Muslim family members kill recent convert to Christianity

A Muslim teacher at an Islamic school in eastern Uganda who became a Christian on Oct. 4 was killed on Oct. 21, area sources said.

Wanjala Hamidu was a teacher at Swidiki Islamic School in Nankoma, Bugiri District, four kilometers from his home in Masita village, where his brothers beat him to death after learning he had put his faith in Christ, the sources said. Hamidu was 32.

Hamidu converted to Christianity at an Oct. 4 evangelistic event in Bulange that he attended with his brother, Wulasiyo Swamadu. As Hamidu remained after the event for further Christian teaching, Swamadu returned home and told other Muslim family members about his conversion, said an area source who spoke with villagers and Christian sources.

Word of Hamidu’s new faith spread quickly in Masita and at the school, where the head-teacher learned of it and planned to fire him at the end of the school term, the source said. On Oct. 21, four of his brothers arrived at the school led by Hiire Isifu and Hawumba Jamada and found Hamidu teaching, he said.

After the brothers had a long meeting with administrators, the school officials gave them permission to take him and his belongings back to his home village of Masita, the source said. Upon their arrival, he said, the brothers ordered Hamidu to renounce Christ, but he refused.

Isifu slapped him as the other brothers looked for a stick to beat him with the 39 blows they believed Islam prescribes for apostates, said the area Christian source.

“We heard a very loud cry, wailing and alarm that required help and attention, so neighbors thronged in large numbers to the scene of the incident,” the source told Morning Star News. “When we arrived, we found Hamidu on the ground held tightly by his three brothers bleeding as the brothers were shouting, ‘Infidel, infidel, shame, shame to our family.’”

Hamidu’s mother stood nearby shouting for help, but no one dared to defy the Muslims and their vigilante administration of sharia (Islamic law), the source said. Uganda’s constitution and other laws provide for religious freedom, including the right to propagate one’s faith and convert from one faith to another.

“Soon he was dead and lying in a pool of blood,” the source said. “He had deep injuries in the head and chest from a sharp object that hit him.”

The source had called police, who soon arrived, and the brothers fled, he said.

Local council security members were still searching for the four brothers, who remain missing since killing Hamidu, the source said.

Worldwide, most Islamic jurists believe sharia – derived from the Quran, the Hadith (a collection of teachings, sayings and deeds of Muhammad) and the Sunnah (body of traditions about and practices by Muhammad) – holds that apostasy is a crime that should be punished by death.

Police took Hamidu’s body to Bugiri for autopsy, and his family later received it for burial.

The attack marked the second killing of a Christian convert in eastern Uganda in October. Muslim extremists on Oct. 30 killed evangelist Emmanuel Dikusooka, a 29-year-old father of three children, after he helped lead 18 Muslims to Christ at an event in Kaliro District and refused their demand to return to Islam.

The killing of Hamidu was the latest of many instances of persecution of Christians in Uganda that Morning Star News has documented.

Muslims make up no more than 12 percent of Uganda’s population, with high concentrations in eastern areas of the country.