Over 700 Christians were being held in mosques in late December on the Moluccan island of Keswui in Indonesia and were being forced to either convert to Islam or face execution. Some 93 Christians have already been killed and hundreds forced to convert. At least 20 were forcibly circumcised as a sign of their 'conversion'.
In another recent incident of mass forced conversion over 1,150 Christian men and boys from the town of Bacan were forcibly circumcised and a minister tortured and killed. Elsewhere in the Moluccas Islands over 5,000 Christians have been forced to convert to Islam and many Christian women made to marry Muslim men, thus forcing their conversion in the eyes of their Islamic extremist tormentors.
Dressed in traditional Islamic clothes and cap, the Christians of Keswui endured a conversion ceremony in a mosque while Islamic warriors stood guard. One said: 'We agreed because we were concerned for the safety of our children'.
