WORLD METHOISM

Fiji Govt bans all

Methodist meetings

except

Sunday worship

SUVA (Fiji) – The Fijian Government has banned all Methodist Church meetings except for Sunday worship in an unprecedented crackdown on religious freedom here. This includes house groups, women’s prayer fellowship, choir practice, mid-week communion and youth fellowship, as well as the governance meetings of the Methodist Church in Fiji and Rotuma.

Having withdrawn the permit for the Church’s Annual Conference the evening before the event was due to start on Aug 23, the interim government has now notified the Church in a letter from the Fiji Military Council that all other meetings of the Methodist Church are forbidden. All Methodist ministers are also forbidden from leaving the country for any meeting.

Early in August, the Fijian Interim Prime Minister Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama lifted the ban prohibiting Methodists in Fiji from holding their Annual Conference until 2014, on the condition that business would take place over no more than three days. In the later part of the month, however, church leaders in Britain learned that the interim Government had withdrawn permission for the conference because of charges pending against the President and General Secretary of the Methodist Church in Fiji.

The Methodist Church here is responding with prayer and fasting. It is the only group to receive this treatment by the government.

The World Methodist Council calls on the global Methodist/Wesleyan family to earnestly pray for the Church in Fiji and its witness, that the government leaders allow the Church to meet and conduct its rightful business, and that a peaceful rule of democracy occur.

“We call upon the member churches of the World Methodist Council to join us in sending letters of support to the Methodist Church of Fiji and Rotuma in care of the Rev Tevita Banivanua (methodistchdgs@connect.com.fj),” it adds. –  United Methodist News Service, World Methodist Council.