terrorism, committing genocide and destroying the lives of millions of people, including American citizens. For an administration that is committed to keeping terrorists out of the United States, it is difficult to fathom why the State Department would issue a visa to Mohammed Atta al-Moula, the recent former head of Sudan’s National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS), the arm of the Sudan regime that carries out the crimes of the regime and controls the country through violent oppression. Atta is now the Chargé d’Affaires for the Sudan Embassy in Washington, DC. While U.S. agencies may think they will have more direct access to the intelligence they seek, the U.S. is also giving a leader of worldwide intelligence networks, including terrorist networks, direct access to the United States of America. Atta is a serious national security threat.”
The signers of the letter also noted that NISS prevents religious freedom by harassing, arresting and falsely accusing moderate Muslims and Christian leaders.
“On behalf of the state, NISS seizes and destroys property of Christian organizations and does not allow new structures to be built,” the letter noted. “Atta directly managed this process as he assigned the NISS officer, Mohammed Abdalla, to head the Christian department within the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Endowment.”
Read the entire text of the Sudan letter to Pompeo here.
The STPC Coalition, which advocates on behalf of 215 million Christians facing heavy persecution worldwide, works diligently to disseminate actionable information about ways in which the American people can help those like the people of Sudan who are being persecuted for their faith.
Raising awareness is an important first step, especially as Christian persecution occurs so routinely it rarely makes headlines. For example, according to Open Doors, 255 Christians are killed worldwide every month. 104 Christians are abducted. 180 Christian women are raped, sexually assaulted or forced into marriage. 160 Christians are detained or imprisoned without trial. And 66 churches are attacked. Every month.
With such staggering statistics, and the knowledge that most of these crimes are not covered in the media, the STPC Coalition developed a special news aggregator—www.ChristianPersecutionNews.com—to capture those present-day stories of persecution that do make the news and to provide Coalition members an easy way to share these heartbreaking stories with others.
One of the ways Americans can render support is by encouraging their pastors and faith leaders to visit www.SaveThePersecutedChristians.org and order a free banner to display in front of their houses of worship. These simple banners feature a graphic “Save Us” plea with a cross and the coalition’s website where Americans can learn about the global persecution of Christians and find out more about what they can do to help stop the violence.
With so much of the world’s population attacked, imprisoned or exiled for their beliefs—much like the Sudanese have—the time is fitting for the work of the STPC Coalition. The Coalition is a building movement like one in the 1970s that helped free another population suffering from heavy persecution—Soviet Jews—so as to impel policy changes that will hold the persecutors accountable and increase the costs for their crimes against humanity. Building such a movement is necessary to provide American policymakers the leverage needed to influence change worldwide and to alleviate the suffering of those who are being persecuted merely because of their faith in Jesus Christ.
###
