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Russia: Congresses disrupted, website blocked
» Forum 18 News ServicePolice and local officials who disrupted a Jehovah's Witness congress in southern Russia in July used cars, dustcarts and power cuts to prevent it from going ahead, before sealing off the building on alleged security grounds, Forum 18 News Service has learned. Other congresses elsewhere were disrupted or blocked. "Everywhere the pattern's the same," Jehovah's Witness Grigory Martynov told Forum 18. "The police seal the building saying they're looking for a suspicious item. When nothing is found, it doesn't matter - the main point is to disrupt the congress." Meanwhile, as part of a crackdown on websites with "extremist content", a court in the Russian far east has - for the first time - ordered an internet service provider to block local access to the Jehovah's Witnesses' Watchtower website. Other sites - including YouTube - have also been ordered blocked on prosecutors' suits, but Valentina Glazova of Khabarovsk Regional Prosecutor's Office denies that these represent censorship. "Our office supervises the implementation of the law," she told Forum 18. "Access to extremist material on websites should be blocked." As of 7 September, the Russian Federation had not challenged a European Court of Human Right ruling in favour of Moscow's Jehovah's Witness community, which becomes final on 10 September. -
Tajikistan: Officials choose Ramadan to impose controls
» Forum 18 News ServiceOn the first full day of Ramadan, the Chair and other officials of the Tajikistan government's Religious Affairs Committee, as well as the Justice Ministry and the National Security Committee secret police, visited the Dushanbe headquarters of the Islamic Revival Party (IRP) to order it to halt using its offices for prayers. "We do not officially call it a mosque but do pray in it. However, the officials take a different view on this," Hikmatullo Saifullozoda of the IRP told Forum 18 News Service. Officials agreed to allow prayers there but only for the rest of Ramadan. Presidential Senior Advisor Mansur Sayfutdinov told Forum 18 that according to the law, no political organisation may establish a mosque. Authorities in a town in Sughd Region chose the start of Ramadan to ban the use of loudspeakers to broadcast Muslim prayers. The Religious Affairs Committee has reaffirmed the 2009 ban on children taking part in the haj pilgrimage to Mecca. And the investigator has refused to tell Forum 18 whether the criminal case against 17 Jehovah's Witnesses will be sent to court. -
Tajikistan: "Your children will become extremists and terrorists"
» Forum 18 News ServiceA new crackdown is underway on religious education of children and young people in Tajikistan and abroad, Forum 18 News Service notes. In televised remarks, President Emomali Rahmon called on parents to recall their children from foreign Islamic colleges, claiming that otherwise "your children will become extremists and terrorists". "We ourselves, the government and the Religious Affairs Committee, will decide how many religious ministers are needed for the country," he insisted. Presidential Advisor Mansur Sayfutdinov claimed to Forum 18 that the president was speaking not of all such students, but only those who had not sought state permission for such studies. Meanwhile, the Interior Ministry launched an apparently nationwide "Operation Madrassah" to end private teaching of Islam, which has seen many madrassahs raided and administrative cases launched against teachers. "We have only identified and stopped illegally acting mullahs who have no licence to teach the Koran," one police officer told Forum 18. Article 474 of the Administrative Code prescribes fines for "teaching religious knowledge without authorisation". -
Azerbaijan: No re-registration, no building - no worship
» Forum 18 News ServiceCathedral of Praise Protestant church in Baku - which claims 1,500 members - has been unable to meet for worship since its tent was destroyed in an apparent arson attack in January, its pastor Rasim Halilov told Forum 18 News Service. Its re-registration application was rejected because some of its founders had changed since 2002, a decision it failed to overturn in court. The State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations said it cannot use another church for worship. Similarly failing to overturn its re-registration denial in court was Baku's Jehovah's Witness community, though it has been able to continue to meet. Eight months after the deadline, only 450 communities have gained compulsory re-registration, including 433 mosques and only 2 Protestant churches. Re-registration for the Catholics - who were forced to apply only for their Baku parish, not for a community covering the whole of Azerbaijan - awaits the outcome of discussions between the nuncio and the Foreign Ministry. -
Turkmenistan: Five years' imprisonment for arrested Protestant pastor?
» Forum 18 News ServicePentecostal pastor Ilmurad Nurliev, arrested at his home in Mary in south-eastern Turkmenistan on 27 August, faces criminal charges of large-scale swindling which carry a maximum penalty of five years' imprisonment and confiscation of property, his wife Maya and his lawyer have told Forum 18 News Service. Two women who had attended church meetings wrote statements that he took money from them, as did a man they had never heard of, charges his wife and other church members deny vigorously. They say police pressured the two women to write the statements and they now regret doing so. Another church member has been threatened that if she does not testify against Pastor Nurliev her husband - who is not a church member - will be sacked from his job. Forum 18 was unable to discuss the case with officials, including police investigator Durdimurad Gazakov. Meanwhile, mystery surrounds why two imams were arrested and given long prison terms. -
Russia: First criminal charges against Jehovah's Witnesses, Nursi reader sentenced
» Forum 18 News ServiceIlham Islamli has become the first reader of the works of the Muslim theologian Said Nursi - some of which are banned in Russia - to be convicted under the Criminal Code and punished under extremism-related charges, Forum 18 News Service notes. After two months' pre-trial detention, Islamli was given a suspended sentence on 18 August by a court in Nizhny Novgorod for publishing Nursi's works in Russian on a website he ran. A criminal case against another Nursi reader continues in Dagestan, though the case against a third has been dropped. For the first time, extremism-related criminal cases have now also been opened against three named individual Jehovah's Witnesses. Launched after mass raids on his congregation, the case against Jehovah's Witness elder Maksim Kalinin is said to have involved FSB security police surveillance using a secret video camera in his home, as well as their tapping of telephone calls made by seven other Jehovah's Witnesses. In Altai Republic, extremism charges have already been brought against local Jehovah's Witness leader Aleksandr Kalistratov, who faces possible imprisonment of up to three years if convicted. -
Uzbekistan: "The Court decided so"
» Forum 18 News ServiceUzbekistan continues punishing peaceful religious activity and imprisoning prisoners of conscience, Forum 18 News Service has learned. Three Muslims have been given five years in prison, with one Protestant being given 10 days in jail. Six Muslims have been fined 70 times the minimum monthly salary, and one Protestant has been fined almost 10 times the minimum monthly salary. Defending his decision to punish the nine Muslims, Judge Bakhtiyor Rustamov told Forum 18 that the defendants read the works of Said Nursi, which are banned in Uzbekistan. When asked why long prison terms were imposed, Rustamov stated that "I cannot tell you over the phone, it's a long case". Judge Bahadyr Shahanov would not say why he punished the Protestants, but said it was an administrative penalty. "The Court decided so," he said. When asked why the jailed Protestant, Rustam Kalabayev, was not given a copy of the verdict, Judge Shahanov claimed that "he has signed a paper that he received it." Kalabayev denies this claim, and his fellow-believers point out that the conduct of the trial breached Uzbek legal procedures. -
Russia: "A plan of organisational and operational search measures"
» Forum 18 News ServiceRussian state officials have repeatedly refused to explain why and by whom moves against Jehovah's Witnesses and readers of the works of Muslim theologian Said Nursi were initiated. Forum 18 News Service notes that internal government documents, from a wide geographic spread of regions, reveal that the campaign is co-ordinated at a high level. Both Jehovah's Witnesses and Nursi readers have been targeted in ways that suggest that their believers and communities are closely watched by the police and FSB security service - both within and outside their communities. One police document cites "a plan of organisational and operational search measures to expose, warn and stop the illegal activity of representatives of the religious organisation the Jehovah's Witnesses". Another document refers to an Interior Ministry directive "with the aims of securing law and order, anti-terrorist protection and security at especially important and government sites, and aggression in countering the intrusion of xenophobia, and racial and religious extremism". A further document reveals that police shared "operational information" about a named Jehovah's Witness with a Russian Orthodox Church diocese. Private employers and public libraries have also been ordered to co-operate in the campaign.
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18:04 Burning a Quran
» Do you ever hear stories that break your heart so much that you don’t quite know what to do? The recent news that the non-denominational Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla is planning to burn Qurans on September 11th had this affect on me. I couldn’t believe that a group of Christians wanted to [...]
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10:55
Azerbaijan Gov't Hassles Unregistered Evangelical Church
» The Christian Post RSS Feed | PersecutionAn evangelical megachurch in the former Soviet Union state of Azerbaijan has been kept from meeting for worship since January because of a string of bureaucratic obstacles.
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9:40
Somali Christian Killed, Four Children Kidnapped
» Compass Direct News
Al Shabaab insurgents allegedly seek to train young ones as Islamist soldiers.
NAIROBI, Kenya, September 7 (CDN) — Another member of an underground Christian movement in Somalia has been murdered by Muslim insurgents in a continuing campaign to eliminate converts from Islam.
Area sources said al Shabaab militants entered the house of Osman Abdullah Fataho in Afgoi, 30 kilometers (19 miles) from Mogadishu in Shibis district, at 10:30 the night of July 21 and shot him dead in front of his wife and children.
Fataho was a long-time Christian deeply involved in the activities of the small, secret Christian community, sources said. Area Christians said they suspected someone had informed the insurgents of Fataho’s faith.
The assailants abducted his wife and children, later releasing her on the condition that she surrender the little ones to be trained as soldiers, sources said.
“We know they have taken the children to brain-wash them, to change their way of life from Christian to Muslim and to teach them the Quran,” said one source. “Al Shabaab was aware that her husband was a Christian, but they were not sure of her faith.”
Abducted were 5-year-old Ali Daud Fataho, 7-year-old Fatuma Safia Fataho, 10-year-old Sharif Ahmed Fataho and Nur Said Fataho, 15.
A Christian leader who attended Fataho’s funeral on July 22 said that one of the slain man’s relatives noted that the insurgents had targeted him because he had left Islam. The al Shabaab militants are said to have links with al Qaeda.
The incident has spread fear among the faithful in the lawless country, much of which lies in the grip of ruthless insurgents intent on rooting out any person professing Christianity. Leaders of the Christian underground movement have been forced to flee their homes to avoid being killed by the insurgents, said one leader who together with seven others has temporarily moved to an undisclosed area.
The leader added that he was unable to go to his office for fear of falling into the hands of the hard-line Islamic insurgents.
Al Shabaab, which controls large parts of central Somalia, recently banned radio stations from playing music and outlawed bell ringing that signals the end of school classes “because they sound like church bells.”
In 2009 Islamic militants in Somalia sought out and killed at least 15 Christians, including women and children. This year, on Jan. 1 al Shabaab insurgents murdered 41-year-old Mohammed Ahmed Ali after the Christian had left his home in Hodan, on the outskirts of Mogadishu.
On March 15, al Shabaab rebels shot Madobe Abdi to death on March 15 at 9:30 a.m. in Mahaday village, 50 kilometers (31 miles) north of Jowhar. Abdi’s death was distinctive in that he was not a convert from Islam. An orphan, Abdi was raised as a Christian.
On May 4, the militants shot Yusuf Ali Nur to death in Xarardheere, about 60 kilometers (37 miles) from Jowhar. The 57-year-old Nur had been on a list of people al Shabaab suspected of being Christian, sources who spoke on condition of anonymity told Compass.
The transitional government in Mogadishu fighting to retain control of the country treats Christians little better than the al Shabaab insurgents do. While proclaiming himself a moderate, President Sheikh Sharif Sheik Ahmed has embraced a version of sharia (Islamic law) that mandates the death penalty for those who leave Islam.
END
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Cuba Drops Charges Against Church Leader
» Worthy Christian News » Christian Persecutionby George Whitten, Worthy News International Correspondent
Robert Rodriguez arrested on trumped up charges in Cuba. Photo provided by CSW.
HAVANA, CUBA (Worthy News)-- Cuba has released and dropped all charges of "threatening behavior" against a well-known church after his accusers gave contradictory evidence against him, a Christian human rights organization said Monday, September 7.
Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) said Reverend Robert Rodriguez was freed and is now recuperating at home after being found not guilty.
He was arrested last Monday, August 30, and taken to a town in central Cuba where he stood trial.
Prosecutors recommended that Reverend Rodriguez be given a 1-year prison sentence, but following the contradictory evidence given by his accusers, the Rodriguez family believes the tribunal had no choice but to find him not guilty. However, the court handed down a fine to the church leader for reasons that are unclear, according to CSW.
Rodriguez, the former national president of the Interdenominational Fellowship of Evangelical Pastors and Ministers (CIMPEC), became a government target when he led his organization to withdraw publicly from a government sanctioned religious umbrella group in the second half of 2008.
CIMPEC formally withdrew from the Cuban Council of Churches, citing constant government interference in their internal affairs.
CONTROVERSIAL CHARGES
Christians said the criminal charges against Rodriguez are an attempt to discredit and silence him. Cuban officials had no comment.
Charges were first brought against Reverend Rodriguez in late 2008 but no trial date materialized, and he has spent the last 21 months under house arrest. Meanwhile, his family has suffered verbal and physical abuse from their neighbors, apparently acting with the support of the government, and their house has been vandalized, CSW explained.
“CSW welcomes the news that Reverend Rodriguez was found not guilty of the charges against him,” said CSW Chief Executive Mervvn Thomas.
CWS calls on the Cuban government to make restitution to the family for the damages caused to their house by their now discredited accusers, as well as being allowed to return to their home with the guarantees of full protection as is their right as citizens of Cuba.
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19:56
Pakistan: some Christians denied aid unless they convert to Islam
» Christians Under Attack
The head of an organization that combats anti-Christian persecution charges that some Pakistani Christian families are being denied flood aid unless they convert to Islam -
19:54
Bogor church congregation defies threats, authorities
» Christians Under AttackThe congregation of the Indonesian Christian Church (GKI) in Taman Yasmin, Bogor, West Java, on Sunday broke the padlock of their unfinished church and prayed together on the construction site in protest of the Bogor municipal administration’s decision to seal the church indefinitely.
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11:58
Buddhists in India Assault Christian Aid Worker, Friend
» Compass Direct News
Assailants, still at large, abduct and threaten blind volunteer, associate and pregnant wife.
NEW DELHI, September 6 (CDN) — A visually impaired Christian and his friend accused drunken Buddhists of abducting and assaulting them last week after the blind volunteer distributed relief material in a Buddhist-majority town in a region of India devastated by recent floods.
The attackers are still at large after the assault on Wednesday (Sept .1) in the town of Leh in Jammu and Kashmir state’s Ladakh region, where flooding and landslides destroyed hundreds of houses and killed around 200 people on Aug. 6.
The attackers, identified as members of the Ladakh Buddhist Association (LBA), one of the region’s largest and most influential Non-Governmental Organizations, abducted Ram Kumar Thapa, Stanzin Chosphel and his pregnant wife Putali Sherpa because of their Christian faith and beat the men, the victims said.
Thapa, a blind music teacher in his 30s, was abducted from Mahabodhi Gate in Choglamsar area in Leh, where he was distributing relief material, at around 7 p.m. on Wednesday, according to the complaint he filed on Thursday (Sept. 2) with the Jammu and Kashmir State Human Rights Commission.
LBA members were upset that Thapa was preaching Christianity to displaced residents, according to his complaint. The Evangelical Fellowship of India Commission on Relief, a Christian relief agency, is rebuilding homes for the displaced people, mostly Buddhists, in the area.
“I was attacked physically by several unknown assailants before other witnesses nearby,” Thapa stated in the complaint. “Then these men forced me into a vehicle and continued beating me all over my body as they spoke in Ladakhi to each other.”
Thapa, from the eastern state of West Bengal, also stated that the Buddhists contemplated killing him. “They discussed whether to take my life or return to the ‘office,’” he said.
The assailants took Thapa to the office of the LBA in Soma Monastery, where a Buddhist monk was also present, and beat him again, he stated. He was then moved to a room where he could hear the voice of his friend, Chosphel, with his pregnant wife.
Chosphel, a convert from Buddhism, is from Ladakh and his wife is from Nepal. The Buddhist assailants had taken them from their house in the Skalzaling area in Leh after Thapa, under pressure from the LBA members, identified them as his associates, according to the Christian victims.
The attackers showed Thapa’s bruised and bleeding face to Chosphel to warn him against continuing as a Christian, Thapa stated. He was then taken back to the vehicle.
“They placed a gunny sack with a rope onto my lap and explained that this would be my last bed ... [after] they throw me into the Indus River and see if a blind man can swim and save himself,” Thapa stated. “I became terribly afraid, since I could smell alcohol on their breath as we sat in the vehicle.”
Thapa begged that his life be spared “so I could see my wife, who must be worried since it was late now.” The kidnappers replied, “Your wife will see you when she finds your body by the river bank,” he stated.
Thapa and his wife, also visually impaired, teach and live at Mahabodhi Residential School for handicapped children.
Thapa stated that when he asked what they wanted from him, “they said I had to leave Ladakh with my family within two days or else they would kill me and my family. It was around 1 a.m. when they dropped me back to my house, bruised and trembling.”
Thapa went to the Housing Colony Police Station on Thursday (Sept. 2) and found out that Chosphel also was there to file his complaint.
Chosphel confirmed that the “office” they were taken to belonged to the LBA. In his complaint to the commission, Chosphel said that around 15 “heavily drunken” men came to abduct him and his wife in their black Bolero, a mid-size SUV.
In the courtyard of the LBA facility, the Buddhists beat Chosphel before his wife, who pleaded for them to stop and asked why they were being assaulted.
“They threatened to beat her as well if she did not keep silent,” Chosphel stated. “Then they dragged me into a room and gagged my mouth so I could not cry out as they beat me with rubber pipes and rods and fists continuously. All along they kept telling me to leave my wife and also renounce my faith in Christianity and return to Buddhism.”
The men released the couple at around 12:30 a.m. after giving them two days to leave Leh or convert to Buddhism, Chosphel stated, “or else they will chop my wife into pieces and kill me and also kill my family ... who are still practicing Buddhists.”
The attackers also confiscated their mobile phones.
The victims told Compass that they were still facing a threat on their lives even after filing complaints with police.
Additional Superintendent of Police Stanzin Nurboo told Compass that no one had been arrested because the victims could not name the accused.
Chosphel and his wife, however, told Compass that they would be able to identify the attackers if they saw their faces; at press time, however, they said police had not contacted any of them to do so.
Religious conversion is a sensitive issue in Leh, which borders Pakistan and Tibet, as it is seen as an attack on its distinct religious and cultural identity.
Citing religious and cultural differences with the otherwise Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir state, some residents of Ladakh have been asking for union territory status for the region.
As a concession, the Ladakh region was bifurcated into Muslim-majority Kargil district and Buddhist-majority Leh district in 1979, and the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council was also created in 1995 to grant some autonomy to Leh and Kargil districts.
The government of Jammu and Kashmir continues to have responsibility for maintaining law and order and is in charge of the judicial system, communications and higher education.
Of the population of 117,232, over 80 percent of the people in Leh are Buddhist. Muslims make up around 15 percent of the population, Hindus 3 percent and Christians 0.2 percent.
END
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12:17
Mosque 'slumlord'
» Christians Under Attack -
11:48
Scandal Saudi deportation of all Copts to not build a church
» Christians Under Attack
Deportation of all the Copts Saudi Arabia in order to prevent the construction of churches
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Iranian Christian Detained in Ahvaz
» Worthy Christian News » Christian PersecutionBy Joseph C. DeCaro, Worthy News International Correspondent
AHVAZ, IRAN (Worthy News)-- Members of a home-based church in the city of Ahvaz are worried about one of their own who has not been heard from since his arrest, Worthy News has learned.
The 27 year-old Neshan Saeedi was arrested by plain-clothes security forces that entered his house on July 24.
The security officers searched his home and seized personal belongings: a computer, CDs of Christian seminars and teachings, Christian books, Bibles, and family photo albums.
Saeedi's family was taken to Chaharshir detention center in Ahvaz for several hours of questioning and harsh interrogation. Security officers said they were apostates who were unworthy of raising their 6 year-old daughter, and if they continued their Christian activities, they might lose custody of her. They were also accused of anti-government activities by acting as agents of foreign powers.
After the interogation, the wife and daughter were released, but no one has seen Saeedi since.
After the arrest, members of the home-based church who fellowshipped with Saeedi have scattered and disbanded. Security agents are desperately seeking two other leaders of the church while Saeedi is presumed to be under great pressure to reveal the names of all church members.
CHRISTIANITY SPREADING
Elam Ministries, an organization supporting churches in Iran, has linked the crackdown on Christians to concern among Iran's leaders about the spread of Christianity in the Islamic nation. "Because Iran is a strategic gateway nation, the growing church in Iran will impact Muslim nations across the Islamic world."
The group said recently that in 1979, there were less than 500 known Christians from a Muslim background in Iran. "Today the most conservative estimate is that there are at least 100,000 believers in the nation."
The perceived hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has come under international pressure to improve religious rights and abandon his nuclear program. He has denied wrongdoing. -
“Daughters of Cambodia” Frees Girls from Sex Industry
» Worthy Christian News » Christian Persecutionby Marshall Ramsey II, Worthy News US Correspondent
Phnom Phen, Cambodia (Worthy News)-- Daughters of Cambodia, a Christian outreach and rehabilitation program started by British missionary Ruth Elliott, is working to free girls sold into the sex slave industry, Worthy News has learned.
Ruth Elliott has been working in Cambodia for six years to bring girls sold as sex slaves out of the trade. Since 2004, Elliott has worked near the red light district, confronting the practitioners of prostitution head-on, trying to bring them out of the sex trade into a new career and a saving relationship with Jesus Christ.
LAUNCHING OUT
According to Elliott, God called her from the time she was 14 for this work. "The Lord began to speak to me," she told CBN. "He wanted me to go into the places that were worst and to facilitate healing the brokehearted and setting the captives free."
In Cambodia, 90% of the prostitutes in the sex trade industry are sold into it by their parents. A number of the girls say their families depend on them for support so they feel obligated to stay.
"They live in the pit of Hell. It's the truth," Ruth said, speaking on the victims' situation. "And they experience horrendous trauma when they come out."
A NEW BEGINNING
Daughters of Cambodia is a day-center started by Elliott that is located near the brothels. They make their own clothing, fashion accessories, and home furnishings and market them locally and overseas.
"We had to start small businesses, which are fair trade businesses, in order for the girls to exit the sex industry," she said. "For without another job, it is just impossible for them to leave the sex industry."
The Daughters of Cambodia center teaches the girls not only new work skills, they also learn valuable lessons for establishing a healthy family and home. "Things like domestic violence prevention, conflict resolution skills, budgeting skills, this kind of thing," Elliott explained. "[Also] drug prevention." Up to 60 girls at a time participate in the program, earning money for rent, food, and other needs.
BRINGING IN JESUS
In addition to teaching the girls how to survive without using their bodies to make money, Elliott also introduces the girls to Jesus Christ. And not to them only, but also to the brothel owners.
"We do build a relationship with the brothel owners and they are welcome in our church program," she said. "We want brothel owners to come. We want pimps to come. We want everyone in the sex industry to come to our church because we believe in the power of Jesus to change everyone's life."
"This involves going directly into the brothels and inviting sex workers who are in the sex industry in Cambodia to change their lives, if they are interested in doing that," she explained.
The message of unconditional love from Jesus Christ is producing great results, especially among the girls. "They respond very quickly to the gospel because they have never in their lives experienced love -- unconditional love and acceptance," Elliott said. "And many of them become Christians as a result of this."
GOD'S POWER AT WORK
The work is not easy. And while it can be dangerous, God's power to protect them is evident in a mighty way. "I have to say we have never, ever, not even one day, had any problems, any brothel owners turn up at our door demanding a girl back or threatening us in any way," she proclaimed. "We have never had a single threat against us. And I can't explain that to you except I believe the grace of God is on us."
The goal of Elliott is to have her girls graduate from the program and live successfully on their own. She hopes to have other Daughters of Cambodia-style centers in other countries with similar needs.
Information for this report was provided by CBN News.
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15:46
Pak Minister wants Obama to be ''leader of all Muslims''
» Christians Under Attack -
15:40
Catholic church hall to be converted to mosque in Nova Scotia
» Christians Under Attack
Sydney - A Catholic church hall will be converted into a mosque in Sydney, Nova Scotia. The building will be used for prayers, -
8:38
Exclusive: Concerns Mounting Over Ground Zero Mosque Funding
» Christians Under Attack
NEW YORK (CBS 2) – New and disturbing questions are mounting about the source of funding for the so-called Ground Zero mosque and cultural center -
18:28
Radical Islam is world's greatest threat - Tony Blair
» Christians Under Attack
Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has described radical Islam as the greatest threat facing the world today. -
18:23
Pakistan: 4 more Christian villages deliberately flooded
» Christians Under Attack
Four Christian and Hindu villages in the southeastern Pakistani province of Sindh have been deliberately flooded, leaving over 2,800 families homeless.
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Prayer Center Complex Destroyed by Chinese Government
» Worthy Christian News » Christian PersecutionBy George Whitten, Worthy News International Correspondent
Chinese Believers sit outside amidst rubble and salvaged belongings. Photo provided by ChinaAid.
ZHEJIANG, CHINA (Worthy News)-- A prayer center complex, known as "Prayer Mountain", was destroyed in China after several elderly Christians were forcibly removed, and then watched helplessly as their building was demolished according to ChinaAid, Worthy News has learned.
Several hundred men led by Chinese police officials removed about twenty elderly Christians from the building. After their removal, the church was destroyed as they futilely watched the destruction of their complex.
Known as “Prayer Mountain,” the complex was owned by the Taishan Christian House Church (located in Qinggang District, Yuhuan county, Taizhou City, Zhejiang province), according to China Aid.
The multi-purpose church complex after destruction. Photo provided by ChinaAid.
PERSECUTION INTENSIFIES
This is the latest incident of persecution against house churches in China. According to ChinaAid, at least three house churches were shut down in early August. The house churches were part of the China Gospel Fellowship (CGF), one of the leading house church networks in China, with an estimated 5-7 million members.
The churches were forced to close down by the Chinese government because church leaders were invited to attend the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization in October 2010 at Cape Town, South Africa, according to ChinaAid.
Sources told ChinaAid that the Chinese Public Security Bureau obtained a list of 200 Chinese invitees to the convention and threatened some of them not to attend, but CGF leaders refused to back down.
"In August we have seen an increase in persecution that is alarming and unjustifiable," ChinaAid President Bob Fu told Worthy News. "We condemn the destruction of the Prayer Mountain church complex, and urge local authorities to cease their threats against the China Gospel Fellowship to prevent them from exercising their religious freedoms."
The persecution of Christians in China come amid concerns among Communist Party officials about the spread of Christianity in China, Worthy News established. Some officials recently suggested there are about 130-million Christians in China, 50-million more than previous estimates. Most of them are believed to worship in the 'underground' house churches as they do not want to gather in the Communist approved denominations. -
Cuba Detains Church Leader For “Offensive Bahavior”
» Worthy Christian News » Christian PersecutionBy George Whitten, Worthy News Director/World Affairs Correspondent
Robert Rodriguez arrested on trumped up charges in Cuba. Photo provided by CSW.
HAVANA, CUBA (Worthy News)-- Cuba has detained a well-known church leader on trumped up charges of "offensive behavior" and "threats", a Christian human rights organization said Friday, September 3.
Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) said Reverend Robert Rodriguez was arrested Monday, August 30, and taken to a town in central Cuba where he was expected to stand trial.
Reverend Robert Rodriguez is in his late 60’s and in poor health, family members said.
His arrest was so sudden that the pastor was unable to take important medication with him, CSW added. "His family fears without it, his health will continue to deteriorate as he awaits trial."
Rodriguez, the former national president of the Interdenominational Fellowship of Evangelical Pastors and Ministers (CIMPEC), became a government target when he led his organization to withdraw publicly from a government sanctioned religious umbrella group in the second half of 2008.
CIMPEC formally withdrew from the Cuban Council of Churches, citing constant government interference in their internal affairs.
CONTROVERSIAL CHARGES
Christians said the criminal charges against Rodriguez are an attempt to discredit and silence him. Cuban officials had no comment.
Charges were brought in late 2008 and Reverend Rodriguez was given three trial dates over the course of last year, but no trial ever took place, CSW explained.
"The treatment of Reverend Rodriguez and his family over the past 21 months has been disgraceful," said CSW National Director Stuart Windsor. He urged the European Union to investigate the human rights situation on the Communist0run island.
"While some heralded the release of some Cuban prisoners of conscience this summer as an improvement in the human rights situation, the arrest of Reverend Rodriguez this week demonstrates that the Cuban government is not interested in real human rights reform," Windsor said.
CSW demands that Cuban authorities release Reverend Rodriguez immediately and drop all charges against him.
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18:12
Alleged Bomber of Christian Boy in Israel to Stand Trial
» Compass Direct News
Hearing could determine whether Jack Teitel is transferred from mental hospital.
ISTANBUL, September 3 (CDN) — An Israeli man accused of planting a homemade bomb that almost killed the son of a Messianic Jewish pastor in Ariel, Israel has been declared competent to stand trial.
Jack Teitel, 37, who in November was indicted on two charges of pre-meditated murder, three charges of attempted murder and numerous weapons charges, is expected to enter a plea on Sunday (Sept. 5).
David and Leah Ortiz, parents of the teenage victim, said that the 10 months since the indictment have been difficult but their stance toward Teitel remains the same; they have forgiven him for the attack but want him to face justice before a judge and seek salvation from God.
If nothing else, they said, they want him incarcerated to keep other Messianic Jews from being attacked either by Teitel or those following his lead.
“He’s dangerous,” Leah Ortiz said. “He’s an extremely dangerous person. He’s totally unrepentant.”
Sunday’s plea will open the way for a trial expected to start within weeks and last for more than six months. Officials at a hearing possibly the same day as the scheduled plea will decide whether Teitel will be moved from the mental hospital where he has been held for most of his detainment.
It is possible Teitel will enter no plea on Sunday. He has publically stated that he doesn’t “recognize the jurisdiction” of Jerusalem District Court.
Bombing
On March 20, 2008, Ami Ortiz, then 15, opened a gift basket that someone had left anonymously at his family’s home in Ariel. The basket disappeared in a massive explosion that destroyed much of the Ortiz home and shattered Ami’s body.
When he arrived at the hospital, Ami was clinging to life. He was bleeding profusely, had burns covering much of his body and was full of needles, screws and glass fragments the bomb-maker had built into the device.
The doctors had little hope for him and listed his condition as “anush,” meaning his soul was about to leave his body.
After countless hours of surgery and even more spent in prayer, Ami went from “near dead,” to burned and blind and eventually to playing basketball on a national youth team. Both his parents said his recovery was nothing sort of a miracle from God.
‘Most Radical Evangelist’
When Teitel was arrested in October 2009, police found him hanging up posters celebrating the shooting of two teenagers at a gay and lesbian community center in Tel Aviv.
Teitel’s background is still somewhat of a mystery. An emigrant from the United States, he became an Israeli citizen in 2000, got married not long afterwards and is the father of four children. Usually portrayed in Israeli media as part ultra-orthodox ideologue and part fringe survivalist, it is clear that Teitel was motivated by a fascination with end-times prophecy and an extremely violent interpretation of Judaism and Jewish nationalism.
He is a self-described follower of such anti-missionary groups as Yad L’Achim. According to authorities, Teitel sought to kill those he deemed enemies of traditional Judaism: Palestinians, homosexuals, liberal Jewish intellectuals and, in the Ortiz case, Messianic Jews.
David Ortiz is well known in Israel, both for his activities in the Jewish community and for his efforts to expose Palestinians to the gospel.
“He said the reason why he wanted to kill me was that I was the most radical in evangelism, so I had to be first,” said Ortiz, who has seen transcripts of Teitel’s confessions.
Along with the Ortiz case, police said Teitel is responsible for the June 1997 shooting death of Samir Bablisi, a Palestinian taxi driver who was found in his cab with a single bullet wound to his head. Two months later, police said, Teitel allegedly shot Isa Jabarin, a Palestinian shepherd who was giving him driving directions to Jerusalem.
Police also said that Teitel attempted to burn down a monastery and unsuccessfully planted several bombs. He also is accused of the September 2008 bombing of Zeev Sternhell of Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The bombing left the emeritus history professor slightly wounded.
During one court hearing, Teitel flashed a victory sign and reportedly said, “It was a pleasure and honor to serve my God. God is proud of what I have done. I have no regrets.”
Long Road to Trial
David Ortiz said that as bad as the bombing itself was, waiting for the trial has been yet another ordeal.
As officials investigated the bombing, police harassed Messianic Jewish friends of theirs, saying, “If you are Jewish, why did you become a Christian?” Ortiz said.
The Ortiz family had to sue police and pay 5,000 shekels (US$1,320) to obtain a copy of a security camera video belonging to the family that police had seized as evidence. The video shows Teitel laying the basket at the Ortiz home.
“We had to hire a lawyer because we understood clearly that our rights as victims had to be protected,” said David Ortiz.
Particularly galling to the pastor has been the hands-off response of government officials to the attack.
“We are the only family in Israel that has been a victim of an attack that hasn’t been visited by a government official,” he said, adding that officials have made no public condemnation of the attack. “If the leaders do not condemn an act, it emboldens others who want to do the same thing.”
According to the International Religious Freedom Report 2009 issued by the U.S. Department of State, there are 10,000 Messianic Jews in Israel. The report documents several cases of violence against Messianic Jews, including cases where baptismal services have been disrupted, Messianic Jews have been beaten and Christian literature has been torched.
God Shows Up
Leah Ortiz said that what Teitel intended for evil, God meant for good in order to reach people.
“The Lord has taken the worst tragedy that could possibly happen and has used it for the greatest good that He possibly could,” she said.
The incident, and how the Ortiz family has dealt with it, has become a lightning rod of sorts in Israel, forcing people to think more seriously about the claims of the Messianic Jews.
In a place filled with the type of hatred that causes people to strap bombs to their bodies to kill others, the attack has given people a reason to think and, for some, to choose forgiveness and peace.
Ortiz said he has gotten calls from Palestinians who had said if he could forgive a man who bombed his child, then they can forgive what has happened to them. Orthodox Jews have called him and asked forgiveness for their hatred toward Messianic Jews. Muslims have called Ortiz offering blood for transfusions for Ami.
Ortiz said he was devastated after the attack, but that he has been blessed to see God working “supernaturally” through the incident. Ami is an example of God’s grace and healing power, Ortiz said, explaining, “Ami has been a wonder within my own eyes. How could anyone who went through so much be so peaceful?”
Ami’s high school friends, most of them not Messianic Jews, have sought him out and asked him about the ordeal. Ortiz said he thinks God will use him in a big way.
His wife explained, “I have that sense this is about something bigger. This is something bigger than what has happened to us and to our family.”
END
*** Photos of Ami Ortiz are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.
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9:57
AUA's Press Release on the Vandelized Assyrian Genocide Monument
» Christians Under Attack
The Assyrian genocide monument, a memorial to the nearly 750,000 Assyrians murdered by Turkey’s Ottoman Government during World War I was vandalized over the weekend of
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RAMADAN & PROVOCATION IN THE U.S.A.
» Religious Liberty Monitoring
RAMADAN . . .
Laylat al-Qadr (lit. Night of Destiny) is the anniversary of the night Muslims believe the first verses of the Quran were revealed to the Islamic prophet Muhammad. While the Quran does not provide a specific date, Laylat al-Qadr is traditionally believed to be found in the last 10 nights of Ramadan. Most Muslims observe Laylat al-Qadr or 'Night of Power' on the 27th night of Ramadan. The Quran describes Laylat al-Qadr as, 'better than a thousand months', for on that night the angels and the Spirit have God's permission to come down in answer prayer (Sura 97). This year, the Night of Power falls on or around the night of 5/6 Sept.
Throughout Ramadan, Muslims are not permitted to eat, drink, smoke or have sexual relations between sun-up and sun-down. The rigors of Ramadan elevate stress, frustration and Islamic zeal. In lands with pre-existing religious tensions, the last days of Ramadan can be days of extreme tension.
In pre-Islamic times, Ramadan was officially a month of peace when caravans could travel unarmed. With the Muslims in decline, Muhammad decided to reverse his flagging fortunes by attacking an unarmed caravan during Ramadan. When the Arabs protested, saying that warfare in the sacred month was a 'great transgression', Mohammad had a 'revelation' and declared that fitna (anything that could shake the faith of a Muslim) was worse than bloodshed (2:216-217). According to Muhammad biographer Husein Haykal, 'This revelation brought the Muslims relief, and the Prophet accepted his share of the booty' (Haykal p 210). Henceforth, Islamic fundamentalists from Egypt to Pakistan to Indonesia; and jihadists from Algeria to Kashmir to Thailand, routinely emulate Muhammad by escalating their jihad during Ramadan.
PLEASE PRAY SPECIFICALLY THAT:- our LORD Jesus Christ will surprise many Muslims this Laylat al-Qadr (Night of Power) by revealing himself as the Way, Truth and Life (John 14:6)
- our Sovereign God and Father will watch over and protect his children during these tense days, and 'frustrate the ways of the wicked' (Psalm 146:9 NIV).
This year, just as Ramadan reaches its conclusion, a church in USA, plans to hold an 'International Burn a Qur'an Day'. The day chosen for this event is 11 September, in commemoration of the thousands murdered by Islamic terrorists on 11 Sept 2001.
The church, Dove World Outreach in Gainesville, Florida, claims to be making a statement against Islam which it denounces as false religion, unable to save. While the statement is fine, the means is provocative in the extreme and not in the spirit of Christian grace. It is one thing for a Muslim convert to Christianity to burn his/her Quran as a sign of liberation. It is quite another thing for Christians to burn something precious and sacred to Muslims in the full knowledge that it will cause hurt and outrage. Muslims who have been spiritually searching will doubtless be repelled. Meanwhile, Muslims looking for a reason to kill Christians will be presented one on a platter.
There is already an enormous amount of momentum building for a violent response. Muslims have posted threats to jihadist websites expressing their intention to martyr themselves as bombers in the church. Members of the Al-Falluja jihadist forum (Iraq) have threatened to 'spill rivers of your (American) blood' and 'a war the likes of which you have never seen before'. In Indonesia, the Islam Defenders Front (FPI) has vowed to retaliate if the event goes ahead. On Friday 27 Aug, Muslims holding banners reading 'Destroy burners of the Quran' and 'Answer the Quran burning with Jihad', protested outside the US embassy in Jakarta. According to Roni Ruslan of Indonesia's Hizbut Tahrir, 'No one will be able to control this reaction.'
See:
International Protests Begin Ahead of Sept. 11 Koran Burning Event in Florida
FoxNews.com, 27 August 2010
Florida church plans to burn Quran on 9/11 anniversary
AFP, 1 Aug 2010,
FPI vows to retaliate over Koran burning
Ridwan Max Sijabat, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta, Fri, 27 Aug 2010
Planned holy Quran burning protested by Indonesian Muslims
Ahlul Bayt News Agency, 29 Aug 2010
Also -- 2 appeals from INDIA:
"The MBMC, FMSA and AMU community strongly condemns the call given by the Dove World Outreach Centre, Florida which may throw the world into turmoil."
AND
Two Christian human rights activists in India, J. G. Anthony and RL Francis, have appealed to United States ambassador to India in New Delhi, urging that President Obama intervene to halt the Qur'an burning event, which they believe could trigger religious conflict around the world.
IkhwanWeb.com, the website of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), reports that Dr. Diaa Rashwan, the MB's expert at Egypt's Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, describes the Qur'an-burning event as "exceedingly dangerous", adding that "a serious crisis will arise and extremism will be initiated in the Muslim world. . ."
See: Burning of Quran evident aggression against Muslims
IkhwanWeb, The Muslim Brotherhood's Official English web site, 4 Aug 2010
Of course Dr. Rashwan's assertion that the event would be a violation the rights of Muslims is rubbish. There is no such right as the right not to be offended. The Qur'an-burning event will be wrong not because it violates Muslims' rights, but because it violates Christ's law of love.
FOR:
Jesus said: "So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets." (Matthew 7:12).
AND:
when Lawyer asked Jesus, "'Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?' . . . [Jesus] said to him, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.'" (Matthew 22:36-40)
PLEASE PRAY SPECIFICALLY THAT:
* Terry Jones, pastor of Dove World Outreach, might be sensitive to the Spirit's call for means consistent with the gospel of grace -- for the sake of witness, and so that others might not have to suffer the consequences of his deliberately provocative action.
"For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: 'You shall love your neighbour as yourself.'" (Galatians 5:14)
(Bible texts from English Standard Version)
By the way:
The guys from Acts 17 Apologetics have released a brilliant YouTube film entitled, The Original Burn the Quran Day which recounts the unconvential manner in which the modern Qur'an was compiled. Highly recommended. - our LORD Jesus Christ will surprise many Muslims this Laylat al-Qadr (Night of Power) by revealing himself as the Way, Truth and Life (John 14:6)
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13:53
Muslims Resume Building on Christian Graveyard in Pakistan
» Compass Direct News
Hard-line cleric defies local officials’ order to stop construction.
SARGODHA, Pakistan, September 1 (CDN) — Muslims led by a hard-line cleric on Friday (Aug. 27) resumed building on a Christian cemetery in Mandi Bhawaldin, desecrating more graves in spite of a local government order to halt construction, according to the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance (APMA).
Radical Muslim cleric Mirza Abdul Ghani had built a mosque on the Christian graveyard off New Rasool Road in Mandi Bhawaldin after allegedly occupying the land 16 years ago, when area Christians were too intimidated to object, said Salamat Zia of APMA.
“No one could object to the construction of the mosque, as it is in the constitution of Pakistan that no religious worship place could be demolished,” said Zia. “Therefore all the Christians remained silent then.”
The cleric’s alleged desecration of more of the graveyard land around the Masjid Ahle-Sunnat-Wal-Jamaat mosque began three months ago, Zia said.
“This Christian graveyard was earmarked before the Indo-Pakistan partition on Aug. 14, 1947,” Zia added, “and their forefathers were buried there.”
Zia, a local journalist and resident of the Muhalla Ghorra area in Mandi Bhawaldin, said it initially appeared that Ghani’s workers were building an addition to the mosque, as only pillars had been erected. Now Ghani’s builders have completed a basement as well as possibly some shops, with cement plaster now being applied to the new units.
On Aug. 6 Zia led a seven-member Christian delegation intending to meet with District Coordination Officer (DCO) Muhammad Amin Chaudhary, another district officer named Syed Shahbaz Hussain Naqvi and District Police Officer Dar Ali Khatak of Mandi Bhawaldin about the encroachments on the Christian graveyard and to discuss how the graves of their loved ones were being demolished and desecrated.
As DCO Chaudhary was on leave, Acting DCO Shahid Rana took their application and forwarded it to the District Officer of Revenue and Tehsil Officer of Regulations with directives to visit the site and demolish all encroachments except the Masjid Ahle-Sunnat-Wal-Jamaat mosque, Zia said.
After inspecting the site, the administrative officers issued directives to stop the illegal encroachments, and for a few days the construction was halted, he said.
“But despite the stay orders of stopping construction, the Muslim men restarted construction over the Christian graves on Aug. 27,” Zia said.
Khalid Gill, chief organizer of APMA in Punjab Province, said that Muslim leaders threatened Christians who objected to the construction.
“They threatened that in case Christians protested against the resumption of construction they would also carry out a protest rally against Christians, and Muslim clerics said Christians would be responsible for the consequences,” Gill said.
APMA has demanded that the government allocate land for a Christian graveyard equivalent to the area allegedly occupied by the Muslims.
Local Urdu-language dailies in Mandi Bhawaldin have publicized the alleged encroachment on the Christian graveyard.
END
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Turkmenistan: Protestant Pastor Faces Five Years Imprisonment
» Worthy Christian News » Christian PersecutionBy Joseph C. DeCaro
MARY, TURKMENISTAN (Worthy News)-- A Pentecostal pastor remained in police custody Tuesday, August 31, in Turkmenistan where he faces five years imprisonment and confiscation of properties for "large-scale swindling", charges his wife and church members strongly deny, rights activists said.
Police arrested Ilmurad Nurliev, pastor of Peace to the World Pentecostal Church, for allegedly swindling money from two women who attended church meetings, although church members deny that ever happened.
"I was out at work when the police arrested my husband," said Maya Nurlieva, "and the first I knew was when he was allowed to call me from the investigator's office."
She said police refused to allow her to meet her husband and have also refused to give her any document certifying his arrest or detailing the reasons for it.
Maya said after her husband was arrested, police confiscated his certificate in preaching and refused to return it; they also took 150 dollars he had in his pocket.
"All they gave back to me were the keys to our flat," she said.
Maya said that police and the investigators refused to discuss her husband's case with her.
INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE
Turkmenistan, which has a heavily Muslim population, is under international pressure to improve religious rights and to protect its tiny Christian minority.
The government is seen as the region's most autocratic. Christians and other devoted religious groups are often seen as a threat to its power base, rights groups have suggested. The government has made clear however it wants to distance itself from former dictator Saparmurat Niyazov. Last week, a prominent 12-meter golden statue of Niyazov was taken down in the capital Ashgabat -- a move further eroding the personality cult around the late Central Asian leader.
Workers removed the statue on August 25 and were dismantling the base on August 26, said Radio Free Europe. The Arch of Neutrality was a centerpiece of the capital, Ashgabat, and the most distinctive monument built in honor of Niyazov.
The statue stood on a 70-meter white tile-clad tripod and rotated to face the sun. Niyazov -- who renamed himself the Great Turkmenbashi, the "Father of All Turkmen" -- died in 2006 after two decades of iron-fisted rule.
(With additional reporting from Worthy News International Correspondent Stefan Bos.)
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17:20
Persecution News in Brief: Recent Incidents in India
» The Christian Post RSS Feed | PersecutionPolice in Sivaho Dhamtari on Aug. 29 arrested three Christians after Hindu extremists filed a complaint against them of luring people to convert to Christianity by offering them money and “false hope.”
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11:30
Briefs: Recent Incidents of Persecution
» Compass Direct NewsChhattisgarh, India, August 31 (CDN) — Police in Sivaho Dhamtari on Aug. 29 arrested three Christians after Hindu extremists filed a complaint against them of luring people to convert to Christianity by offering them money and “false hope.” A source reported that the extremists had recently launched a series of attacks against Pastor Dilip Chakravarty, Ganga Ram and Shankar Lal of the Church of God, accusing them of forceful conversion and trying to force Ram and Lal to “reconvert” back to Hinduism. Ram and Lal sustained fractures on their hands and legs from the attacks. Area Christian leaders said no forceful conversion took place. The three Christians were charged with 295 (a) of the Indian Penal Code for “deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion” and were sent to Dhamtari district jail the same day.
Karnataka – Hindu extremists from the Bajrang Dal disrupted the worship meeting of Ebenezer Assembly of God Church and beat Pastor Ravi George and a church member identified only as Ramu on Aug. 29 in K.R. Nagar, Mysore. The Global Council of Indian Christians reported that about 20 extremists broke into the worship meeting, snatched Bibles and a mobile phone from Pastor George and started beating those present. The Christians received hospital treatment for serious head and hand injuries. Pastor George submitted a police complaint.
Karnataka – Christians in Madalawada, Haliya face a social boycott and the Rev. Philip Rock of St. Sebastian Church was charged with “causing disharmony” after Christians refused to follow Hindu rituals. In an effort to stop the spread of cholera in the village, local Hindu leaders On Aug. 24 urged villagers to pray to a Hindu deity and told them not to work on two Tuesdays and three Fridays, reported the Global Council of Indian Christians. Rock advised the Christians not to observe the Hindu rituals, and they resumed their daily activities. The Hindu extremists boycotted the Christians’ businesses and grocery shops, kept students from attending Christian schools and refused to repair Christians’ farm equipment. A police investigation is underway.
New Delhi – Hindu extremists from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Bajrang Dal attacked Pastor Isaac Laal on Aug. 22 in Bhavana, Dariyakala Pura, New Delhi as he was returning home from a Sunday church service. The Evangelical Fellowship of India reported that armed extremists stopped him and took him to Municipal Corporation hall where about 150 RSS members were meeting. The extremists accused Laal of forceful conversion and severely beat him, leaving the pastor with internal injuries. The investigating officer of Bawana police station told Compass that police are investigating but no First Information Report has been registered.
Karnataka – Hindu nationalists on Aug. 20 beat a pastor after falsely accusing him of “allurement” in the conversion of villagers in Bhendwad, Belgaum district. The Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC) reported that Pastor David Kalagade of Jeevan Jala Prayer Mandiram was conducting a prayer service at another Christian’s house when 40 area extremists barged into the house at about 8 p.m. and accused him of bribing villagers to convert. Pastor Kalagade told Compass that the extremists tore up Christian literature and dragged him to the village council. Police were summoned, but the extremists could not substantiate their claims that people were given 500 to 1,000 rupees (about US$10 to US$20) to embrace Christianity. Police called the pastor to the police station on Aug. 21 and, contrary to the religious freedom provisions in the Indian constitution, forced him to sign a statement that he would not convert people in the village. Police official Anil Kumar told Compass that police also took a written statement from the extremists pledging that they would not create disturbances for the Christians. GCIC sources told Compass that the extremists were closely monitoring the daily activities of Christians.
Maharashtra – Police on Aug. 20 deported five South Korean students on the basis of the complaint of “propagating Christianity” on Aug. 16 by Hindu extremists in Pune. Manifesting one’s faith is legal in India. The Indian Express reported the police as saying that the five Koreans were distributing pamphlets in Pimpri Chinchwad, which led to a quarrel with local Hindu extremists. Area Christians said the Koreans were leading Bible studies in Christian homes and were distributing pamphlets on health issues to those who wanted them.
Karnataka – Police on Aug. 19 detained a pastor after Hindu nationalists from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) beat him while he was showing a film in Mahalingapura, Bagalkot district. The Global Council of Indian Christians reported that Pastor Hanok Mahadev Inachi of the New Apostolic Church and two Christian students identified only as Sarah and Gauri were showing a film, “Oceans of Mercy” to villagers when a mob of over 200 RSS extremists attacked. The Hindu extremists repeatedly struck the pastor on his back and took the film projector, a DVD player, generators, amplifier and a speaker box worth nearly 100,000 rupees (US$2,135), which police later forced them to return. Pastor Inachi told Compass that the extremists pushed, shoved and struck his back as they forced him to the Mahalingapura police station. He was released the next morning without charges but was forced to sign a statement pledging that he would not enter the village again; the two women were also given a warning.
Madhya Pradesh – Police on Aug. 16 filed charges against a pastor under the state’s “anti-conversion law” after local Hindu extremists disrupted his house church meeting in Nisarpur village, Dhar district. The Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC) reported that as independent Pastor Balu Sasya and an assistant pastor identified only as Raju were leading nearly 30 Christians in prayer and worship, about 35 extremists stormed the church, shouting slogans and slapping Raju. Falsely accusing the pastors of forcibly converting villagers, the extremists forced Sasya and Raju to the Nisarpur police station and filed a false complaint against them, GCIC reported. A GCIC regional coordinator told Compass that both Sasya and Raju were in still in Badhawani jail at press time.
Tamil Nadu – Police arrested Pastor S. Martin Rajasekaran after Hindu extremists along with police disrupted a prayer meeting on Aug. 15 in Tanjore. Barging into the prayer meeting led by Pastor Rajasekaran, the extremists chased away the Christians, seized a church amplifier and loud speakers and locked the house, according to the All India Christian Council (AICC). The pastor had been threatened and driven away from his rented house six times by the extremists and insulted and manhandled many times, according to the AICC, but all his complaints to police were ignored.
Madhya Pradesh – Two Hindu extremists from the Bajrang Dal, Ram Naresh Rai and Santosh Namdin, threatened a Christian convert on Aug. 15 in Dhanora, Lahknadon. Achelal Jhariya of Light of the World Church told Compass that the extremists filed a complaint against him of forceful conversion, claiming that he was constructing his house for conversion activities. Jhariya said the extremists went to the property site and told him to stop worshipping Jesus and warned him to stop construction or they would destroy all his belongings. The Christian said he was not building the house for any conversion activities, though such activities are legal in India, and reported the matter to police. Officers promised him security.
Karnataka – Police arrested two Christians after Hindu extremists from the Bajrang Dal accused them of forceful conversion and disrupted their worship meeting on Aug. 15 in Mandya district. The Global Council of Indian Christians reported that the extremists led by Hanumant Raj, local president of the Bajrang Dal, forcefully entered the worship meeting in Shesha Gowda’s home and started abusing the Christians. They filed a complaint against the Christians of forceful conversion in K.R. Pete police station. Police took 12 Christians to the station for questioning, releasing 10 without charges. Pastor Satish and Evangelist Ravi Pas, however, were arrested under Section 295 and 298 of the Indian Penal Code for “defiling a worship place with intent to insult religion of any class” and “uttering words with deliberate intent to wound the religious feelings of any person respectively.”
Karnataka – Police on Aug. 13 detained Christians after accompanying Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members to a church and standing by as the BJP extremists disrupted their worship in Birur, Chikmagalur district. The Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC) reported that the Indian Pentecostal Church pastor identified only as Dileep, along with 10 other Christians including three women and a young child, were taken to the Kadur police station and interrogated for over four hours. During the interrogation, BJP extremists surrounded them and shouted false accusations of forcible conversion and other abusive statements at the terrified Christians. With GCIC intervention, the Christians were released at 8:30 p.m. with a strict warning, contrary to the religious freedom provisions in the Indian constitution, to refrain from conversion activities in the area.
Uttar Pradesh – Members of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Aug. 8 disrupted a Christian prayer meeting in Mailani, Lakhimpur-Kheri district, according to the Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI). Nearly 25 BJP extremists accompanied by police gathered at 11 a.m. at Life Prayer Centre, where nearly 600 Christians had congregated for worship. The intolerant Hindus shouted slogans and demanded that Pastor Robert Samson come out, EFI reported. Police dispersed the Christians and took Pastor Samson in for questioning, releasing him later that afternoon without charges but allegedly threatening to shut down the church, according to EFI. Police also prohibited the congregation from gathering the following Sunday. Using a loudspeaker, the BJP nationalists continued making public accusations of forcible conversion by Pastor Samson throughout the day, EFI noted.
Karnataka – Members of the extremist Hindu Jagaran Vedike, a wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, on Aug. 8 disrupted a prayer meeting and falsely accused Christians of “forceful conversion” in Kanakagiri, Koppal district. The Evangelical Fellowship of India reported that at about 7:30 p.m. nearly 60 extremists stormed into an Evangelical Church of India service led by Pastor John Harris in the home of a family interested in learning about Christianity that had been regularly attending the church for about a year. Ordering the Christians to go outside where broadcast media were waiting, the extremists verbally abused the Christians for their faith, told them to stop all worship meetings and falsely accused them of forcible conversion. The Hindu nationalists took the Christians to the police station and pressured officers to arrest them. Police forced the Christians to sign a statement that they would not conduct meetings in homes and threatened to file a case against them if they did.
Bihar – Hindu extremists from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh on Aug. 7 attacked Singhasini Church and threatened Christians in Raxual. A source reported that the extremists pasted several pictures of Hanuman, a Hindu god, on the church’s wall and demanded that Christians leave the area. The extremists further threatened the Christians that they would hoist the Hanuman flag over the church building if they continued to worship Jesus. With area Christian leaders’ intervention, no further harm came to the church.
Maharashtra – Armed Hindu extremists on Aug. 1 attacked a church meeting and beat Christians including women and children, seriously injuring two people in Orlem, Malad. The Global Council of Indian Christians reported that after a group of armed extremists barged into the Sunday worship meeting of the Church of North India’s St. Emmanuel Church, Ponkumar Nadar and Devashish Nagarwere sustained injuries that required treatment in a local hospital. The congregation was attacked with rods and other blunt weapons, according to the Catholic Secular Forum (CSF). Joseph Dias, secretary of CSF, told media that the Hindu extremists were drunk at the time of the attack.
West Bengal – Muslim extremists on Aug. 1 destroyed a vegetable field belonging to a Christian in Natungram, Murshidabad. The Evangelical Fellowship of India reported the field belonged to Gaffar Sheik, a member of Believer’s Community Worship Center. Earlier, Raffiqul Sheik had warned Gaffar Sheik that if he continued to worship Christ, his crops would be burned. The extent of the damage was estimated at about 20,000 rupees (US$400). Police visited the site, and an investigation is underway.
Uttar Pradesh – Police detained Christian students after accusing them of forceful conversion on July 24 in Lukcnow. The All India Christian Council (AICC) reported that four students from Compassion for India Ministry were visiting the slum area when the police team led by an officer identified only as Tripati called their pastor to the police station. The officer accused the pastor and his team of forceful conversion and forced the Christians to report about their work in detail. Police took money from the pastor before releasing the students, reported the AICC. The students maintained that they were just distributing food to the needy in the poor area and that there was no forceful conversion.
Uttar Pradesh – A mob of about 50 Hindu extremists from the Bajrang Dal barged into a Christian meeting shouting, “Jai Shri Ram [Praise lord Ram]” on July 23 in Kanpur. The Global Council of Indian Christians reported that the extremists forcefully entered the two-day meeting organized by Pastor Samuel Sarkar of the Kanpur Pentecostal Church and stopped the service. Police came to the spot and took the two parties to the police station, where officers told the Christians to cancel their meeting, which was subsequently discontinued.
END
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16-Year-Old Christian Girl Rescued from Slave Trade in India
» Worthy Christian News » Christian Persecutionby Marshall Ramsey II, Worthy News Correspondent
NEW DELHI, India (Worthy News)-- A 16-year old Christian girl was rescued on August 9, 2010, after being held captive for two years, Worthy News has learned.
The girl, whose name is being withheld, is a tribal Christian who was sold into slavery along with three other girls (one of which was her 19-year old sister) in 2008. A wave of anti-Christian attacks during that year resulted in approximately 60 girls being captured and sold to neighboring states.
The girl's mother accompanied the rescue team the evening of Aug. 9 in the Rohini area of Delhi, said an anonymous source with the Human Rights Law Network (HRLN) Anti-Human Trafficking department. "It was only the joint efforts of the All India Christian Council (AICC), HRLN Anti-Human Trafficking and the area police that made this rescue possible," the source said.
"It is confirmed that she was not raped," said Madhu Chandra, a member of the rescue team and spokesperson for the AICC. "She was physically abused, with teeth bite marks and bruises on her body -- her neck, leg, and right hand."
FALSE ASSURANCES GIVEN
The girl stated that a well-known woman from their village in Kandhamal district gave her and her sister a false promise of safe and secure work in Delhi as gardeners. Instead, operatives working with the woman took the sisters and the other two girls to Sakhi Maid Bureau, a placement agency in Ratala village in Delhi. It was run by a man only identified as Montu.
She was placed in a home in Rohini, Sector 11, as domestic help starting in January. The girl said she was treated fairly well there, except for being slapped a few times by the lady of the house.
Things went sour as she was beginning to get hit by the family's 10-year old son. The family's 14-year old son tried to rape her, and she tried to flee earlier this month. The girl told the rescue team that she informed the lady of the house about the elder son's misbehavior, but that the woman stated that she could do nothing about it. Montu, the placement agency operator, has went into hiding, according to police.
INVESTIGATION CONTINUES
Sudhir Kumar, House Officer of Prasant Vihar Police station confirmed the rescue team's accusation that he refused to register a complaint in the girl's case. "The victim is from Kandhamal, let her go back to Kandhamal and register her complaint there," Kumar told Compass Direct News. "No rape of the victim took place as per the medical examination, and thus there is no need for registering a case against anyone."
"We will file their complaint if they come back to us now," said Assistant Police Commissioner Sukhvir Singh. He said he had no explanation why the girl's complaint was not registered, but insisted that the rescue team and the girl return.
Dr. John Dayal, secretary general of the AICC, said that large-scale human trafficking in Christian tribal and Dalit women of Kandhamal is one of the worst problems faced in the aftermath of the 2008 violence.
"Police have made arrests in the nearby Andhra Pradesh and other states," he said. "Because of the displacement due to the violence, they lost their future, and it is very easy for strangers to come and lure them. Community and family life has been disrupted; the children do not have the normal security that growing children must have. Trauma, unemployment, and desperate measures have resulted in the loss of childhood, forcing many to grow up before their age."
All India Christian Council is calling on the National Commission for Scheduled Castes, National Commission for Women, and the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes to investigate, he added.
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14:30
God’s Smuggler Today
» In 1955 many things were going on; Elvis Presley debuted on television for the first time, Disneyland opened its gates and Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, starting the Civil Rights Movement. The Cold War was afoot and many feared a “Red Invasion”. During all of these [...]
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Man Dies in Vietnam Crackdown On Christian Villagers
» Worthy Christian News » Christian Persecutionby Worthy News Asia Service, with Worthy News International Correspondent Stefan Bos
HANOI, VIETNAM (Worthy">[www.worthynews.com">Worthy] News)-- Eight arrested Christians remained in Vietnamese police custody Sunday, August 29, after a violent government crackdown on Christian villagers in which one person was killed and several others injured, including a pregnant woman who lost her child, rights activists said.
Advocacy group International Christian Concern (ICC) said tensions began when Vietnamese authorities ordered the Christian Con Dau village, near the port city of Da Nang, to be abandoned to build a resort on the site. "When the people resisted water irrigation was shut off to the rice fields, cutting the main source of income and food."
Additionally, "Vietnamese police surrounded and attacked a [local] funeral” on May 4, “as it approached the cemetery. Police arrested and beat 62 persons including women who were stripped naked. One pregnant woman, Le Thi Van, was struck in her stomach until she had a miscarriage," ICC added.
A leader of the same funeral procession, Thomas Nam Nguyen, was killed last month after he refused to return to the police station where he was "beaten multiple times," the rights group said.
"On July 2, the police came to his house and caught him as he tried to escape. He was handcuffed and ordered to kneel with his head on the ground while the police kicked his back, chest and head."
WIFE INTERVENES
His wife was reportedly present and begged the police to stop. However, "They continued to beat him for approximately four hours, and then released him in critical condition. On July 3, he died at home in the hands of his mother, surrounded by his wife and three children," ICC explained.
While most detained in raids have been released, at least eight Christian villagers remained in police custody Sunday, August 28, and are awaiting trial, according to Vietnamese Christians."To date no family members have been able to see them," said ICC, who identified the individuals as Nguyen Huu Liem, Tran Thanh Viet, Doan Cang, Le Thanh Lam, Nguyen Thi The, Phan Thi Nhan, Nguyen Thi Lieu, and Nguyen Huu Minh.
"The people of Con Dau are living in desperate fear and confusion," explained Thang Nguyen, the Executive Director of Boat People SOS, an organization representing the Con Dau victims. "Hundreds of residents have been fined, and many have escaped to [neighboring] Thailand," he added in published remarks.
Vietnamese authorities have not commented on the case. Earlier however, the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry denied reports of attacks on Christian villagers and predominantly Christian minorities, such as Degar Montagnards, in the country's Central Highlands.
CONGRESS HEARING
The United States Congress held a hearing on Vietnamese persecution earlier this month, focusing on the Con Dau incident. Witnesses reportedly included the brother of Thomas Nam Nguyen, a brother of a villager who escaped to Thailand, and a sister of two who are currently imprisoned.
U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam, Michael W. Michalak, allegedly said that the incident was a land dispute and refused to become directly involved. There was no reaction from the embassy.
ICC’s Regional Manager, Logan Maurer, said however that the latest incident underscores concerns about the 2006 by the United States State Department to remove Vietnam from the Country of Particular Concern (CPC) list, a list of nations with reported religious rights abuses. The State Department cited "progress in religious freedom" in Vietnam as the reason behind its decision.
However, "The Vietnamese government has exposed its brutality and greed, torturing and killing Christians to make room for their ambition," said Maurer. "The tourist resort they plan to build in Con Dau will have its foundation in blood. This incident shows [the State Department] could not be more wrong" to remove Vietnam from the CPC list. -
Christian Rights Groups Supports UN Inquiry
» Worthy Christian News » Christian Persecutionby Marshall Ramsey II, Worthy News US Correspondent
LONDON, ENGLAND (Worthy News)-- Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) is urging all European Union (EU) foreign ministers to call for the formation of a United Nations (UN) Commission of Inquiry to investigate claims of crimes against humanity in North Korea, Worthy News has learned.
In a letter written to the EU foreign ministers, CSW is claiming that crimes against humanity abound in the country even as three Christians are said to have been executed and several others imprisoned.
CSW reports that prisoners face "dire" living conditions, chronic food shortages, "systematic and severe" torture, and "brutal punishments." They also state that relatives of prisoners are considered guilty by association, putting as many as 200,000 people in danger of being incarcerated in a North Korean prison camp.
"The barbaric system is calculated to cause extreme fatigue and sickness, and refugees have stated that imprisonment in the camps amounts to nothing more than a harsh, drawn-out death sentence," CSW reported. "Life expectancy in the camps is one to two years -- the same as that in Nazi concentration camps 70 years ago."
WORST PERSECUTORS OF CHRISTIANS
In 2010, North Korea was named as the top "persecutor of Christians" for the eighth straight year by Open Doors, one of a few organizations working with underground churches in the isolated nation.
All forms of worship are outlawed in North Korea except for the worship of Kim Jong-il and his late father and predecessor, Kim il-sung.
"A Commission of Inquiry to investigate crimes against humanity is an essectial step towards justice and an end to impunity, and we urge the EU to support this recommendation and work proactively to achieve it," CSW's National Director Stuart Windsor said.
"The regime in North Korea is committing the most barbaric violations of human rights and it is time that the UN General Assembly took meaningful action to prevent the continuing suffering of the North Korean people."
As many as 400,000 Christians are forced to worship behind closed doors as they face imprisonment, torture, or public execution if the authorities discover their faith. -
12 Believers Attacked and Arrested in India
» Worthy Christian News » Christian Persecutionby Mike Bouwer, Worth News South Africa correspondent
KARNATAKA, INDIA (Worthy News)-- After an attack on an Indian believers home in Karnataka, India, 12 believers, including the pastor and an evangelist were arrested by police Worthy news has learned.
During a service being held in the home of one of the believers, about 30 people entered and attacked the believers, accusing them of converting locals by force. It is understood the 12 are still in detention.
The Voice of the Martyrs is asking for prayer support for the twelve. The evangelist known only as Ravi is a member of the Indian branch of Campus Crusade for Christ.
The Campus Crusade for Christ, which states as its purpose “ Helping to fulfill the Great Commission in the power of the Holy Spirit by winning people to faith in Jesus Christ, building them in their faith and sending them to win and build others; and helping the Body of Christ do evangelism and discipleship”, has ministries in over 190 countries worldwide, India being one of them. -
Christians Celebrate in Streets to Demand Religious Freedom
» Worthy Christian News » Christian PersecutionBy Joseph C. DeCaro
JAKARATA, INDONESIA (Worthy News)-- Christians of the Yasmin Church celebrated Sunday service on the streets of Bogor, West Java, to protest the illegal closing of their building by the city in March.
Two years ago, the Yasmin Church received permission to build a place of worship in Bogor on private land, but in February, civil authorities withdrew permission and ordered the building closed on account of Muslim extremists. In 2009, the Yasmin Church appealed to the Administrative Court of the State, which found in their favour. However, continued pressure from protesting Muslims caused civil authorities to permanetly close the church in March.
Since April, the Yasmin Church has celebrated on the street to protest the closing. Gomar Pasaribu, pastor and secretary general of the Synod of Indonesian Churches, said that profession of one's religion was "the most fundamental right of every Indonesian citizen. Any hostile action and the slowness of the State to protect it, is a serious violation of the spirit expressed in the Indonesian national motto: Unity in Diversity ."
Yasman Pastor Ujang Tanusaputra said: "Our founding fathers fought for the independence of this country. Many of them were Christians. The spirit of intolerant extremists have tarnished the good image of Indonesia's pluralistic society." -
Three U.S. Christian Aid Workers Killed in Pakistan, source
» Worthy Christian News » Christian Persecutionby Worthy News Asia Service reporting from Pakistan
ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN (Worthy News)-- Suspected Islamic militants have killed three American Christian aid workers who were helping victims of Pakistan's worst floods in recent memory, a well-informed source in the Pakistani military told Worthy News Saturday, August 28.
The source spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to discuss the exact details surrounding the killings in the country's volatile north-western Swat valley. He said Pakistan's military recovered the bodies of the relief workers in Swat valley Wednesday, August 25, shortly after they were kidnapped. The human remains were brought to the United States embassy, he said.The names of the victims and their organization have not yet been released publicly due to security concerns and "not to create panic" among foreign aid workers, the source added. Additionally, under standard procedures, close relatives were expected to be informed first about the victims' identities. The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad refused to confirm or deny the report, saying it had no more information.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the killings, but the Taliban threatened to attack international relief workers, calling the presence of foreigners in Pakistan "unacceptable."
A senior Pakistani official confirmed to Worthy News that the three foreign aid workers had been kidnapped by the hard-line Islamic group Monday, August 23.
TALIBAN ATTACK
"The foreign aid workers had been working in [the city of] Mingora and the surrounding areas. While they were returning to their base on August 23 fighters of the Taliban attacked their vehicle," said Swat District Coordination Officer Atif-ur-Rehman. "They injured around five or six people and kidnapped three foreign humanitarian workers," he added.
The reported killings of the aid-workers is aimed to further undermine efforts by the international community to reach the estimated nearly 22 million people affected by the flooding, suggested government official Rehman. "The Taliban are also trying to support the flood victims and many other banned organizations have setup camps in for instance the south of Punjab province to support the victims. They use aid to increase support for their goals," he said.
There is some precedent in attacks against foreign aid workers. Pakistani Taliban carried out a suicide attack against the office of the United Nations World Food Program in Islamabad last October, killing five staffers, and in March, militants stormed the offices of World Vision, a U.S.-based Christian aid group helping earthquake survivors in northwestern Pakistan, killing six Pakistani employees.
Special forces have been deployed in Swat valley and other potential target areas to protect relief efforts, the military said.
CHRISTIANS SUFFER
However many people, including minority Christians, receive little or no aid from Pakistani authorities or other groups, complained Rizwan Paul, who leads the Christian aid and advocacy organization Life for All. "In Punjab province the Christians are ignored in the severely damaged areas. Christians even face problems in United Nations-administered camps."
He said there are reports that Christians are not given tents, clean water and food. "In most of the camps the Christians have totally been ignored. In some regions, including Muzzaffargarh and Layyah, Christians are forced to live on damaged roads in temporary tents as they were not allowed in the government camps."
He said Life for All had complained to United Nations agencies about the alleged discrimination of Christians in the aid distribution. "So far they have not yet responded." Additionally, authorities have been reluctant to help Christians evacuate, he claimed. "In Sindh Province, where the Thatta area was flooded, around 300 Christian families were prevented from moving to more safe areas in Punjab province." Officials in charge of the operation could not immediately be reached for comment.
Another Christian advocacy group, Peace Pakistan , also warned that the Muslim observation of the fasting period Ramadan makes it more difficult to reach many children, the elderly and sick people with medicines, water or food.
"They are now allowed to eat or drink anything all day. However those leading the relief camps should take under consideration that these weak people should be given water, food and medicines on time as many diseases are spreading at a vast scale," the group said in a statement.
MORE FLOODING?
There are worries about additional flooding as meteorologists predict more rains the coming days at a time when about 20 percent of the country is already under water.
Yet, Life for All Vice President Kashif Mazhar suggested there was some hope beneath the dark clouds in the relative few Christian-run relief camps.
"In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province the situation is comparatively better as there are Christian camps as well and the local Garrison Church in the Risalpur area is also supporting the victims," he explained. "It is encouraging to see that Christian organizations are wholeheartedly supporting the victims regardless of the religion or race..."
Christians comprise less than five percent of the heavily Muslim population of nearly 175 million people, according to estimates by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). (With Worthy News Correspondents in Pakistan and editing by Worthy News's Stefan J. Bos. Due to security concerns Worthy News's reporters could not be identified by name).
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11:33
Pakistani Taliban Kills 3 Foreign Christian Aid Workers
» The Christian Post RSS Feed | PersecutionAuthorities on Wednesday recovered the bodies of three Christian relief workers who had been kidnapped and killed by members of the Pakistani Taliban in the flood-ravaged country, area officials said.
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16:08
Christian Convert in Bangladesh Falsely Accused of Theft
» Compass Direct News
Muslims said to use mistaken identity to stop activities of Christian who refused to recant.
DHAKA, Bangladesh, August 27 (CDN) — A Christian convert from Islam was falsely arrested for cattle theft last weekend in a bid by influential Muslims to stop his Christian activities, area villagers said.
Day laborer Abul Hossen, 41, was arrested on Saturday (Aug. 21) for alleged cattle theft in Dubachari village in Nilphamari district, some 300 kilometers (180 miles) northwest of the capital, Dhaka.
Christian villagers told Compass that Hossen was the victim of “dirty tricks” by influential Muslims.
“There is another Abul Hossen in the village who might be the thief, but his father-in-law is very powerful,” said Gonesh Roy. “To save his son-in-law, he imputed all the blame to a different Abul Hossen who is a completely good man.”
Hossen, who converted to Christianity from Islam in 2007, has been very active in the community, and Muslims are harassing him with the charge so his ministry will be discredited and villagers will denounce his faith, Roy said.
“If he can be accused in the cattle theft case, he will be put in jail,” Roy said. “He will be a convicted man, and local people and the believers will treat him as a cattle thief. So people will not listen to a thief whatsoever.”
Some 150 villagers, about 20 percent of them Christian, went to the police station to plea for his freedom, he and other villagers said.
Sanjoy Roy, a lay pastor with Christian Life Bangladesh, told Compass that Hossen was a fervent Christian and that some Muslims have been trying to harass him since his conversion.
“They are hoping that if he is embarrassed by this kind of humiliation, he might not witness to Christ anymore, and it will be easy to take other converted Christians back to Islam,” Sanjoy Roy said. “He is a victim of dirty tricks by some local people.”
Hossen was baptized on June, 12, 2007 along with 40 other people who were raised as Muslims. Of the 41 people baptized, only seven remained Christian, with villagers and Muslim missionaries called Tabligh Jamat forcing the remaining 34 people to return to Islam within six months, sources said.
Local police chief Mohammad Nurul Islam told Compass that officers had arrested a cattle thief who confessed to police that his accomplice was named Abul Hossen.
“Based on the thief’s confessional statement, we arrested Abul Hossen,” said Islam. “There are several people named Abul Hossen in the village, but the thief told exactly of this Abul Hossen whom we arrested.”
Hossen denied the allegation that he was involved in cattle theft, Islam said.
“Hossen is vehemently denying the allegation, but the thief was firm and adamantly said that Hossen was with him during the theft,” he said. “Then we took Hossen on remand for three days for further inquiry.”
A former union council chairman who is Muslim, Aminur Rahman, also told Compass that Hossen was a scapegoat.
“He is 100 percent good man,” said Rahman, who also went to the police station to plea for Hossen’s freedom the day after his arrest. “There are two or three people named Abul Hossen in the village. Anyone of them might have stolen the cattle, but I can vouch for the arrested Abul Hossen that he did not do this crime.”
Whether Hossen is a Christian, Muslim or Hindu should not matter in the eyes of the law, Rahman said.
“He is an innocent man,” he said. “So he should not be punished or harassed. That is why I went to police station to request police to free him.”
Local government Union Council Chairman Shamcharan Roy, a Hindu from Lakmichap Union, told Compass that Hossen was not engaged in any kind of criminal activities.
“In my eight years of tenure as a union council chairman, I did not find him engaged in any kind of criminal activities,” said Shamcharan Roy. “Even before my tenure as a chairman, I did not see him troublesome in the social matrix.”
Immediately after Hossen’s arrest, Shamcharan Roy went to the police station and requested that he be freed, he added.
“I was under pressure from local people to free him from custody – more than 100 villagers went to the police camp, getting drenched to the skin in the heavy downpour, and requested police to free him,” Shamcharan Roy said. “Police are listening to a thief but are deaf to our factual accounts about Abul Hossen.”
In July 2007, local Muslims and Tabligh Jamat missionaries gathered in a schoolyard near the homes of some of the Christians who had been baptized on June 12, a source said. Using a microphone, the Muslims threatened violence if the converts did not come out.
Fearing for their lives, the Christians emerged and gathered. The source said the Muslims asked them why they had become Christians and, furious, told them that Bangladesh was a Muslim country “where you cannot change your faith by your own will.”
At that time, Hossen told Compass that Muslims in the mosque threatened to hang him in a tree upside down and lacerate his body with a blade. Hossen said the Muslims “do not allow us to net fish in the river” and offered him 5,000 taka (US$75) and a mobile phone handset if he returned to Islam.
“But I did not give up my faith, because I found Christ in my heart,” Hossen told Compass in 2007. “They threatened me with severe consequences if I do not go back to Islam. I said I am ready to offer up my life to Christ, but I won’t renounce my faith in Him.”
END
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16:08
Christian Convert in Bangladesh Falsely Accused of Theft
» Compass Direct NewsMuslims said to use mistaken identity to stop activities of Christian who refused to recant.
DHAKA, Bangladesh, August 27 (CDN) — A Christian convert from Islam was falsely arrested for cattle theft last weekend in a bid by influential Muslims to stop his Christian activities, area villagers said.
Day laborer Abul Hossen, 41, was arrested on Saturday (Aug. 21) for alleged cattle theft in Dubachari village in Nilphamari district, some 300 kilometers (180 miles) northwest of the capital, Dhaka.
Christian villagers told Compass that Hossen was the victim of “dirty tricks” by influential Muslims.
“There is another Abul Hossen in the village who might be the thief, but his father-in-law is very powerful,” said Gonesh Roy. “To save his son-in-law, he imputed all the blame to a different Abul Hossen who is a completely good man.”
Hossen, who converted to Christianity from Islam in 2007, has been very active in the community, and Muslims are harassing him with the charge so his ministry will be discredited and villagers will denounce his faith, Roy said.
“If he can be accused in the cattle theft case, he will be put in jail,” Roy said. “He will be a convicted man, and local people and the believers will treat him as a cattle thief. So people will not listen to a thief whatsoever.”
Some 150 villagers, about 20 percent of them Christian, went to the police station to plea for his freedom, he and other villagers said.
Sanjoy Roy, a lay pastor with Christian Life Bangladesh, told Compass that Hossen was a fervent Christian and that some Muslims have been trying to harass him since his conversion.
“They are hoping that if he is embarrassed by this kind of humiliation, he might not witness to Christ anymore, and it will be easy to take other converted Christians back to Islam,” Sanjoy Roy said. “He is a victim of dirty tricks by some local people.”
Hossen was baptized on June, 12, 2007 along with 40 other people who were raised as Muslims. Of the 41 people baptized, only seven remained Christian, with villagers and Muslim missionaries called Tabligh Jamat forcing the remaining 34 people to return to Islam within six months, sources said.
Local police chief Mohammad Nurul Islam told Compass that officers had arrested a cattle thief who confessed to police that his accomplice was named Abul Hossen.
“Based on the thief’s confessional statement, we arrested Abul Hossen,” said Islam. “There are several people named Abul Hossen in the village, but the thief told exactly of this Abul Hossen whom we arrested.”
Hossen denied the allegation that he was involved in cattle theft, Islam said.
“Hossen is vehemently denying the allegation, but the thief was firm and adamantly said that Hossen was with him during the theft,” he said. “Then we took Hossen on remand for three days for further inquiry.”
A former union council chairman who is Muslim, Aminur Rahman, also told Compass that Hossen was a scapegoat.
“He is 100 percent good man,” said Rahman, who also went to the police station to plea for Hossen’s freedom the day after his arrest. “There are two or three people named Abul Hossen in the village. Anyone of them might have stolen the cattle, but I can vouch for the arrested Abul Hossen that he did not do this crime.”
Whether Hossen is a Christian, Muslim or Hindu should not matter in the eyes of the law, Rahman said.
“He is an innocent man,” he said. “So he should not be punished or harassed. That is why I went to police station to request police to free him.”
Local government Union Council Chairman Shamcharan Roy, a Hindu from Lakmichap Union, told Compass that Hossen was not engaged in any kind of criminal activities.
“In my eight years of tenure as a union council chairman, I did not find him engaged in any kind of criminal activities,” said Shamcharan Roy. “Even before my tenure as a chairman, I did not see him troublesome in the social matrix.”
Immediately after Hossen’s arrest, Shamcharan Roy went to the police station and requested that he be freed, he added.
“I was under pressure from local people to free him from custody – more than 100 villagers went to the police camp, getting drenched to the skin in the heavy downpour, and requested police to free him,” Shamcharan Roy said. “Police are listening to a thief but are deaf to our factual accounts about Abul Hossen.”
In July 2007, local Muslims and Tabligh Jamat missionaries gathered in a schoolyard near the homes of some of the Christians who had been baptized on June 12, a source said. Using a microphone, the Muslims threatened violence if the converts did not come out.
Fearing for their lives, the Christians emerged and gathered. The source said the Muslims asked them why they had become Christians and, furious, told them that Bangladesh was a Muslim country “where you cannot change your faith by your own will.”
At that time, Hossen told Compass that Muslims in the mosque threatened to hang him in a tree upside down and lacerate his body with a blade. Hossen said the Muslims “do not allow us to net fish in the river” and offered him 5,000 taka (US$75) and a mobile phone handset if he returned to Islam.
“But I did not give up my faith, because I found Christ in my heart,” Hossen told Compass in 2007. “They threatened me with severe consequences if I do not go back to Islam. I said I am ready to offer up my life to Christ, but I won’t renounce my faith in Him.”
END
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North Korea Releases American Christian
» Worthy Christian News » Christian PersecutionWorthy News Asia Service
SEOUL/PYONGYANG (Worthy News)-- North Korea released an American Christian Friday, August 27, seven months after he was detained for illegally entering the reclusive state to protest reported human rights abuses.
Aijalon Gomes smiled as he hugged former U.S. President Jimmy Carter who negotiated his release with North Korean authorities and boarded a plane for Boston on Friday, August, 27, reporters said.
The Carter Center, Carter's headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, confirmed that the former president has departed Pyongyang with Aijalon Mahli Gomes aboard a private jet.
Carter's visit came weeks after North Korea said Gomes attempted to commit suicide and was being treated at a hospital. The North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said the attempt was "driven by his strong guilty conscience" and despair that the U.S. government had not tried to gain his freedom.
However, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il eventually granted Carter's request to "leniently forgive" Gomes, for a reunion with his mother, Carter's spokeswoman Deanna Congileo said, citing official sources.
KIM IN CHINA
There was no indication that Kim -- who was making a surprise trip to China this week -- met with Carter as widely anticipated. Carter arrived in North Korea Wednesday on what the United States State Department described as a private mission.
The 30-year-old Gomes was sentenced to eight years hard labor and fined $700,000 for illegally crossing the border. Christian rights activists said he wanted to protest against human rights abuses, including the detention of thousands of Christians in the country in concentration camps.
Christians often suffer as North Korea's Stalinist system is based on total devotion of the individual to an ideology promoted by the late leader Kim Il Sung and his successor and son, Kim Jong Il, observers who visited the country said.
The ideology largely resembles a religion or cult, and refugees' accounts say those who oppose it are dealt with severely, often ending up in prison camps. Despite the risks there are believed to be likely tens of thousands of practicing Christians.
Kim Il Sung, the man recruited in 1945 by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to found the Communist North Korean state, stamped out Christianity and the traditional Buddhism and Shamanism.
SELF-RELIANCE IDEOLOGY
His ideology, which preaches self-reliance, is known as Juche, of which the late Kim is the central figure -- so much so that the North Korean calendar begins with the year of his birth in 1912. One of the tallest structures in Pyongyang is the Juche Tower, built in Juche 70, or 1982
Before leaving for North Korea, Gomes was known to have regularly attended prayer meetings and rallies for North Korean human rights in the United States and reportedly taught English at Choong-eui middle school in Pocheon, South Korea, from 2008-2009.
His colleagues described him as “a devout Christian”.
He was the fourth American in a year arrested for trespassing in North Korea, a communist nation that fought against the U.S. during the 1950-53 Korean War and does not have diplomatic relations with Washington.
His capture followed the detention of Robert Park and the journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee, all of whom were released after several months in North Korean custody. (With reporting from North and South Korea and editing by Stefan J. Bos). -
Pastor Attacked in Delhi
» Worthy Christian News » Christian Persecutionby Marshall Ramsey II, Worthy News Correspondent
New Delhi, India (Worthy News)-- A pastor and his church in India were attacked by a mob Sunday, Worthy News has learned.
Pastor Isaac Jaal was returning home August 22, 2010 after prayer services at his church when he was attacked by members of a Hindutva outfit, All India Christian Council (AICC) reported.
A crowd of about 150 men lead by Biju, son of Chanram, a Bharatiya Janata Party MLA (BJP MLA) member, lead the attack and assaulted Pastor Jaal with assorted weapons, including sticks and trishuls (triangle spears). The attack left him with severe internal injuries. An AICC fact-finding team was sent to the spot to take stock of the situation.
NO ARRESTS MADE
The attack was motivated by Pastor Jaal's activities in preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. They threatened to kill him if he continued to conduct prayer services in the church. Surprisingly, when local police arrived on the scene of the attack and noted Pastor Jaal's injuries, they did not take him to the hospital for medical treatment.
Rev Abraham Sahu, Delhi NCR Chapter President of All India Christian Council reported the attack to local authorities and requested that they provide protection for Pastor Jaal and the members of his church. It was later found out that only a written complaint had been filed and no First Information Report (FIR) was registered nor any action taken against the attackers.
AICC has condemned the attack and sought severe action against the mob. -
Muslims Kidnap Pakistan Christian House Maid
» Worthy Christian News » Christian PersecutionBy Jawad Mazhar, Worthy News Special Correspondent reporting from Pakistan
LAHORE, PAKISTAN (Worthy News)-- The parents of a Christian Pakistani girl were still searching for their daughter Thursday, August 26, nearly half a year after she was reportedly kidnapped, forced to marry a Muslim men, and pressured into embracing Islam.
House maid Samina Ayub, 17, disappeared from her working place in Lahore, the capital of Pakistan's Punjab province, March 6, said her mother Surriya Bibi in an interview with Worthy News. "After finishing her work at Chaudhary Mohammad Khalid Cheema’s house Samina was kidnapped by Ali Akbar when she was on the way to home,” she said.
After the abduction, Ayub apparently managed to briefly call her mother when Akbar forgot his mobile phone. "She told me that she did not want to live with Ali Akbar and that she wants to return to us," Bibi recalled. "Samina also said he took her to some unknown place and forced her to marry him under Islamic rites. He also forced her to embrace Islam and did not allow her to inform us about her whereabouts."
Bibi said there were indications that her daughter's employer knew Ali Akbar. "Samina told me that Akbar often came to his house and tried to talk to her."
Local police have so far failed to arrest suspects, although Samina Ayub's parents filed a police complaint soon after their daughter "suspiciously disappeared", explained Joseph Francis, who heads the Center for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS), a major advocacy group.
COURT PETITION
"CLAAS has petitioned the local court to pressure police to recover Samina and to take legal action against Ali Akbar," he told Worthy News. Police had no comment and neither Akbar or Cheema could be reached for a reaction.
Samina Ayub is among many Christian girls who have been kidnapped and forced to embrace Islam in this heavily Muslim nation, according to rights groups.
CLAAS has urged its supporters "to pray" for this situation, added Francis.
"Samina is our only daughter," said Bibi, who made clear she still hopes she will see her again, one day.
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18:06
Pakistani Taliban Kills Three Foreign Christian Aid Workers
» Compass Direct News
Kidnapped relief workers had come to provide aid to victims of massive flooding.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, August 27 (CDN) — Authorities on Wednesday (Aug. 25) recovered the bodies of three Christian relief workers who had been kidnapped and killed by members of the Pakistani Taliban in the flood-ravaged country, area officials said.
Swat District Coordination Officer Atif-ur-Rehman told Compass that the Pakistan Army recovered the bodies of the three foreign flood-relief workers at about 7 a.m. on Wednesday. An official at the international humanitarian organization that employed the workers withheld their names and requested that the agency remain unnamed for security reasons. Military sources who withheld news of the deaths from electronic and print media to avoid panicking other relief workers granted permission to Compass to publish it in limited form.
“The foreign aid workers have been working in Mingora and the surrounding areas,” Rehman said. “On Aug. 23 they were returning to their base at around 5:35 p.m. when a group of Taliban attacked their vehicle. They injured around five-six people and kidnapped three foreign humanitarian workers.”
Pakistan has been hit by its worst flooding in decades, with the United Nations now estimating more than 21.8 million people have been affected. Foreign aid workers are involved in relief activities across the country, including Swat district in Khyber-Paktunkhwa Province in northern Pakistan. At least 8 million people require emergency relief, with hundreds of thousands reportedly isolated from aid supplies.
An army Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) source said rangers have been deployed in Swat and other potential target areas to help provide security for relief workers.
“The Taliban had warned about attacks on foreigner aid workers and Christian organizations,” the ISPR source said. “All the international humanitarian organizations have been notified, and their security has also been increased.”
Rehman noted that the Taliban also has been trying to bring relief to flood victims.
“The Taliban are also trying to support the flood victims, and many other banned organizations have set up camps in southern Punjab to support the victims,” he said. “They intend to sympathize with the affected and gain their support.”
The president of advocacy organization Life for All, Rizwan Paul, said the bodies of the three relief workers had been sent to Islamabad under the supervision of the Pakistan Army.
“We strongly condemn the killing of the three humanitarian workers,” Paul said. “These aid workers came to support us, and we are thankful to the humanitarian organizations that came to help us in a time of need.”
Pointing to alleged discrimination against minorities in distribution of humanitarian aid, Paul added that Christians in severely flood-damaged areas in Punjab Province have been neglected. The majority of the effected Christians in Punjab are in Narowal, Shakargarh, Muzzafargarh, Rahim Yar Khan and Layyah, he said.
“The Christians living around Maralla, Narowal, and Shakargarh were shifted to the U.N.- administered camps, but they are facing problems in the camps,” he said. “There are reports that the Christians are not given tents, clean water and food. In most of the camps the Christians have totally been ignored.”
Life for All complained to U.N. agencies and the government of Pakistan regarding the discrimination, but no one has responded yet, he said.
“There have been reports from Muzzaffargarh and Layyah that the Christians are living on the damaged roads in temporary tents, as they were not allowed in the government camps,” he said.
In Sindh Province Thatta has been flooded, and around 300 Christian families who tried to move from there to Punjab were forbidden from doing so, a source said. Meteorologists are predicting more rains in coming days, with the already catastrophic flooding expected to get worse.
Kashif Mazhar, vice president of Life for All, said that in the northern province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa conditions for Christians are better as there are Christian camps established, and Garrison Church in Risalpur is also providing aid to victims.
“It is discouraging to see that the Christian organizations are wholeheartedly supporting the victims regardless of the religion or race, but in most of the areas the Christians are totally ignored and not even allowed to stay,” Mazhar said.
Foreign targets are rarely attacked directly in Pakistan, despite chronic insecurity in the nuclear-armed state, which is a key ally in the U.S.-led war on Al Qaeda and the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan. On March 10, however, suspected Islamic militants armed with guns and grenades stormed the offices of a Christian relief and development organization in northwest Pakistan, killing six aid workers and wounding seven others.
The gunmen besieged the offices of international humanitarian organization World Vision near Oghi, in Mansehra district, of the North West Frontier Province. Suicide and bomb attacks across Pakistan have killed more than 3,000 people since 2007. Blame has fallen on Taliban and Al Qaeda-linked militants bitterly opposed to the alliance with the United States.
The U.N. decided last year to relocate a limited number of its international staff from Pakistan because of security concerns. Its World Food Program office in Islamabad was attacked in October last year, with five aid workers killed in a suicide bombing.
Then on Feb. 3, a bomb attack in the NWFP district of Lower Dir killed three U.S. soldiers and five other people at the opening of a school just rebuilt with Western funding after an Islamist attack.
END
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12:05
Rainbow
» The floods in Pakistan have been some of the greatest in recent times. Over one-fifth of the country has been covered in water. Many have lost loved ones; most have lost everything that they own. Devastation at this magnitude is always jaw dropping. Yet, we are reminded of this: I establish my covenant with you: [...]
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15:38
Family Refutes Police Claims in Death of Christian in India
» Compass Direct NewsBible teacher in Rajasthan state, 20, faced opposition from Hindu nationalists.
NEW DELHI, August 25 (CDN) — The family of a 20-year-old Christian found dead last week in the northern state of Rajasthan suspects he was killed by Hindu nationalists, though police claim he died of cardiac arrest.
Narayan Lal, a farmer from Hameerpura Patar village in Arnod sub-district of Rajasthan’s Pratapgarh district, was found dead the evening of Aug. 17 near a forest where he had gone to tend his goats.
Lal was a volunteer teacher in a 10-day Vacation Bible School organized by indigenous Christian organization Light of the World Service Society (Jagat Jyoti Seva Sansthan) in his village area in May, and a relative who requested anonymity told Compass that some villagers did not approve of the young man “spreading Christianity.”
“It seems his throat was strangulated,” the relative said. “I do not know who did it, but I am sure he was murdered. His family was facing opposition for their Christian work, particularly by some residents of Nadikhera village [near Hameerpura Patar].”
A post-mortem report suggested otherwise, police said.
“The body of Narayan Lal, son of Tola Ram Meena, was found under a tree,” Superintendent of Police of Pratapgarh district Prem Prakash Tak told Compass. “There was some froth formation in his mouth, but no injuries or bruises. The post-mortem was conducted by three doctors, and they suggest that he died of cardio-respiratory failure.”
He added that police had not heard that the family suspected murder. The relative said, however, that Lal’s father told police that his son was seemingly killed by some people from Nadikhera village who had been opposing him and his family. Salamgarh Police Inspector Govardhan Ram Chowdhary was unavailable for comment.
Lal’s relative contested the police version, saying Lal was “absolutely healthy” with “no sign of any ailment.”
“I cannot believe that he died of heart failure – he was very young,” he said. “His shoes were lying near his body, and a piece of cloth was kept on his hands. It seemed that the cloth was used to tie his hands.”
The relative asked why police did not inform the family of their autopsy report’s indication of cardiac arrest.
“We would have taken the body to a private hospital for confirmation,” he said.
The death was reported to Salamgarh police at 10 p.m. on Aug. 17 under Section 174 of the Criminal Procedure Code for “death under suspicious circumstances.” The autopsy was performed on Aug. 18, after which the body was handed over to the family for cremation.
Police Superintendent Tak acknowledged that Lal’s father, an elder in the village church, had been arrested in July 2008 on charges of desecrating an idol of a Hindu deity in the village. He was released after police failed to find evidence against him.
“He [Lal’s father] was falsely accused by those who did not like his missionary work,” the deceased’s relative said. “It was a plot to oppose his work.”
Christian persecution is not new to Rajasthan state, where Christian conversion is a sensitive issue.
The Rajasthan government passed an anti-conversion law in the state assembly in April 2006, when the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was in power. The bill is still awaiting the governor’s assent.
The BJP led the government of Rajasthan from March 1990 to November 1998, and again from December 2003 to December 2008, when the Left-of-Center Congress Party won the election.
The incidence of Christian persecution is said to have decreased since the BJP’s defeat in the 2008 state election, with the exception of sporadic incidents.
About 30 suspected Hindu extremists assaulted two Christian workers from Gospel for Asia and chased them into the jungle near Rajasthan’s Banswara city on Sept. 4, 2009. (See “Recent Incidents of Persecution,” Sept. 29, 2009.)
On March 21, 2009, Hindu nationalists from the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP or World Hindu Council) attacked Bible students and staff members of the Believers Church and demanded 10,000 rupees (US$193) from them in Udaipur city. (See “Recent Incidents of Persecution,” March 31, 2009.)
On April 29, 2007, at least 14 Hindu extremists in Jaipur, Rajasthan attacked Pastor Walter Masih with sticks and rods as television cameras recorded the scene, leaving him bleeding profusely. The then-Hindu nationalist government in the state declined to prosecute the more serious charges against the assailants.
BJP leaders harassed leaders of the Emmanuel Mission International (EMI), based in Kota city, in 2006, leading to the arrest of the Christians and the freezing of EMI bank accounts.
END
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11:09
Victim of Orissa, India Violence Rescued from Trafficking Ring
» Compass Direct News
Christians displaced by Kandhamal violence in 2008 sold for coerced labor or sex.
NEW DELHI, August 25 (CDN) — Nearly two years after large-scale anti-Christian violence broke out in India’s Kandhamal district, Orissa state, a team working against human trafficking on Aug. 9 rescued a 16-year-old Christian girl – one of at least 60 people sold into slavery after being displaced by the 2008 attacks.
The recovery in Delhi of the girl represented the cracking of a network that has trafficked Christian girls and women from Orissa to the national capital, sources said.
“Human trafficking agents operating in the tribal belt of Orissa have targeted the Christian girls who are displaced by the Kandhamal communal violence – we have been receiving complaints of missing girls from Kandhamal after the violence broke out in 2008,” said attorney Lansinglu Rongmei, one of the rescue team members. “Roughly 60 girls are estimated missing and have been trafficked to different states.”
The girl, whose name is withheld, is a tribal Christian who was sold into slavery along with her 19-year-old sister and two other girls, all victims of the 2008 violence; they were trafficked from the Daringbadi block of Kandhamal district to the capital in December 2009, according to the Human Rights Law Network (HRLN). Her sister and the other two girls remain missing.
The mother of the girl accompanied the rescue team the evening of Aug. 9 in the Rohini area of Delhi, said a source from the HRLN Anti-Human Trafficking department on condition of anonymity.
“It was only the joint efforts of the All India Christian Council [AICC], HRLN Anti-Human Trafficking and the area police that made this rescue possible,” the source said.
The rescue team took action after the minor’s mother approached the HRLN of Kandhamal for help, which in turn called the Delhi office. Team members said they were disappointed by the reaction of police, who were initially cooperative but later “just unwilling to help,” in the words of one member.
The girl was used only for labor, although she was sexually harassed, sources said.
Rongmei told Compass that police refused to file a First Information Report, telling rescue team members, “No rape of the victim took place as per the medical examination, and there was no need for a case registration against anyone.”
The rescue team was not given a copy of the report of a medical examination at Bhagwan Mahavir Hospital, Pitampura, in Delhi, but they were told it indicated no sign of rape.
“It is confirmed that she was not raped,” said Madhu Chandra, spokesperson of the AICC and part of the rescue team. “She was physically abused, with teeth bite marks and bruises on her body – her neck, leg and right hand.”
Tricked
The girl stated that a well-known woman from their village in Kandhamal district gave her and her sister a false promise of safe and secure work in Delhi as gardeners.
Instead, operatives brought the sisters and the two other girls to a placement agency in Ratala village in Delhi, Sakhi Maid Bureau, which was run by a man identified only as Montu.
The HRLN source told Compass that the girl was with the placement agency for six days as the owner, Montu, attempted to rape her on several occasions. She was threatened, beaten, drugged with alcohol and sexually molested, the source said.
The girl said her sister and the other two girls were treated the same way.
She was placed in a home in Rohini, Sector 11, as domestic help beginning in January. Until July, she said, she was treated relatively well there, except for a few instances of being slapped by the lady of the house. Then the family’s 10-year-old son began to hit her and their 14-year-old son tried to assault her sexually, and she tried to flee earlier this month.
The girl told the rescue team that she informed the lady of the house about the elder son’s misbehavior, but that the woman stated that she could do nothing about it.
“She bears marks from being beaten on her right hand by the younger boy,” said Chandra.
He told Compass that the owner of the placement agency collected the girl’s wages from the family who employed her, promising to send the money to her mother in Kandhamal district, but that he failed to do so.
Compass was unable to meet with the girl as she was still traumatized and undergoing counseling sessions. The girl’s mother sobbed for her other daughter, grieved that no one knew what condition she was in.
Montu, the placement agency operator, has absconded, according to police.
Passive Police
Prasant Vihar Police Station House Officer Sudhir Kumar confirmed the rescue team’s accusation that he refused to register a complaint in the girl’s case.
“The victim is from Kandhamal, let her go back to Kandhamal and register her complaint there,” Kumar told Compass. “No rape of the victim took place as per the medical examination, and thus there is no need for registering a case against anyone.”
Assistant Commissioner of Police Sukhvir Singh told Compass he had no explanation why the girl’s complaint was not registered, but he insisted on having her and the rescue team return.
“We will file their complaint if they come back to us now,” he said.
Karuna Dayal, coordinator of Anti-Human Trafficking Initiatives at HRLN, led the rescue team, which also included AICC Legal Secretary Advocate Rongmei, Chandra and Ashis Kumar Subodh of the AICC, and three others from the HRLN – Afsar Ahmed, attorney Diviya Jyoti Jaipuria and one identified only as Sangram.
Dr. John Dayal, secretary general of the AICC, said large-scale human trafficking in Christian tribal and Dalit women of Kandhamal district is one of the worst problems in the aftermath of the Kandhamal violence.
“Police have made arrests in the nearby Andhra Pradesh and other states,” he said. “Because of the displacement due to the violence, they lost their future, and it is very easy for strangers to come and lure them. Community and family life has been disrupted; the children do not have the normal security that growing children must have. Trauma, unemployment and desperate measures have resulted in the loss of childhood, forcing many to grow up before their age.”
The AICC is calling on the National Commission for Women, the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes to investigate, he added.
END
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10:07
'Blasphemy' Threats Send Pakistani Worker, Couple into Hiding
» The Christian Post RSS Feed | PersecutionThreats of “blasphemy” charges in two provinces in Pakistan have sent a Christian cleaning worker and a young inter-faith couple into hiding.
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11:08
The College Experience
» After High School, I had a lot of my friends go off to State universities. This was a great option for most of them, because it was a less expensive way to get their bachelors degree. Though it was not a Christian school, they had many opportunities to grow in their faith and worship via [...]
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11:34
Rapes of Christian Girls in Pakistan Reflect Hidden Trend
» The Christian Post RSS Feed | PersecutionThe vulnerability of Christian girls to sexual assault in Pakistani society emerged again last month as a Muslim landowner allegedly targeted a 16-year-old and a gang of madrassa (Islamic school) students allegedly abused a 12-year-old in Punjab Province. -
8:12
Evangelist Arrested in Zanzibar, Tanzania
» The Christian Post RSS Feed | PersecutionChristian university students on the Tanzanian island of Zanzibar, a predominantly Muslim area off the coast of East Africa, have been denied the right to worship, while on another part of the isle a Christian leader has been jailed.
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13:31
New Website
» Open Doors USA has just launched a new version of its website. The new website is at [www.opendoorsusa.org.] Here are some things worth checking out: The Media Center This section has been updated to include Press Releases, the Annual Report, a biography on Open Doors USA President Carl Moeller and a way to schedule an [...]
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9:06
'Unchecked Extremism' Behind Attacks on Churches in Indonesia
» The Christian Post RSS Feed | PersecutionThe country that is home to the world’s largest Muslim population celebrated its 65th Independence Day today amid a widespread sense of distrust in the government’s ability to check attacks on churches by Islamist groups. -
6:23
North Korea Executes 3 House Church Leaders
» The Christian Post RSS Feed | PersecutionNorth Korea executed three leaders of the underground church and jailed 20 other Christians, reported a news agency focused on Asia.
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Islamic intolerance is devouring Pakistan
» Religious Liberty MonitoringIslamic intolerance is escalating unchecked across Pakistan as Islamic fundamentalism emanating from mosques and madrassas cultivates hatred which is then fuelled by the impunity the persecutors enjoy.
As chaos and lawlessness escalate, religious intolerance and hatred are unleashed without restraint, and the situation for Christians deteriorates.
The following reports represent the tip of the iceberg. All are recent.
(Credit to Compass Direct News for their phenomenal reporting on the plight of Pakistan's minority Christians.)
KYBER PAKHTOONKHWA (formerly North West Frontier Province).
On 14 June, Samuel John, a Christian psychology professor at the University of Peshawar, was savagely bashed outside his home by a group of five students for refusing to convert to Islam. When his wife rushed to his aid, she too was beaten. Both required hospitalisation, with the professor in a critical condition. The police refuse to register a First Information Report (FIR), and John continues to be threatened with death unless he converts to Islam or leaves the University.
PUNJAB PROVINCE.
Sunil Masih, Shazia Masih and Nasir Naeem, three Christian 8th grade students in Danna village, southern Punjab, have long faced pressure from teachers to convert to Islam. On 16 June, after their parents complained, the principal backed his staff, agreeing that the students should convert to Islam or leave the school. When the police refused to help, the three Christian families fled the area.
On 19 June, Rehmat Masih (85), a Christian of Faisalabad district, was arrested and jailed after a hard-line Muslim named Muhammad Sajjid Hameed filed a false blasphemy charge against him. Hameed and Masih had both made application for the same parcel of land.
Christian policeman Jamshed Masih was recently transferred to the predominantly Muslim Mustafa Colony in Jhelum, south of Islamabad. However, local Muslims unwilling to have the Christian family living amongst them, immediately began conspiring against them.
On 21 June, a mob led by local Muslim religious leader Maulana Mahfooz Khan descended on the family's home after Masih had left for work. Sensing trouble brewing, Masih's wife, Razia, had already phoned her husband and asked him to come home urgently. Khan accused the eldest son (11) of blasphemy, drawing a crowd. As Razia pleaded for mercy someone in the crowd hit her on the head with a hard object, causing her to bleed and her children to cry. The agitated crowd began baying for blood, and by the time Jamshed Masih got home, his wife and four children lay murdered -- massacred. Masih tried to file a complaint, but the Station House Officer refused to register a FIR.
On 1 July Rev. Rashid Emmanuel (32) and Sajid Emmanuel (30), leaders of United Ministries Pakistan, were falsely accused of blasphemy. They were supposed to have written a blasphemous document and signed their names to it (a highly unlikely scenario in any case, except for someone with a death wish).
Over 10 and 11 July many hundreds of enraged Muslims marched through the predominantly Christian colony of Dawood Nagar. Spewing abuse and obscenities, they called for the immediate death of the two Christian brothers. According to Compass Direct News, while Islamic extremists led the protests, most participants appeared to be teenagers who pelted the main gate of the Waris Pura Catholic Church with stones, bricks and shards of glass and pounded the gate with bamboo clubs.
It was widely expected that the brothers would soon be exonerated as handwriting experts had notified police that the signatures on the papers denigrating Muhammad did not match those of the accused.
On 19 July 2010, the brothers were shot dead outside the Faisalabad courthouse by five masked men. The bodied of the slain brothers showed signs of torture. The killings have caused religious tensions in Faisalabad to soar.
In Farooqabad in eastern Punjab, on the night of 21 July, three Muslim co-workers of a Christian man allegedly raped his 16-year-old daughter at gunpoint. Then, on 29 July, after Masih complained to police, two other Muslims who work for his employer, kidnapped him and took him to the employer's farmhouse where they allegedly shackled and tortured Masih, leaving him in critical condition.
In Rawalpindi district, students from the local Jamia Islamia Madrassa have been harassing Christians in the villages around Gujar Khan. According to a local pastor, they routinely beat Christian children and throw stones at the church. 'They openly announce that "the Christians are our enemies, we should not talk to them, eat with them or do business with them".' (NOTE: the Qur'an repeatedly commands Muslims to maintain enmity towards and separation from Christians.) On 22 July, a 12-yr-old girl from a local Christian family was gang-raped by 7 or 8 madrassa students. A teacher who witnessed the incident overheard one of the 16-strong student-mob saying: 'We will teach these Christians a lesson they will never forget'.
When the girl's distraught parents subsequently went to the police station to file a complaint, the officer in charge refused to register it, yielding to local Muslim pressure. According to the Center for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS), 'Such vicious incidents are not being stopped by the government, and day by day the rate of rapes of Christian girls is escalating instead of plunging.' (As would be expected when rape is rewarded with impunity.)
SINDH PROVINCE.
On 13 July 2010, Dr. Abdul Jabbar Meammon, his driver, another Muslim doctor and two other men, beat, tortured and gang-raped Christian trainee nurse Magdalene Ashraf at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center, Karachi, Sind Province. In an effort to cover up their crime, the three Muslim men then attempted to kill Magdalene by throwing her out of a window on the hospital's 4th floor. While Magdalene survived the attack, she is a critical condition with serious head and shoulder injuries.
Magdlene told the Christian Lawyers' Foundation (CLF) that a nurse named Sajjad Fatima had set her up, sending her to Dr Meammon's room on false pretenses. When Magdalene entered Dr Meammon's office, he grabbed her. “When I resisted and tried to escape, nurse Fatima slapped both my cheeks and pushed me into Dr. Jabbar,” Ashraf said. “I cried out but no one arrived there to rescue me. They not only gang-raped me, they also tortured me physically and ruthlessly beat me.”
Dr Jabbar Meammon, a known sexual predator, has been charged with attempted murder. No-one has been charged with rape or assault. Meanwhile, as Dr Meammon and his legal team work on his contrary story (where he the victim!), Ashraf's family is receiving threats.
On 15 July, Pastor Aaron John, Rohail Bhatti, Salman John, Abid Gill and Shamin Mall were shot dead -- massacred -- and six others were wounded when a dozen masked men opened fire on them as they exited their church property in Sukkur, Sindh Province.
Students from a local madrassa (Qur'anic school) have been threatening the church since 2008, and according to reports, while the gunmen had young physiques like those of students, their manner of attack indicated they were trained militants.
The church members had been meeting to discuss security in the light of a threatening letter the church had received in May from Islamic extremist group Sip-e-Sahaba warning the Christians to leave the area because they were not welcome and were polluting the land.
The police and ambulance took 45 minutes to arrive.
A church member told Compass Direct News that, not only had the police refused to register a FIR in relation to the threats, they have also yielded to Muslim pressure and refused to register a FIR in relation to the Sukkur massacre.
FLOODS
Pakistan's devastating floods are the result of unprecedented monsoonal rains AND bad governance, for Pakistan has one of the highest rates of deforestation in the world.
Pakistan today has less than 5 percent forest cover. (Five percent is the official government figure, but the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations says forests only amount to about 2.5 percent of the country's total area.)
The floods have wiped out millions of homes AND, accord to TIME magazine, some 17 million acres of agricultural land have been submerged, and more than 100,000 animals have perished.
A humanitarian crisis of monumental proportions is unfolding.
Further to this, Bishop Humphrey Peters of Peshawar warns that aid is unlikely to reach marginalised minority Christians.
Meanwhile, the people's anger, hunger and desperation, combined with the government's virtual collapse in credibility, and the Army's diversion into rescue and relief, provides the al-Qaeda-Taliban with a phenomenal window of opportunity. As TIME magazine notes, it will be difficult -- suicidal in fact -- for the government to crack down on Islamic fundamentalist and militant groups -- like the Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation, an Islamic "charity" with alleged links to the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba -- when these groups are extending aid and assistance to the displaced and are receiving donations from the "urban middle class of Punjab, who are turning increasingly to religious conservatism".
Is the battle for Pakistan essentially already over?
In a 4 Aug 2010 column for Dawn (Pakistan), Rafia Zakaria (a US-based attorney who teaches constitutional history and political philosophy) writes that while the Pakistani army might be having some military successes against the Pakistani Taliban, the Taliban's "social project of producing a radicalised Pakistan attracted to literal and intolerant interpretations of faith is flourishing. Examples of such societal radicalisation abound, a notable one being the lack of public outcry against the rampant persecution of minorities who do not fit into the idealised mould of the Sunni Muslim Pakistani citizen."
See: Everyday intolerance
By Rafia Zakaria, for Dawn, Wednesday, 04 Aug 2010
In lamenting the Islamisation of Pakistan, Zakaria notes not only the persecution of religious minorities -- Christians, Ahmadis and Hindus -- but also the banning of Facebook (deemed blasphemous, the ban was supported by 70% of Pakistanis), and the banning of Teray Bin Laden, a comedy film that pokes fun at Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden and features Pakistani pop star Ali Zafar. "The affinity for bans suggests the increasing prevalence of a worldview that wants to eliminate perspectives that are repugnant, rather than develop intellectual arguments against them."
Zakaria deplores the Islamisation of college campuses, noting that some have banned "Western dress", and decries the rise of Islamic vigilantism.
Zakaria expresses a widely held fear that, "while the Pakistani military may be winning the territorial conflict, the war for the Pakistani psyche may already have been lost."
This post is an extended version of Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin | RLPB 069 | Wed 18 Aug 2010, "PAKISTAN: SITUATION CRITICAL".
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6:21
Somalia's Christians Plead for Prayers during Ramadan
» The Christian Post RSS Feed | PersecutionSomalia's underground Christian community is asking fellow believers worldwide to pray for their safety during Islam’s holy month of Ramadan.
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12:31
All Praise Him
» Too often we hear discouraging news about our brothers and sisters who are being persecuted, so it is especially uplifting when we get praise reports. In Tanzania, after 10 months of hearings, a court acquitted two evangelists of illegal preaching. Those that were accusing them claimed that the Christians were spreading the message that Jesus [...]
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8:18
Pakistani Court Acquits Christian Woman of 'Blasphemy'
» The Christian Post RSS Feed | PersecutionA Pakistani court on Wednesday exonerated a Christian woman of “blasphemy” charges after authorities had pressured her into making a false confession, according to the Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement
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13:57
Iron
» Do you ever have a difficult time remembering to pray? Sometimes the day seem so busy that I realize I have only talked to God once or twice and it has been really brief. My friend once referred to these as “shout outs to God”. He is my Creator, the one who saved me, the [...]
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PAPUA: evidence of human rights abuses
» Religious Liberty MonitoringVideo sheds light on Indonesia security forces
By ROBIN McDOWELL (AP) 5 Aug 2010
excerpts
The jumpy video shows a prisoner lying in a jungle clearing in eastern Indonesia moments after troops allegedly sliced open his abdomen with a bayonet, sending intestines tumbling from his stomach.Using the little life he has left in him, Yawen Wayeni lifts his arm into the air, and says weakly, "Freedom! Papua ... Freedom!"
At the sound of his muffled voice, gun-toting, uniformed officers resting in the shade approach.
"Speak up," one taunts. "What? You all are never going to get freedom." [. . .]
The seven-minute video appears to have been made by the Korps Brigade Mobil, or Brimob, the paramilitary police who took part in the arrest. It too has a legacy of abuse in Papua.
It's not clear how the clip made its way to the Internet, and few here have seen it.
The troops caught up with Wayeni at his home in the jungle village of Matembu on Aug. 3, 2009.
Wayeni's wife told the Commission for Disappearances and Victims of Violence that they tied his arms and legs to a log and forced him to chant "Free Papua!" before slicing him in the abdomen with a bayonet.
They all but ignored him as he stumbled to the ground, landing in a patch of rough grass and propping his head up on a log.
"Look, he's tired," one officer says as the prisoner's head lolls back, his eyes rolling.
The police ask Wayeni if he is an atheist and call him a "savage," saying his prayers will never be answered. They then ask how, in his condition, he thinks Papua will ever shake free of Indonesian rule.
"It's equally surreal and horrific watching as the grievously injured Yawan Wayeni answers teasing questions from uniformed Indonesia security forces about his political beliefs," said Phil Robertson, a deputy director at the New York-based Human Rights Watch.
Getting medical help, he notes, seems the furthest thing from their minds.
Despite his suffering, however, the dying man refuses to give in.
"This land was promised by God to us, the Papuan people," Wayeni says. "God, the suffering of the simple people, there are so many! They are crying, oh God!"
- NOTE: In the video the soldiers refer to Yawen as "orang kaffir". The translation incorrectly translates the term"kaffir" as "atheist". Yet clearly Yawen is not an atheist -- he is cyring out to God. The correct translation would be "infidel", the term used by Muslims of non-Muslims. Thus "orang kaffir" = "this person is an infidel".
Papuan Detainee in Gruesome Video Was Shot, Not Disemboweled: Police
By Farouk Arnaz & Banjir Ambarita, Jakarta Globe, August 06, 2010The National Police have denied allegations that officers disemboweled a Papuan detainee with a bayonet and taunted him, saying his injuries were caused by a gunshot wound sustained during a firefight . . .
MEANWHILE: Rev Sofyan Yoman summonsed
Rev Sofyan Yoman, the chairman of the Central Board of the United Baptist Churches in Papua, has been summonsed to give an account to the police of a statement he recently made regarding actions of the army and police in Puncak Jaya. He is purported to have intimated that the Indonesian military (TNI) has committed human rights abuses and that it does not always report the truth.
"What I was reported to have said is not rubbish. There is good reason for us to have made that statement, we have the data and we have the experience. The government and the security forces misrepresent the situation and they fail to understand us. We are not an ignorant people
who are deaf, dumb and blind," he said.Rev Yoman has declined the summons, saying that the church is not subordinate to the Indonesian government or the security forces. According to Rev Yoman, the church must always and at all times be the voice of its people who are voiceless and oppressed.
"We continue to be amazed that the acts of violence that have been happening since 2004 in Puncak Jaya have continued to this day. . . What we hope for is that the security forces should end this game that is going on in the Land of Papua. . ."
Rev Yoman appealed for the police to stop summoning indigenous Papuans. "Let's live together, side by side, as equals, respecting each other. Don't treat the creatures of the Lord like hunted animals, stigmatised, trivialising the people of God."
While Rev Yoman has rejected the summons, the police are saying they will force him to appear.
The director for criminal affairs Petrus Waine said that Rev Sokrates Sofyan Yoman had created the impression in his speech that the TNI/Polri were responsible for the shootings. He must take responsibility for his remarks, including those about the shooting of civilians and members of the security forces. "He needs to produce data and facts," he said, "and if he fails to do so, it is not ethical."
But according to Gustaf Kawer, a lawyer who closely follows legal affairs in Papua, "Yoman has not committed a criminal offence, and there's no need for a police summons. Criticisms from the people are quite natural in this era of democracy and should not be seen as violations of the law."
Kawer also said that it was within the rights of Sokrates to refuse to respond to a police summons.See:
Socrates Yoman rejects police summons; Alleged OPM attack on civilian in Mulia
Bintang Papua, 8 August 2010
Translated by TAPOLWPapua news: Police will force Sokrates to appear Articles in Bintang Papua
Translated by TAPOL with abridgements
Bintang Papua, 9 August 2010The reality is, as with all Papuan human rights advocates, Rev Yoman's life is perpetually at risk.
- NOTE: In the video the soldiers refer to Yawen as "orang kaffir". The translation incorrectly translates the term"kaffir" as "atheist". Yet clearly Yawen is not an atheist -- he is cyring out to God. The correct translation would be "infidel", the term used by Muslims of non-Muslims. Thus "orang kaffir" = "this person is an infidel".
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12:15
Customs
» Have you ever traveled outside the US before? For the most part, Customs is pretty standard. Before you arrive you are typically given a card to fill out. This usually checks to make sure you are not bringing any fruits or vegetables in, and also monitors the risk of diseases. The whole process is pretty [...]
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10:00
Hundreds Attack Church Members in Indonesia
» The Christian Post RSS Feed | PersecutionLeaders of a church in West Java, Indonesia, demanded justice from police after a fifth attack from Muslim protestors left at least a dozen people injured Sunday. -
13:37
Christian NGO Mourns Murder of 10 Workers in Afghanistan
» The Christian Post RSS Feed | PersecutionThe 10 aid workers who were massacred allegedly by the Taliban in Afghanistan were part of International Assistance Mission, the group confirmed Monday.
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Sharia-phobia?
» Religious Liberty MonitoringKenyans have voted and the new constitution has been accepted.
See:
Kenyans Approve New Constitution
By Jeffrey Gettleman, New York Times, 5 Aug 2010
New constitution for Kenya as 'No' team concedes
By Tom Odula, Associated Press, 5 Aug 2010
No need to apologise, Moi tells clerics
By BEATRICE OBWOCHA and RENSON BULUMA, The Standard, 8 Aug 2010
2010 REFERENDUM PROCESS AND OUTCOMES
PRESS STATEMENT BY THE KENYA CHRISTIAN CHURCH LEADERS
Thursday, 05 August 2010
On the entrenchment of Kahdi Courts
Before the referendum, Kenya's retired Anglican Archbishop David Gitari, head of the Christians for Yes campaign, maintained that Christian fears over the entrenchment and legitimisation of Kahdi (Islamic/Sharia) courts were misplaced. "There is a lot of sharia-phobia in the Christian church," he said.
Sharia-phobia?
International Crisis Group's July 2006 report entitled "Islamic Law and Criminal Justice in Aceh", is worth revisiting, for Aceh can serve as a model for how Sharia not only divides Muslims, but has a tendency to expand once implemented.
The ICG report notes that the Muslim Acehnese have long been divided over Sharia. During Indonesia's battle for independence Acehnese elites clearly expressed their preference for Dutch-style secular administration. Even Aceh's ulama (religious scholars) were divided between those who favoured secular administration and those who wanted an Islamic State based on Sharia Law. ICG notes that for many, the issue had more to do with power than ideology - the elites did not want a religious bureaucracy established that could expand and threaten their authority, while the Islamists were determined to establish a formal religious bureaucracy from where they could expand and advance their influence and power.
ICG notes that the leader of the Acehnese Islamists, Daud Beureueh, led the Acehnese in jihad against the "kafir" Dutch occupier specifically with the aim of achieving an Islamic state. Sukarno courted and rewarded Beureueh with assurances that Indonesia would be built on Islamic principles and Aceh would have Sharia Law. This was radical as Sharia had no historic precedent in Aceh.
After Suharto's downfall, President Habibie offered Islamic Law to Aceh as a political solution to Acehnese unrest and disaffection, which really arose out of neglect and frustration. ICG reports that Jakarta regarded Sharia law as "something the Acehnese wanted (although how much was debatable - after the Indonesian parliament granted it, one Acehnese called it an 'unwanted gift', and he was not alone)". (ICG p 4)
Since Sharia has been legitimised and implemented in Aceh it has expanded considerably, for the religious bureaucracy tasked with codifying and implementing Sharia in Aceh is committed to "its own expansion; a focus on legislating and enforcing morality; and a quiet power struggle with secular law enforcement".
According to ICG, many Acehnese worry "that extension of Shari'a has been taken on as an agenda by conservative organisations. . . Women's organisations have been particularly active in raising questions about proposed changes to the khalwat qanun [laws on relationships between men and women] but in general, the conservatives, who support more extensive Shari'a application, are more vocal than those concerned about its consequences".(ICG p7)
The religious bureaucracy constantly extends the reach of Sharia by revising legislation and increasing the number of crimes that can be dealt with by the Sharia Courts. It has already been proposed that revisions be made to the laws covering khalwat (illicit relationships between men and women) so that any woman who alleges she was raped must follow Sharia protocols and produce four male adult Muslim eye-witnesses to support her claim in order to prove it. If she cannot, she will be found guilty of making a false accusation of rape, guilty of illicit sex, and caned accordingly.
In 2004, Aceh established the highly unpopular vice and virtue patrol, the wilayatul hisbah (WH), which is responsible for monitoring compliance with Islamic law. Not only did Aceh's WH grow from 13 members to 33 in one year, its powers are constantly increasing. What's more, the very presence of the WH is fueling the rise of hard-line Islamic vigilantism.
ICG also notes that as the religious bureaucracy expands it will rely more and more on young recruits who are motivated primarily by their contacts with intolerant radical foreign elements, in particular Wahhabis, jihadists, and groups like Hizb-ut-Tahrir.
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Secular law and Sharia law are not parallel systems. Rather, they are conflicting systems that intersect continuously. The question eventually must arise, when the laws conflict, which is supreme?
In secular, free Malaysia the solution has been to give the Sharia Courts jurisdiction over everything pertaining to Islam -- including the right to leave Islam. (Sharia prohibits apostasy, so all requests to leave Islam must be denied.)
See: The Islamisation of Malaysia
By Elizabeth Kendal, WEA RLC New & Analysis, 7 June 2007.
Bid to nullify conversion fails
Straits Times, 4 Aug 2010
In Kano, in secular, free Nigeria, the Hisbah (vice and virtue Islamic police) constantly clash with state police overconflicting issues of morality, including the sale of alcohol.
See: Nigeria: The Battle for Shari'ah Supremacy
by Elizabeth Kendal, for WEA RLC News & Analysis, 20 March 2009
Kano State’s Islamic Police Destroy 80,000 Bottles of Beer
The Nigerian Inquirer, 4 Aug 2010
Now they are entrenched in the constitution of secular, free Kenya, the kadhi Courts are destined to grow in administration and influence. They will be divisive, and a force for Islamic expansion. What will be the situation now for Christians who are apostates from Islam? If a man converts to Islam will he be permitted to take a second wife? What will be the fate of Christian children deemed Muslim by khadi courts on account of the conversion of their father?
The rod of repressive Islam might not touch the flesh of Dr David Gitari, but it will certainly strike any Kenyan Muslim who puts their faith in Jesus Christ, and any Kenyan Christian caught up in the web of Islamic family law.
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12:01
Special investigation: How predatory gangs force middle-class girls into the sex trade
» Christians Under Attack
This week a girl who was abducted at the age of 14 and forced to work as a sex slave gave evidence in court that helped convict the nine men who
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11:54
Mosque on fast track, but Greek church waits
» Christians Under Attack
Shame on Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the members of his Landmarks Preservation Commission for voting 9-0 to allow the building of a Muslim mosque at ground zero in New York City. -
11:06
IRAN: CHRISTIAN IN PRISON
» Christians Under AttackAli Golchin, an Iranian Christian, has been held in solitary confinement in Tehran’s Evin prison since he was arrested in his hometown of Varamin, according to Farsi Christian News Network (FCNN).
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11:00
RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE? Zanzibar Muslims Tear Down Church Foundation Build Mosque
» Christians Under Attack
Zanzibar is an Island off of Tanzania. About 97% of the Island's population are Muslim, the remaining 3% are a combination of Hindu and Christians
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Uzbekistan: "We are bandits"
» Forum 18 News ServiceUzbekistan continues short-term jailings of prisoners of conscience and large fines against Christians meeting together, Forum 18 News Service has learned. 10 Protestant short-term prisoners of conscience have been jailed for between three and five days, and three were fined 80 times the minimum monthly wage. The raid which preceded the punishments - in which 23 people including small children were detained - was carried out with great brutality. Police under Major Ilyos Mustafayev broke into the house, confiscating two personal Bibles, four songbooks and one textbook of violin lessons. They then began "pushing the believers forcefully" into cars outside, Baptists complained. "Some believers were kicked and hit while they were dragged out of the house." Major Mustafayev, when asked by the Baptists why the Police acted like bandits, replied: "Yes, we are bandits". Questioned by Forum 18, Mustafayev denied his identity. Elsewhere a court has ordered that officially permitted Christian books and leaflets found in a raid should be confiscated and destroyed, despite Uzbek legal procedure being violated. -
Russia: Jehovah's Witness war veteran prosecuted for extremism
» Forum 18 News ServiceAn 85-year-old veteran of the Second World War is the first Russian Jehovah's Witness known to have been prosecuted for "production and distribution of extremist materials", Forum 18 News Service has learnt. The prosecution is the latest turn in the ongoing nationwide state campaign against the Jehovah's Witnesses. Aleksei Fedorin, the veteran, denied the charges, explaining that police gathered various Jehovah's Witness titles he distributed for several years before they were banned, and that he was ill on the recent days he is alleged to have distributed them. Fedorin was also interrogated for eight and a half hours continuously, although he suffers from dizziness and faints. The judge in the case refused to comment on her decision to Forum 18. Earlier prosecutions for producing and distributing religious literature have involved controversially banned Islamic titles. Previous cases against Jehovah's Witnesses have rested on little-used provisions of some regional Administrative Codes. In at least one case, an attempt appears to have been made to recruit a Jehovah's Witness as an FSB informer.
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13:34
Zanzibar Muslims Stop Church Building, Erect Mosque
» The Christian Post RSS Feed | PersecutionOn an island off the coast of East Africa where the local government limits the ability of Christians to obtain land, officials in one town have colluded with area Muslims to erect a mosque in place of a planned church building.
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10:19
Zanzibar Muslims, Officials Stop Church Building, Erect Mosque
» Compass Direct News
Islamists demolish foundation; police withhold crime report from court.
NAIROBI, Kenya, August 6 (CDN) — On an island off the coast of East Africa where the local government limits the ability of Christians to obtain land, officials in one town have colluded with area Muslims to erect a mosque in place of a planned church building.
On the Tanzanian island of Zanzibar, Pastor Paulo Kamole Masegi of the Evangelistic Assemblies of God had purchased land in April 2007 for a church building in Mwanyanya-Mtoni, and by November of that year he had built a house that served as a temporary worship center, he said.
Masegi intended for the house to serve eventually as his family’s home within the church compound, but on Nov. 11, 2007, his congregation began to worship there.
Soon area Muslim residents objected, saying they didn’t like seeing the church in the area, said Pastor Lucian Mgaywa of the Church of God in Tanzania.
“This was the beginning of the church’s tribulations,” Pastor Mgaywa said.
In August 2009, local Muslims began to build a mosque just three feet away from the church plot, Pastor Mgaywa said. In November 2009, Pastor Masegi began building a permanent church structure. Angry Muslims invaded the compound and destroyed the structure’s foundation, the pastors said.
Church leaders reported the destruction to police, who took no action – and also refused to release the crime report for court purposes, Pastor Masegi said. When he would inquire about the case, he said, the station head would inform him that the district police chief had the crime report and therefore it was not available.
“So it’s not possible to take the file to the court, because doing so would amount to defending Christianity,” the station police chief told him, according to Pastor Masegi.
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.”
Since the prohibition to conduct worship services in his home, both police and area Muslims monitor Pastor Masegi’s movements, he said, and the congregation has no place to worship.
In predominately Sunni Muslim Zanzibar, churches face other hurdles. There are restrictions on getting land to build churches, open preaching is outlawed and there is limited time on national television to air Christian programs. In government schools, religion classes are limited to Islam.
Zanzibar is the informal designation for the island of Unguja in the Indian Ocean. The Zanzibar archipelago united with Tanganyika to form the present day Tanzania in 1964.
Muslim traders from the Persian Gulf had settled in the region early in the 10th century after monsoon winds propelled them through the Gulf of Aden. The 1964 merger left island Muslims uneasy about Christianity, seeing it as a means by which mainland Tanzania might dominate them, and tensions have persisted.
END
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17:10
Ramadan
» In Bangladesh, two Christian women said village officials forcefully took away very large sums of money from them, and severely beat the husband of one for proclaiming Christ to Muslims. When we witness to Muslims, or anyone who does not know Christ for that matter, we may be discriminated against or ostracized. But could you [...]
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IRAN: Islamic police state escalates repression and persecution
» Religious Liberty MonitoringBiblical revelation preaches freedom in love. Islam (like all man-made religions) demands submission to law. While the God of the Bible demands perfection in love he freely provides a remedy for sin -- Jesus Christ -- and the Holy Spirit as helper. This is indeed Good News! On the other hand, while Islam demands submission to law it provides no remedy for sin, and so can only culminate in failure.
Meanwhile, the dictators of Islam employ religious forces -- Revolutionary Guards, Basij, muttawa, hisba, taliban etc -- to police 'vice and virtue'. To protect their own privilege and hegemony they deny Islam's failure and deflect scrutiny from Islam by blaming the victims. Driven by apostaphobia, they wage war against fitna (anything that could tempt a Muslim to doubt Islam).
Sunni reformation (as in Saudi Arabia) and Shi'ite revolution (as in Iran) have only produced repressive, totalitarian police states wracked with poverty, cruelty, despair and disillusionment.
In Iran, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) was established for the defence of Islam, while the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) was established to eliminate all opposition and dissent -- which they virtually did, through purges, terrors and serial killings.
When President Khatami (1997-2004) pressed for reforms after the manner of 'glasnost' (openness) and 'perestroika' (restructuring), Ayatollah Khamenei engineered his removal. Through the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005 - ), the hegemony of the blood-stained IRGC and MOIS hardliners of the 1980s-90s has been restored.
See:
Iran: The Islamic Revolution is complete.
WEA RL News & Analysis by Elizabeth Kendal 29 Aug 2005
Iran: Old Guards Return.
WEA RL News & Analysis by Elizabeth Kendal 14 Dec 2005
The regime has just announced a massive boost in funding for the Basij (state sponsored Islamic vigilantes) to enable more recruitment and to establish 7000 new Resistance Bases across the state.
See:
Exclusive: Millions allocated to recruiting Bassij militia
Iran Focus, Tehran, 29 may 2010
Commander: IRGC, Basij Forces Ready to Defend Islamic Revolution
Fars News Agency, Tehran, 22 July 2010
Basij Forces Plan 7,000 New Bases
By Arash Aramesh, for InsideIran.org, 29 July 2010
Iran militia murder baker for calling Supreme Leader a dog
Iran Focus, Isfahan, Monday 2 Aug 2010
PERSECUTION
Persecution of the church escalated through 2009, aided by the fact that on account of Iraq, the US now needs Iran more than Iran needs the US -- leaving the US without leverage.
As noted in RLPB 041 (3 Feb 2010), the regime is escalating repression in order to curtail unrest emanating from widespread social dissatisfaction and economic distress. A wave of persecution hit the church in late Dec 2009 and early Jan 2010, during which time numerous Christians were harassed, interrogated, threatened and arrested. While most have been released on bond, some remain incarcerated and others have been added to their number.
Pastor Behrouz (Marco) Khanjani, who was arrested in Chiraz on 11 January after responding to a request from the authorities that he present himself for questioning, was bailed on 17 March only to be rearrested on 16 June. His wife, Fatemeh (Marie) Torkkajouri, was arrested the following day and placed in solitary confinement in Evin Prison. After informing Pastor Behrouz of his wife's fate, the authorities reportedly incarcerated him in 'Plate 100', a dungeon of the intelligent services in Chiraz. Their daughter Esperance is in the care of Muslim family members. Fatemeh was released on bail of $20,000 on 22 July.
See:
Behrouz Sadegh-Khanjani and His Wife Held Incommunicado.
Human Rights House of Iran (RAHANA) 13 July 2010
Christian Citizen Fatemeh Tork-kajouir released on bail
RAHANA 23 July 2010
Meanwhile, Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani, who was arrested in Rasht on 13 October 2009 for protesting the regime's plans to force Islamic education on all children in violation of the constitution, has reportedly been sentenced to death. Furthermore, on 8 June 2010, Pastor Yousef's wife, Fatemeh (Tina) Passandideh, was arrested and placed in solitary confinement in Evin Prison. The authorities have threatened to remove the couple's two children, Yoel and Daniel, to an Islamic institution.
On 18 July 2010, a group of 15 new believers travelling together by bus to the provincial town of Bojnoord were ambushed by informed security forces and arrested in the city of Mashhad. After one week of harsh interrogations, believers who signed 'confessions' were freed on conditions including that bail payment would be forthcoming. Mr Reza (48, also known as Stephen) and Mr Ehsan Behrooz (23) refused to cooperate. They have been incarcerated in the 901st branch of the Revolutionary court in Mashhad.
See:
IRAN- The Mass Arrest of New Christian Converts in Mashhad
Farsi Christian News Network, 2 Aug 2010
For prayer bulletin and preayer suggestion see:
Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin 067 (5 Aug 2010).
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16:31
Muslim Protesters Surround Worshippers in Indonesia
» The Christian Post RSS Feed | PersecutionAround 300 Muslim protesters and 300 police officers surrounded members of the Batak Christian Protestant Church (Huria Kristen Batak Protestan or HKBP) on Sunday as they worshiped in an open field in Ciketing, Bekasi, local sources said.
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13:02
Muslim Protestors Surround Worshipers in Bekasi, Indonesia
» Compass Direct News
Tensions mount as congregation asserts right to worship.
DUBLIN, August 4 (CDN) — Around 300 Muslim protestors and 300 police officers surrounded members of the Batak Christian Protestant Church (Huria Kristen Batak Protestan or HKBP) on Sunday (Aug. 1) as they worshiped in an open field in Ciketing, Bekasi, local sources said.
“There were many police on guard, but the attackers were able to get very close to the congregation,” Theophilus Bela, president of the Jakarta Christian Communication Forum, said in a statement to international government and advocacy groups. “We are afraid that they will attack the church again next Sunday.”
He added that a protestor hit the Rev. Luspida Simanjuntak on the cheek.
Police held back the shouting protestors while the church worshiped, but at one point they allowed Murhali Barda, leader of the Front Pembela Islam (FPI or Islamic Defenders Front) in Bekasi, through the cordon for an angry confrontation with church leaders, Voice of America (VOA) reported.
Bekasi police commander Imam Sugianto told VOA that his forces were there to protect “both sides.”
The New York Times quoted Sugianto as saying that, “If the local people don’t give their permission, they can’t worship here,” but Pastor Simanjuntak said the Bekasi administration had approved the church’s decision to meet in the field, according to The Jakarta Globe.
“We demand the Bekasi administration to let the public know that they gave us the green light to conduct our prayers here,” Pastor Simanjuntak reportedly said.
The 1,500-strong congregation, established some 15 years ago, initially met in each other’s homes before purchasing a residential property in the Pondok Timur housing complex in Bekasi for use as a worship building. The group then met in the building while they waited for local officials to respond to a building permit application filed in 2006.
When Muslim neighbors in December objected to the meetings in the housing complex on the grounds that the church had no permit, officials banned church members from meeting there. As the local government had delayed the processing of its application for a building permit, the church ignored the ban, leading officials to seal the building on June 20.
Bekasi Mayor Mochtar Mohammad on July 9 said he would allow the congregation to meet in public areas or at the city hall, according to the Globe. Pastor Simanjuntak chose to move to the proposed building site, and Sunday meetings at the field in Ciketing were soon greeted by crowds of protestors.
The FPI’s Barda said the church’s insistence on worshipping at the site was a provocation, according to VOA. He also accused Christians in Bekasi of attempting to convert Muslims away from their religion, citing a recent Internet report claiming that the Mahanaim Foundation, a local Christian charity, had carried out a mass baptism of new converts.
Foundation spokeswoman Marya Irawan, however, told The Jakarta Post that the crowds were not baptized but only invited to Mahanaim leader Henry Sutanto’s home as part of an effort to reach out to the poor.
Pastor Simanjuntak’s church has now filed a case against the Bekasi administration.
“I fully support any efforts to take this to the courts,” a local Christian leader who preferred to remain unnamed told Compass. “We need to respond through legal channels and let the government know that these attacks are a gross human rights violation.”
Hard-line Islamic groups held a congress in Bekasi on June 20, and on June 27 announced their united intent to combat the “Christianization” of the region. (See www.compassdirect.org, “Indonesian Muslims Call for Halt to ‘Christianization,’” July 2.)
Bonar Tigor Naipospos, spokesman for Indonesia’s Institute for Peace and Democracy (Setara), told VOA that unsubstantiated rumors about Christians using deceptive practices to convert Muslims have fueled the anger in Bekasi. He reportedly said that Muslims believe that Christians badger people to convert and entice them with money, food or other incentives.
Pastor Simanjuntak has said that she and her church will continue meeting in the field, as they have nowhere else to go.
END
*** Photos of the Bekasi church being sealed are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal
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23:51
9 Dead In Manchester, Conn. Workplace Shooting
» Christians Under AttackMANCHESTER — Omar Thornton almost slept through his 6 a.m. wakeup call Tuesday, springing to life only after the teenage brother of his girlfriend nudged him awake.( [www.courant.com] )
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23:40
RAMADAN:KORAN, PRAYERS AND WORLD?S MOSQUE ON MOBILE PHONES
» Christians Under Attack
Nokia, the Finnish mobile phone company, has launched a range of offers for the upcoming month of Ramadan, which will start next week. The various applications include one relating to the -
23:37
SPAIN: 42% OF MOROCCAN IMMIGRANTS JOBLESS BUT REMAINING
» Christians Under AttackThey are staying on in Spain whether they have jobs or not. Immigrants from Morocco, the largest foreign group resident in Spain, is also the one most affected by unemployment. Of the
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Turkmenistan: "The Constitution is only a scrap of paper for the Turkmen authorities"
» Forum 18 News ServiceTurkmenistan has raided a Christian young people's summer camp organised by two legally registered churches, Protestants who asked not to be identified for fear of state reprisals told Forum 18 News Service. Participants - particularly ethnic Turkmens - were arrested, insulted, threatened and had personal Bibles confiscated. When camp leaders pointed out their rights to meet under Turkmenistan's Constitution, officers insulted the Constitution. "To put it mildly, the Constitution is only a scrap of paper for the Turkmen authorities," one Protestant complained to Forum 18, "while the Church's legal status means even less." Elsewhere, others have been pressured to sign statements that they will not meet for worship, and two Protestants were fired from their jobs because of their faith. Registration - and hence the right to carry out activities legally - remains impossible for many religious communities, and re-registration is being used as a weapon to stop religious activity. However, the Justice Ministry has after 13 years registered the Catholic congregation in the capital Ashgabad. But strict censorship and border controls are still being imposed on all religious literature and religious believers. -
Russia: Baptist and Jehovah's Witness worship services raided
» Forum 18 News ServiceWorship services of Baptists and Jehovah's Witnesses have suffered recent raids by Russian law enforcement agencies, many involving the FSB security service, Forum 18 News Service has learned. After the latest, 9 July raid on Jehovah's Witness worship, officials - including an FSB officer and two Prosecutor's Office investigators - found nothing illegal but still held back all who had taken part in the service, writing down their names, addresses and telephone numbers. From 12 July, investigators interrogated more than 20 congregation members, proving most interested in the structure of the community, its aims and goals, members' religious convictions and the distribution of religious literature. A Baptist congregation similarly treated was given as authority a poorly photocopied court decision justifying the raid "in view of the fact that meetings of an unregistered religious organisation" were held in the raided building. Russian law does not require religious communities to register or seek state permission for home worship. Officials have been unwilling to discuss their actions with Forum 18.
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7:22
2 Christian Families in Bangladesh Suffer Extortion, Beatings
» The Christian Post RSS Feed | PersecutionTwo Christian women in Bangladesh’s northern district of Jamalpur said village officials extorted relatively large sums of money from them – and severely beat the husband of one – for proclaiming Christ to Muslims.
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22:48
Suspected Islamists Shoot Five Christians to Death in Pakistan
» Christians Under Attack
Muslim extremist groups had threatened church for two years. -
22:45
Newspaper cancels publishing controversial prophet book
» Christians Under Attack
Egypt website hacked for 'trial of prophet' book -
22:39
Russian pastor killed after media report called for his murder
» Christians Under Attack
Pastor Artur Suleimanov, 49, was shot by unidentified gunmen recently while leaving Hosanna Christian Church in Dagestan on July 15.
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17:09
Two Christian Families in Bangladesh Suffer Extortion, Beatings
» Compass Direct News
Muslims vehemently protest baptism of converts, fabricate false charge against church leaders.
PINGNA, Bangladesh, August 2 (CDN) — Two Christian women in Bangladesh’s northern district of Jamalpur said village officials extorted relatively large sums of money from them – and severely beat the husband of one – for proclaiming Christ to Muslims.
Johura Begum, 42, of Pingna village said a member of the local union council, an area government representative and the father of a police officer threatened to harm her grown daughters if her family did not pay them 20,000 taka (US$283). The police officer whose father was allegedly involved in the extortion was investigating a fabricated charge that Christians had paid Muslims to participate in a river baptism on May 26.
Begum had invited seven converts from Islam, including three women, to be baptized on the occasion, she said. Only six men among 55 converts were baptized by the leaders of the Pentecostal Holiness Church of Bangladesh (PHCB), Christian leaders said, as the rest were intimidated by protesting Muslims; the next day, area Islamists with bullhorns shouted death threats to Christians.
“The council member threatened me, saying I had to give him 20,000 taka or else we could not live here with honor, dignity and security,” Begum said. “If I did not hand over the money, he said I my grown-up twin daughters would face trouble.”
Begum said her husband is a day-laborer at a rice-husking mill, and that 20,000 taka was a “colossal amount” for them. She was able to borrow the money from a Christian cooperative, she said.
“I gave the extortion money for the sake of our safety and security,” Begum said. “It not possible to say aloud what abusive language they used against me for inviting people to God.”
Villagers backed by a political leader of the ruling Bangladesh Awami League party also allegedly extorted 250,000 taka (US$3,535) from another Christian woman, 35-year-old Komola Begum of Doulatpur village, whose husband is a successful fertilizer seller.
The villagers claimed that she and her husband had become rich by receiving funds from Christians. After the baptisms, local Muslims beat her husband to such an extent that he received three days of hospital treatment for his injuries, she said.
Komola Begum, who had invited 11 persons including three women to the baptisms, told Compass that her husband’s life was spared only because she paid what the Muslims demanded.
“My husband is a scapegoat – he simply does business,” she said. “But he was beaten for my faith and activities.”
False Charge
The 55 baptisms were to have taken place on the banks of the Brahmanputra River in Mymensingh district, 110 kilometers or 68 miles north of Dhaka (Jamalpur is 140 kilometers or 87 miles northwest of Dhaka).
Leaders of the PHCB congregation had begun baptizing the converts, and the rage of area Muslims flared as they staged a loud protest at the site, area Christians said. Police soon arrived and detained the Christian leaders and others present.
At the police station, officers forced one of those present at the baptism, 45-year-old Hafijur Rahman, to sign a statement accusing four of the Christian leaders of offering him and others money to attend, Rahman told Compass.
Police swiftly arrested two of the Christian leaders, while two were able to flee.
Rahman told the Compass that he was not offered any money to go to the baptism service.
“I was not aware of the content of the case copy – later I came to know that a case was filed against the four Christian neighbors by me,” Rahman said. “I am an illiterate man. Police took my fingerprint on a blank paper under duress, and later they wrote everything.”
Rahman said he went to the baptisms because one of his neighbors invited him.
“I went there out of curiosity,” he said. “They did not offer us any money.”
The document Rahman signed charges that he and others were offered 5,000 taka (US$70) each as loan to attend a meeting in Mymensingh.
“Instead of attending a meeting, they took us to the bank of the Brahmanputra River,” the document states. “Some Christian leaders had some of us bathed according to the Christian religion. Then some of us protested. The Christian leaders said, ‘If you need to take loan, you need to accept Christian religion.’”
Denying that Rahman was forced to sign the document, local Police Chief Golam Sarwar told Compass that a fraud case was filed against four Christians.
“They lured local Muslims by giving them 5,000 taka to become Christian, and their activities hurt the religious sentiment of the Muslims,” Sarwar said.
For three days after the baptism ceremony, Jamalpur district villagers announced through bullhorns the punishment Christians would receive for their activities, chanting among other slogans, “We will peel off the skins of the Christians.” They also shouted that they would not allow any Christians to live in that area.
Johura Begum said that when she became a Christian 20 years ago, area Muslims beat her and forced her to leave the village, though she was able to return three years later.
“Local Muslims bombarded us with propaganda – that when I became a Christian, I would have to be naked in the baptism before the Christian cleric,” said Johura Begum. “Recently they are bad-mouthing Christianity with these kinds of disgraceful and scurrilous rumors, and my daughters cannot attend their classes.”
END
*** Photos of Johura Begum and her husband are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.
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16:57
The Media
» According to Compass Direct News, a pastor in the Russian republic of Dagestan known for founding the biggest Protestant church in the region and for successfully reaching out to Muslims has been killed by unidentified gunmen, local authorities have confirmed. Artur Suleimanov, pastor of Hosanna Christian Church in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, was shot [...]
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14:22
Lifting the veil on airport security
» Christians Under Attack
Air security won't ask for veiled Muslims to prove ID By Brian Lilley and Bryn Weese, Parliamentary Bureau
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Belarus: "Appropriate permission is needed"
» Forum 18 News ServiceThe pastor of a Belarusian village Pentecostal church has been fined three times in one day for sharing his faith outdoors in a nearby village, Forum 18 News Service has learned. Viktor Novik has decided not to appeal and to pay the fines, telling Forum 18 that "we resolved to suffer for God." The verdict claimed that Pastor Novik "understands that to hold events, appropriate permission is needed." Novik told Forum 18 that - as the verdict confirms - he had applied several times for this and to rent a building for a meeting, but each time this was refused. One local official dnied this, telling Forum 18 that "he never applied, verbally or in writing," before stating that no building would be made available. Elsewhere, courts have refused to acquit one person for the "crime" of conscientious objection to compulsory military service, but two others have been acquitted. Fears have been expressed that at least one of the three may be prosecuted again for the same "crime". A coalition of civil society groups has presented published proposals for an Alternative Service Law to a state working group on the subject, but has yet to receive any acknowledgement of this. -
Belarus: Another massive fine, right to worship on own property denied
» Forum 18 News ServiceNew Life Pentecostal Church in Belarus' capital Minsk has had a massive fine imposed on it today (29 July), for alleged "environmental damage", Forum 18 News Service has learned. Added to an earlier fine, the two fines and "compensation" total 265,750,000 Belarusian Roubles (542,850 Norwegian Kroner, 68,250 Euros, or 89,300 US Dollars). Sergei Lukanin, the church's lawyer, told Forum 18 that the Church will pay neither fine, arguing that if there is any pollution at the site it dates from the time before the church owned the property. He insisted that the church has kept the building and site in good order, a contention which Forum 18's own observations on visits support. A city environmental official claimed in an official report on the Church before the fines that grass growing for a children's playground damaged the environment. Meanwhile, two small Pentecostal churches in villages near Minsk have been fined for using the properties they own for worship. Officials claim the properties are registered for domestic use and therefore worship is illegal. The small congregations will struggle to pay these fines, a church member said. "The fear is that officials could do this again - the mechanism is there," Forum 18 was told.
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17:08
Convicted Hindu Nationalist Legislator in India Released on Bail
» Compass Direct NewsStunned Christians suspect bias in case of politician’s role in Orissa violence.
NEW DELHI, July 30 (CDN) — Less than a month after Orissa state legislator Manoj Pradhan was sentenced to seven years of prison for his part in anti-Christian mob violence in 2008, he was released on bail pending his appeal.
Along with fellow Hindu nationalist Prafulla Mallick, Pradhan on June 29 was convicted of causing grievous hurt and rioting in connection with the murder of a Christian, Parikhita Nayak. Justice B.P. Ray heard the petition on July 7, and the same day he granted Pradhan and Mallick bail conditional on posting bail bond of 20,000 rupees (US$430) each.
Pradhan and Mallick were released from jail on July 12 and await the outcome of an appeal to the Orissa High Court.
Attorney Bibhu Dutta Das said that ordinary people don’t get bail so easily when convicted of such crimes, and he questioned how Pradhan could be granted release just for being a legislator.
“It takes years for convictions in High Court,” Das told Compass. “We will not sit silent. We will challenge this bail order in the [New Delhi] Supreme Court very soon.”
The Christian community expressed shock that someone sentenced to seven years in prison would get bail within seven days of applying for it.
“I am very disappointed with the judiciary system,” said Nayak’s widow, Kanaka Rekha Nayak, who along with her two daughters has been forced into hiding because of threats against her. “I went through several life threats, but still I took my daughters for hearings whenever I was called by the court, risking my daughters’ lives – certainly not for this day.”
In addition to the bail, the court has issued a stay order on the 5,000 rupee (US$107) fine imposed on Pradhan and Mallick. Attorney Das told Compass the decision was biased, as the Lower Court Record was not even consulted beforehand.
“This is the normal court procedure, and it was bypassed for Pradhan,” he said. “The judgment was pre-determined.”
Dibakar Parichha of the Cuttack-Bhubaneswar Catholic Archdiocese told Compass, “Sometimes the judicial system seems mockery to me. One court convicts him, and another one grants him bail.”
The rulings are demoralizing to those who look toward the courts for justice, he said.
“There is a very powerful force behind this. It is not as simple as it looks,” Parichha said.
Dr. John Dayal, secretary general of the All India Christian Council, said he was surprised by the orders.
“While it is a legal right for anybody to get bail, it is surprising that Pradhan was wanted in so many cases, and he can coerce and influence witnesses,” Dayal said. “His petition should not have been granted.”
The two Hindu nationalists were convicted by the Phulbani Fast Track Sessions Court I Judge Sobhan Kumar Das. Pradhan, member of the state Legislative Assembly (MLA) from G. Udayagiri, Kandhamal for the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), filed a petition stating that his name was not mentioned in the original First Information Report filed by Kanaka Rekha Nayak, but that he was dragged into the case later.
The bail order includes a warning to Pradhan to refrain from intimidating witnesses, stating, “The petitioner shall not threaten the witnesses examined.”
Rekha Nayak, along with her daughters Lipsa Nayak (4 years old when her father was killed) and Amisha Nayak (then 2 years old) were eyewitnesses to the murder of her 31-year-old husband, a Dalit Christian from Tiangia, Budedipada, in Kandhamal district. He was murdered on Aug. 27, 2008.
Rev. Dr. Richard Howell, general secretary of the Evangelical Fellowship of India, urged the Christian community to keep hope.
“The case is still on, not that it has come to an end,” he said. “There is a move that is being made to take the case further.”
Attorney Das has said he plans to appeal Pradhan’s sentence of seven years, in hopes of increasing it to life imprisonment.
Cases
Pradhan, who denies any wrongdoing, has been charged in 14 cases related to the August-September 2008 anti-Christian attacks. In seven of the cases he has been acquitted, he was convicted of “grievous hurt” in the Nayak case, and six more are pending against him.
Of the 14 cases in which he faces charges, seven involve murder; of those murder cases, he has been acquitted in three.
Cases have been filed against Pradhan for rioting, rioting with deadly weapons, unlawful assembly, causing disappearance of evidence of offense, murder, wrongfully restraining someone, wrongful confinement, mischief by fire or explosive substance with intent to destroy houses, voluntarily causing grievous hurt and voluntarily causing grievous hurt by dangerous weapons or means.
Pradhan was also accused of setting fire to houses of people belonging to the minority Christian community.
The Times of India reported Pradhan as “one of the close disciples” of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP or World Hindu Council) leader Swami Laxamananda Saraswati, whose assassination on Aug. 23, 2008, touched off the anti-Christian violence in Kandhamal and other parts of Orissa.
Rekha Nayak filed a complaint and a case was registered against Mallick and others for murder, destroying evidence, rioting and unlawful assembly. Pradhan was arrested on Oct. 16, 2008, from Berhampur, and in December 2009 he obtained bail from the Orissa High Court.
Despite his role in the attacks, Pradhan – campaigning from jail – was the only BJP candidate elected from the G. Udayagiri constituency in the 2009 Assembly elections from Kandhamal district.
In recent court actions, Fast Track Court-II Additional Sessions Judge Chittaranjan Das on July 21 acquitted nine persons who had been arrested in the Tikabali area for various offenses, including arson, due to “lack of evidence.” The main charge against them was torching of a church on Aug. 28, 2008 at Beladevi village.
At least 132 persons have been convicted in different cases related to the 2008 violence in Orissa’s Kandhamal district, state Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said on July 19. Patnaik said that 24 members of the Hindu extremist Bajrang Dal (Youth Wing of World Hindu Council) and VHP have been arrested and jailed.
Revenue and Disaster Management minister S.N. Patro said on July 21 that the 55 Christian places of worship were damaged in Tikabali block; 44 in G. Udaygiri; 39 in Raikia; 34 in K. Nuagaon; 19 in Baliguda; 16 in Daringbadi; nine in Phulbani; six in Kotgarh; five in Tumudibandha; and one each in Phiringia and Chakapada blocks.
END
*** A photo of Kanaka Rekha Nayak is available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.
SIDEBAR
India Briefs: Recent Incidents of Persecution
Karnataka - Hindu extremists from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh accused a pastor in Aldur of forceful conversion on July 24 and threatened him, telling him not to preach about Jesus. The All India Christian Council reported that the extremists filed a police complaint against Pastor Anand Kumar of forceful conversion. Both police and extremists ordered Pastor Kumar to remove the cross and name plate of the church. At press time area Christians were taking steps to resolve the issue.
Jammu and Kashmir – The state’s Foreigners Registration Officer reportedly issued a notice to a senior Christian worker to leave India by July 20 after a false complaint of forceful conversion was filed against him. The Global Council of Indian Christians reported that the state succumbed to pressure by Muslim extremists to deport Father Jim Borst, who has run Good Shepherd School in the Kashmir Valley since 1963. The school has been attacked on two occasions by members of other schools who felt they were unable to compete with it. For eight years these groups have led a campaign against Borst, claiming he was forcibly converting people under the guise of providing education. Borst, who denies the charge, has a valid visa till 2014. The interior minister reportedly said he had no knowledge of the deportation order, and Borst’s superiors indicated he would not leave.
Madhya Pradesh – Hindutva (Hindu nationalist) extremists on July 18 disrupted Christian worship in Barwaha, near Indore. The Global Council of Indian Christians reported that Pastor Subash Chouhan of the Indian Evangelical Team was leading Sunday worship when the extremists stormed in on the terrified Christians. They accused Pastor Chouhan of forceful conversion, photographed the congregation and told the pastor to close his tailoring school, which includes non-Christian students. This is the second time Pastor Chouhan has been arrested on false charges of forceful conversion; previously he was jailed for three days. The case was pending at press time.
Punjab – Police arrested Christians on July 10 after Hindu nationalists beat them, falsely accusing them of forcible conversion in Gurdaspur. Members of the Indian Pentecostal Church of God (IPCG) Western Region were visiting houses in the area on a social outreach mission when a group of extremists began to argue with them and then started beating four of them with their fists and shoes. Later they handed the Christians over to police, along with three more Christian men and five Christian women, complaining that they were converting people from the Hindu religion. Pastor Promod Samuel, along with the IPCG head A.M. Samuel, rushed to the Gurdaspur City police station to help the Christians, but officers detained them as well. Samuel told Compass that the president of the Hindu extremist groups Shiva Sena and Bajrang Dal, as well as many other Hindu nationalist leaders, gathered at the police station clamoring for officers to file charges against the 14 Christians. Hearing of the arrests, Christian leaders of Gurdaspur requested their release. The Christians were not released until Samuel signed an agreement assuring that Christians would not enter any non-Christian home. “The extremists are continuously following us around, to keep a check on us.” Samuel said.
Andhra Pradesh – Hindu extremists toppled a church building and attacked Christians on July 6 in Parawada, Visakhapatnam. The All India Christian Council (AICC) reported that local Hindu extremists were jealous and angry that a church stood at the entrance of the village and urged the Christians to move. The extremists threatened to attack the Christian community, claiming that they would allow no church in the area. When the church pastor refused to give in to their demand, they began damaging his household goods and pulled down the church building. The extremists also stopped the Christians from drawing water from a well. AICC was taking steps to resolve the matter at press time.
Madhya Pradesh – Police on July 4 arrested and charged two Christians under the state’s controversial “anti-conversion” law at Jawahar Nadar, Adharthal. According to the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), a member of the Apostolic Christian Assembly, Shravan Kuman Dubey, invited Vishal Lal to lead a prayer service for his 6-year-old son Ravi’s birthday. Around 7:30 p.m., during prayer, a mob of nearly 75 Hindu nationalist extremists accompanied by police entered the house and falsely accused those present of forced conversion, taking 14 Christians to the Adhartal police station. After nearly four hours, police charged Shravan Kumar and Vishal Lal with forcible conversion and sent the others home. With GCIC intervention, both were released on bail the next day.
Madhya Pradesh – Hindu extremists belonging to the Dharma Raksha Samithi (Religion Protection Council) on June 28 stopped a Christian school bus and questioned young elementary students in Indore. The Global Council of Indian Christians reported that the bus was carrying Christian students from Orissa to their school in Indore. The extremists ordered the young students to get out of the bus and asked them whether forceful conversion was taking place, frightening the schoolchildren as police remained mere spectators. After threatening to harm the Christians if they carried out any Christian activities, they let them go. Area Christian leaders condemned the incident as a sign of Hindu extremists’ “reign of terror” in the state and demanded an investigation.
Karnataka – On June 13 in Anekal, Bangalore, Hindu extremists from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh beat a pastor whom they accused of forceful conversion. The Evangelical Fellowship of India reported that, in an apparently premeditated attack, an unidentified extremist telephoned Pastor Sam Joseph to come and pray for a sick person. The pastor agreed, only to be taken to a gathering of Hindu extremists with media people. The extremists accused the pastor of forceful conversion, beat him up and dragged him to Hebbagudi police station. Police released the pastor without charges after forcing him to agree that he would no longer lead Christian meetings.
Himachal Pradesh – State officials on June 5 sealed a Mission India building, claiming that it belongs to “outsiders,” in Bari, Mandi district. The Evangelical Fellowship of India’s (EFI) advocacy desk reported that the government closed the building, which functioned as a Bible study center and orphanage, claiming that no land in the area could be owned by non-native people. Pastor Sam Abraham told Compass that Mission India purchased the plot in 2005, constructed a building in 2007 and began using it as a Bible study center and orphanage in 2008. In July 2008, Hindu extremists filed a complaint against Mission India of forceful conversion and demanded the building be shut down. The extremists have since accused the Christians of forceful conversion, verbally abused them for their faith and threatened to kill them if they did not leave. Mission India officials asserted that the land legally belongs to them and that they have all necessary documents. At press time the Christians were looking for a place to rent that would accommodate at least 10 orphans.
END
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14:06
Suspected Islamists Shoot 5 Christians to Death in Pakistan
» The Christian Post RSS Feed | PersecutionA dozen masked men shot five Christians to death as they came out of their church building here on July 15, two months after a banned Islamic extremist group sent church leaders a threatening letter, relatives said.
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13:10
Evangelical Leaders Pan Qur'an Burn Plan
» Christians Under Attack
Evangelical leaders blasted a Gainesville, Florida, church's plans to burn Qur'ans on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. -
13:08
A teacher says no to burqa in a West Bengal Muslim university, isn’t allowed to teach
» Christians Under Attack
For the past three months, 24-year-old Sirin Middya has not been able to hold her classes at West Bengal’s first Muslim university. While the
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16:03
Suspected Islamists Shoot Five Christians to Death in Pakistan
» Compass Direct News
Muslim extremist groups had threatened church for two years.
SUKKUR, Pakistan, July 29 (CDN) — A dozen masked men shot five Christians to death as they came out of their church building here on July 15, two months after a banned Islamic extremist group sent church leaders a threatening letter, relatives said.
Pastor Aaron John and church members Rohail Bhatti, Salman John, Abid Gill and Shamin Mall of Full Gospel Church were leaving the church building after meeting to discuss security in light of the threats they had received, said the pastor’s son, Shahid John.
“As we came out of the church, a group of a dozen armed gunmen came and opened fire at us,” said Shahid John, who survived a bullet in his arm. “Fear struck the area. The police arrived 45 minutes after the incident, and we waited for over 45 minutes for the ambulance to arrive.”
Besides Shahid John, five others were wounded in the attack.
In May church leaders received a letter from Islamic extremist group Sip-e-Sahaba (formerly Sipah-e-Sahaba until it was banned) warning the Christians to leave the area, said Kiran Rohail, wife of the slain Rohail Bhatti.
“It said to vacate the land, Christians are not welcomed here, they are polluting our land,” Kiran Rohail said.
The Sip-e-Sahaba and Sunni Tehrik extremist groups are both linked with an area madrassa (Islamic school) whose students had been threatening the church since 2008, Christian sources said.
“In 2008 a group of Muslim students started making threats for the church to vacate the land, as there are only 55 Christian families living in the area,” said the pastor’s widow, Naila John, who also lost her son Salman John in the attack.
The masked gunmen of July 15 had young physiques like those of students, Christian sources said, and their manner of attack indicated they were trained extremists.
The madrassa students that have threatened the church since 2008 belong to the Sunni Tehrik extremist group, the sources said.
Pastor John and Bhatti had reported the threats of the past two years to police, but officers at the local station did not take them seriously, said Naila John.
When they received the threatening letter in May, Pastor John, his son Salman, Bhatti, Gill, Mall and another member of the church, Arif Gill, went to the police station to register a First Information Report (FIR), according to Shahid John.
“Police just took the application but didn’t register the FIR,” he said. “The station house officer just provided two police constables for security.”
On the evening of July 15, the pastor called a meeting to discuss needed security measures, his widow Naila John said. The meeting ended around 7:30 p.m., when they left the building and were sprayed with gunfire.
“No FIR has been registered due to the pressure from the local Islamic groups,” said Kiran Rohail, referring to Sunni Tehrik, Sip-e-Sahaba and the local mosque. “The police came and took our statements, but they didn’t show up again.”
An independent government source confirmed the shooting deaths of the Christians, adding that local Islamist pressure had prevented media from reporting on it.
The church began in 1988, and Pastor John had been leading it since 2001.
Sukkur, in southwest Pakistan’s Sindh Province, has been the site of previous violence against Christians. Last June or July, area Christians said, students from the local madrassa beat Pastor Adnan John of Multan, severely injuring him, after they saw him walking in front of the mosque wearing a cross and holding a Bible. In another instance, the Muslim students prevented Christian students from holding a Christmas program at a park.
In 2006, some 500 Muslims burned down two churches in Sukkur and a convent school on Feb. 19, reportedly over rumors that a Christian threw a copy of the Quran into a trash can. A crowd wielding gasoline bombs torched St. Mary’s Catholic Church and St. Savior’s Church of Pakistan after media and government sources floated the rumor, but local sources said the violence occurred after a Muslim was arrested for burning pages of the Quran and trying to frame his Christian father-in-law, Saleem Gill, with the deed.
After torching the inside of St. Savior’s, the mob turned on Pastor Ilyas Saeed Masih’s home, then went five minutes away to destroy the 120-year-old St. Mary’s edifice.
END
*** A photo of the church building is available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.
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13:39
Indonesian Sunday School Teacher Dies
» A few days ago, Ibu Ratna Bangun died of lupus while confined at a hospital in Jakarta, Indonesia. Her husband and her two sons paid their last respects to Ibu Ratna on Wednesday in Hargeulis, her hometown. Ratna Bangun was arrested in May 2005, with Dr. Rebekka Zakaria and Eti Pangesti, under false accusation of [...]
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10:25
Episcopal Head Talks Conflict, Diversity, Immigration
» The Christian Post RSS Feed | PersecutionThe existence of conflict in the church is a sign of health and vitality, the head of The Episcopal Church told a live Web audience Wednesday.
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