{"id":4355,"date":"2023-01-26T08:07:01","date_gmt":"2023-01-26T08:07:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/assault-on-pastor-leads-to-charges-against-him\/"},"modified":"2023-01-26T08:07:01","modified_gmt":"2023-01-26T08:07:01","slug":"assault-on-pastor-leads-to-charges-against-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/assault-on-pastor-leads-to-charges-against-him\/","title":{"rendered":"Assault on Pastor Leads to Charges Against Him"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On Sept. 21, Pastor Tony Benjamin of Anuradhapura province in Sri Lanka investigated a noise outside his gate and was assaulted by two men with a shovel, demanding that he stop his religious activities. He was able to crawl back into the house before the men began breaking windows and causing other damage. When the pastor&rsquo;s son heard the commotion and responded, he too was knocked down and beaten, then hospitalized for three days for his injuries. During the initial investigation, the police promised to arrest the two attackers, but six days later they instead filed charges against Pastor Tony for inciting the attack. Though the charges were proved false, local officials sealed the family&rsquo;s home and confiscated church property. The family and church members ask for prayers that they would be strengthened in their faith and be bold witnesses for Christ amid this persecution.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/globalprayerguide\/sri-lanka\/?_source_code=WBPGGPG20B\">Click here<\/a> to find out about Christian persecution in Sri Lanka and learn how to pray.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.icommittopray.com\/request\/2456\/pastor-tony\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Post a prayer for Pastor Tony on iCommitToPray.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Sept. 21, Pastor Tony Benjamin of Anuradhapura province in Sri Lanka investigated a noise outside his gate and was assaulted by two men with a shovel, demanding that he stop his religious activities. He was able to crawl back into the house before the men began breaking windows and causing other damage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":181,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-i-commit-to-pray","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Assault on Pastor Leads to Charges Against Him - Stories<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/assault-on-pastor-leads-to-charges-against-him\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Assault on Pastor Leads to Charges Against Him - Stories\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"On Sept. 21, Pastor Tony Benjamin of Anuradhapura province in Sri Lanka investigated a noise outside his gate and was assaulted by two men with a shovel, demanding that he stop his religious activities. 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