Here in the United States we often see a lot of politics within city governments when it comes to whether or not a church can get a permit. I remember one church I attended for awhile was trying to buy land and a building and the city told us that we needed to have some off the wall type of fire alarms installed that really no other places of business did. Needless to say, the church never got that property and the city won.
So when I saw this story over at Compass Direct today, regarding a precious Pastor who purchased land for a church in 2007 and also built a house on the land, now having problems in Zanzibar because the Muslims in the area "didn't like seeing a church in the area", and now they are building a mosque three feet from his land!
And to top it off, the Muslims also destroyed the structure's foundation which the church had already built.
Here's more information from the Compass Direct article:
With the district police chief sealing off any possibility of a court hearing, the church was unable to proceed with plans for building a permanent structure. In the meantime, construction of a mosque was well underway. It was completed by the end of December 2009.The planned church building’s fate appeared to have been sealed earlier this year when Western District Commissioner Ali Mohammed Ali notified Pastor Masegi that he had no right to hold worship in a “residential house.” The Feb. 16 letter from the commissioner to Pastor Masegi forbidding him to convert his house into a worship center confirmed the decision by the district chief of Bububu police station not to prosecute those who destroyed the foundation of the planned church building, he said.
“Now the Christian faithful are feeling targeted even by the government officials,” said Pastor Masegi. “The region is predominantly Muslim, and attempts at evangelizing are always met with brutal resistance.”
