COMPASS DIRECT NEWSNews from the Frontlines of Persecution

January 2007(Released February 1, 2007)

Compass Direct is distributed to raise awareness of Christians worldwide who are persecuted for their faith. Articles may be reprinted or edited by active subscribers for use in other media, provided Compass Direct News is acknowledged as the source of the material.

Copyright 2007 Compass Direct News

****************************************************************************IN THIS ISSUE

WORLD

Compass Direct News’ Top 10 Stories of 2006 ***

ERITREA

68 More Christians Arrested in New ClampdownGovernment ministry officials jailed, conscripts’ Bibles burned.

INDIA

Another State Passes Anti-Conversion BillChristians term Congress Party’s move in Himachal Pradesh a ‘cruel joke.’

Anti-Christian Attacks Mark New Year Hindu extremists beat believers, damage vehicles and stage protest rally.

Hindu Extremists Beat Four Pastors ‘Christ shed his blood – now you do the same,’ youths tell pastor.

Christian Weds Despite Hindu Protests Extremists try to halt marriage of couple on false charge of allurement.

‘Disappearance’ of Children Alleged at EMI Orphanage State turns away returning kids, then serves notice on mission in Rajasthan state.

Mystery Shrouds Death of Christian Convert in IndiaBelievers suspect Hindu extremists pushed 18-year-old from train.

INDONESIA

Service Cancelled in Otherwise Quiet Christmas Muslims help protect churches during Yuletide season.

Police Raid Nest of Islamic Terrorists in Poso One suspect and one teacher, not a suspect, are killed; mourners later murder policeman.

Extremist Confesses to Murder of Christians *** Islamist admits taking part in beheading deaths of three girls and killing pastor, attorney.

IRAN

Government Still Holding House Church LeaderAuthorities demand heavy bail payments for arrested leaders’ release.

NIGERIA

State’s Policies Said to Strangle Christianity *** Muslim governor of Nasarawa promotes Islamic dominance in leadership.

PAKISTAN

Court Overturns Life Sentence for Christian *** Another ‘blasphemy’ suspect, Shahid Masih, is freed on bail.

SUDAN

Police Deny New Year’s Church Attack ***On national television, vice president demands prosecution of culprits.

TURKEY

Church Vandalized, Pastor Threatened *** Landlord demands eviction as two-year campaign against Black Sea church continues.

Police Clamp Strict Security on Christians’ Trial ***Measures follow murder of Armenian journalist; defense lawyer smells conspiracy plot.

UZBEKISTAN

Secret Police Arrest Andijan PastorJailed Protestant leader accused of treason and ‘inciting enmity.’

VIETNAM

Police Detain Members of Pastor’s Family Authorities arrest 17 people at prayer meeting this morning, demolish part of building.

*** Indicates an article-related photo is available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.

§ Indicates that an update or correction was made to the story.

(Return to Index)

**********************************************************************Compass Direct News’ Top 10 Stories of 2006

1 – Silent Waves of Persecution in IranWorking quietly beyond the international media spotlight, Iranian authorities followed through on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s vow in November 2005 to “stop Christianity in this country.” A campaign to curb burgeoning house church growth in predominantly Shiite Muslim Iran emerged in 2006 as waves of arrests hit Christian leaders. When Issa Motamedi Mojdehi was arrested on July 24, officials told the convert from Islam that he must renounce Christianity or face years in jail and possible execution for “apostasy.” Originally facing drug trafficking charges commonly leveled at “undesirables,” Motamedi Mojdehi endured strong psychological pressures, including threats to kill his family and other Christians, as secret service agents and a professor of Islamic theology urged him to recant his faith. He refused, and on August 24 authorities released him “for the moment,” but not before a judge in the northern city of Rasht had a new accusation. He accused Mojdehi’s 8-year-old daughter Martha of trying to lead other children to Christ. Rasht police also shut down the shop of another believer in his church, as depriving converts to Christianity of employment became a common government ploy to force them to leave Iran.

In one southern city, police beat two young Christian women in their homes, arresting one for several days, and daily threatened to re-arrest her and members of her family. In September, Iranian secret police arrested a Christian couple in the northeastern city of Mashhad, forcing them to leave behind their 6-year-old daughter. Authorities released Reza Montazami, 35, and his wife Fereshteh Dibaj, 28, by order of a Revolutionary Court in Mashhad only after Montazami’s elderly parents posted bail – turning over the title deed of property worth US$25,000. In December, Iranian secret police raided and arrested leaders of an indigenous house church movement in Tehran, Karaj, Rasht and Bandar-i Anzali. Several detained Christians were released, but four of eight jailed Christians remained in custody until Christmas, facing accusations such as “evangelization activities” and “actions against the national security of Iran.”

Even progress in justice was tinged with repression. Hamid Pourmand, whom a military tribunal in Tehran baselessly found guilty of deceiving the Iranian army by allegedly

concealing his conversion from Islam to Christianity, was released on July 20 – with the warning that attending church services could result in him being sent back to finish the remaining 14 months of his three-year prison term.

*** Photos of six of the Iranian house church leaders arrested in December and of Hamid Pourmand are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.

2 – Eritrea Tightens NooseDefying international pressures with brazen denials, the increasingly isolated regime in the Horn of Africa tightened its stranglehold on churches in 2006, torturing Christians to death and wresting control of ecclesiastical leadership and assets. Security police killed two Christians on October 17, two days after arresting them for holding services in a private home south of Asmara. Immanuel Andegergesh, 23, and Kibrom Firemichel, 30, died from torture wounds and severe dehydration in a military camp outside the town of Adi-Quala. Seven other men and three women of the evangelical Rema Church were kept in military confinement with Andegergesh and Firemichel and subjected to “furious mistreatment.” The deaths came after officials re-imprisoned popular Christian singer Helen Berhane, who was hospitalized as a result of spending 29 months in a metal shipping container; she was released without explanation later that month. Berhane’s leg had been seriously damaged as a result of beatings she received for refusing to deny her faith while imprisoned since her arrest in May 2004.

More than 2,000 Eritrean citizens, mostly Christian, are known to be jailed solely for their religious beliefs. In October, Eritrean authorities detained 150 Christians from at least five unrecognized churches. Local sources confirmed to Compass that police authorities were subjecting the detained Christians to beatings and other physical mistreatment. According to eyewitnesses, at least 10 nursing mothers were among the new prisoners, all of them forced to leave their infants behind. In May, two days after a Christian mother was arrested from her home and jailed by Eritrean police, her 6-month-old son died on his sickbed in Nefasit, 10 miles east of Asmara. Ghenet Gebremariam was arrested on May 8 with two other Protestant women who are also mothers with children and members of Nefasit’s banned Full Gospel Church. They were detained on accusations of “actively witnessing about Christ.” Two days later, Gebremariam’s baby, Hazaiel Daniel, died of unknown causes. Subsequently Gebremariam was released on bail.

In September, the Eritrean government demanded that Kale Hiwot Church surrender all its property and physical assets to the government – all church buildings, schools, vehicles and other assets. While Eritrea has banned all such independent religious groups not under the umbrella of the government-sanctioned Orthodox, Catholic, Lutheran or Muslim faiths since May 2002, in 2006 restrictions and controls on even the four recognized religions accelerated to unprecedented levels. In December, the regime wrested financial and personnel control from the Eritrean Orthodox Church, demanding that all offerings and tithes be deposited directly into a government account. The monthly salaries of all Orthodox priests were to be paid from this government-controlled fund of

church income. The government also announced new limits for the number of priests to be allowed to serve in each parish, specifying that any “extra” priests beyond quota would be required to report to the Wi’a Military Training Center to perform required military service. The regime of President Isaias Afwerki had removed the church’s ordained Patriarch Abune Antonios from office in August 2005 and placed him under house arrest.

*** Photos of six of the imprisoned church leaders, of Patriarch Abune Antonios and of Helen Berhane are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.

3 – Christians Targeted in Iraq Christian leaders were increasingly targeted by Muslim militants in Iraq who have found kidnapping lucrative. Muslim extremists in Iraq murdered a Presbyterian Church elder after kidnapping him following worship services at the National Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Mosul on November 26. The body of the clergyman, identified only as 69-year-old Elder Munthir, was found on a Mosul street on November 30 with a single bullet to the head. The kidnappers had said by telephone that they would “kill all the Christians, and we will start with him.” In October, Muslim kidnappers abducted and beheaded a Syrian Orthodox priest, leaving his corpse in an outlying suburb of Mosul. Father Boulos Iskander, 59, was kidnapped on October 9. The kidnappers had demanded US$350,000 ransom, and then reduced their demand to US$40,000 with the stipulation that the priest’s church publicly repudiate Pope Benedict XVI’s remarks about Islam in September. The family paid the ransom, and the St. Ephram parish of the Syrian Orthodox Church placed 30 large signboards on walls around the city, distancing itself from the pontiff’s comments – all to no avail.

A Chaldean priest kidnapped in front of his Baghdad home was released on December 10. Father Samy Abdulahad Al-Raiys was freed six days after he had been abducted in Baghdad’s Al-Sinaa street while driving to his parish. He was the fifth priest kidnapped in 2006. Commented one Baghdad priest who requested anonymity, “So many of us are frightened. We are asking, ‘Who will be the next?’” Al-Raiys’ disappearance came only five days after Baghdad Chaldean cleric Douglas Yousef Al-Bazy was released on November 29, his nose broken and requiring surgery. Iraq’s young Christian women have also become open targets for insurgents plying the kidnapping industry. One girl subjected to gang rape took her own life while still hostage, and another was reportedly so traumatized by the torture and sexual violence she suffered that she committed suicide even after the ransom had been paid and she had gone home.

*** Photos of Father Boulos Iskander and Father Samy Abdulahad Al-Raiys are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.

4 – Islamic Rage TriggeredCartoons in a Danish newspaper portraying Muhammad as violent, and then a papal quote of a Byzantine emperor’s reference to Islam’s violent history, touched off Islamic violence in various countries. Christians were sometimes targeted. In Nigeria, Catholic

priest Matthew Gajere of St. Rita’s Catholic Church in Maiduguri, Borno state, and 50 other Christians were killed on February 18 when Muslims extremists enraged by the caricatures burned 31 churches in Maiduguri and Katsina state. Rioters also torched the residence of the bishop of Maiduguri diocese. On February 23, Muslims angry over the cartoons killed 10 Christians and set ablaze nine churches in Kontagora, Niger state.

In Turkey, Father Andrea Santoro, 60, was shot twice in the back with a pistol after Sunday mass on February 5 as he knelt at the altar of the Santa Maria Catholic parish in Trabzon. Oguzhan Aydin, then 16, reportedly said he had murdered the priest as revenge for the Danish cartoons. The killing, for which Aydin received a prison sentence of nearly 19 years, was said to contribute to a deterioration of the religious climate in Turkey. Days later, a Franciscan friar was attacked and threatened by several Turkish youths in Izmir. In the second week of March, a young Turk in the southern port city of Mersin chased two clerics and a group of Catholic youth inside their church, cursing Christianity and threatening them with a butcher knife until he finally surrendered to local police. In July, an elderly French Catholic priest in Samsun, on the Black Sea, survived a knifing by a Turkish Muslim known for spreading false rumors against both Catholics and Protestants in the city.

In Pakistan, cartoon outrage indirectly affected Christians. With emotions running high over the cartoons in massive demonstrations in three major cities, on February 19 a crowd of 500 Muslims burned down two churches and a convent school in the southern province of Sindh over an alleged desecration of the Quran. Wielding gasoline bombs and other flammable chemicals, the mob attacked St. Mary’s Catholic Church and St. Savior’s Church of Pakistan in Sukkur, leaving them gutted. Protests against the caricatures had taken place almost daily in Sukkur.

Muslim hysteria erupted anew in September when Pope Benedict XVI, delivering an academic speech on faith and rationality at Regensburg University in Germany, quoted a remark by 14th century Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus that Muhammad had commanded Muslims “to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” The veracity of the quote aside (it is supported by Islamic historians and the Quran), the pope – twice stating that the quote was not his own – was referring to the emperor having argued that historical Muslim violence was not rational. This ironic subtlety was lost on Islamic leaders and media worldwide, who misconstrued the quote as the pope’s own words and labeled his speech as offensive, thus riling up masses that have a sharia sanction to perceive any criticism of Muhammad as “blasphemy.” The following month, Iraqi Muslims who kidnapped a Syrian Orthodox priest in Mosul added repudiation of the pope’s remarks to their list of demands. (See above, “Christians Targeted in Iraq.”) After kidnapping 59-year-old Father Boulos Iskander on October 9, the Muslim extremists lowered their demand from US$350,000 to US$40,000 but added that the priest’s church must publicly spurn Benedict’s comments. They beheaded the Orthodox priest even though the family paid the ransom and his parish placed 30 large signboards on city walls distancing itself from the pontiff’s comments. 

On November 26 (also noted above), Muslim extremists citing vengeance for the papal comments kidnapped 69-year-old Elder Munthir of Mosul’s National Evangelical Presbyterian Church. Telling negotiators by telephone, “We will take revenge for the pope’s words . . . We will kill all the Christians, and we will start with him,” the kidnappers killed the Iraqi clergyman with a single bullet to the head on November 29. Islamist militants had distributed flyers across Mosul demanding that Catholic clergy condemn the Pope’s remarks or else “Christians will be killed and churches burned down.”

*** Pictures of Father Andrea Santoro’s memorial service, of Father Boulos Iskander, of Father Samy Abdulahad Al-Raiys and of Pope Benedict XVI are available electronically. Contact Compass for pricing and details.

5 – Islamic Terrorist Confesses to Beheadings in IndonesiaLast November, one of three Muslim extremists on trial for the October 29, 2005 beheading of three Christian teenagers in Poso, Indonesia admitted his role in the attacks. A group of machete-wielding men had ambushed Theresia Morangke, 15, Alfita Poliwo, 17, Yarni Sambue, 15 and Noviana Malewa, 15 as they walked to their Christian school. The first three girls died instantly; Malewa received serious injuries to her face and neck but survived the attack. Known by his single name of Hasanuddin, the defendant admitted planning the murders as a “gift” to celebrate Idul Fitri, a festival marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. The beheadings were also carried out to avenge the deaths of Muslims during inter-faith clashes in the eastern province of Central Sulawesi between 1998 and 2001, according to the defendants. The trial of the 24-year-old Hasanuddin (alias Hasan) began on November 8 in a Jakarta district courtroom, while two suspected accomplices, Lilik Purnomo (alias Haris or Arman) and Irwanto Irano (alias Irwan, also known as Apriyantono), were tried separately. All three could face the death penalty. After the fatal ambush, the men wrapped the girls’ heads in black plastic bags, leaving one head on the steps of a church in nearby Kasiguncu village and the other two near a police station five miles from Poso. Police had searched in vain for the perpetrators of the attacks until May of this year, when seven Islamic terrorists confessed to the beheadings. On November 20, the parents of the slain girls met with the defendants, and one mother said she was ready to pardon them. The families embraced the terrorists and shook hands as a sign of peace.

6 – Hindu Campaign against Mission in Rajasthan, IndiaStill reeling after being voted from federal power in 2004, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – political wing of the Hindu extremist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh – stepped up its campaign for Hindu nationalism. Faith-based collusion between government and goons was most apparent in a coordinated attack in BJP-ruled Rajasthan state, where authorities mounted a brazen campaign against the social ministries of Emmanuel Mission International (EMI). Rajasthan state police officers on March 16 arrested the Rev. Dr. Samuel Thomas, president of EMI and son of Archbishop M.A. Thomas, EMI’s founder. Both men had gone underground after Hindu extremists accused them of distributing a controversial book they alleged denigrated their religion and deities.

Samuel Thomas has been released on bail, and his father has been granted anticipatory bail. Previously police detained without charges EMI’s chief operating officer and the officer in charge of its Hope Center Orphanage in Raipura. In late May, the administration of Kota district leveled fresh charges of “exciting . . . disaffection towards the government of India” against M.A. Thomas and his son. The new accusation was based on Kota police reportedly charging that the map of India shown on the website of Georgia-based Hopegivers International, which funds EMI, excluded Jammu and Kashmir state. An offense under this law can lead to imprisonment for life. In the second week of May, a concerted attack on EMI orphanages, schools and other ministries had intensified when the state social welfare minister, Madan Dilawar, said he should be stoned to death if his government effort to take over EMI’s properties failed. The statement came less than a month after the state unduly revoked the licenses of an EMI Bible institute, orphanage, school, hospital and church in the northern state. The licenses and frozen assets of EMI have since been temporarily restored.

On February 2, a mob of Hindu extremists had attacked an EMI orphanage in Tindole, resulting in the death of one child and the stoning and beatings of children, staff and local clergy. On February 10 in Ramganjmandi, a Hindu mob burned to the ground an EMI school and orphanage. According to mission officials, local police warned the head of the EMI school and orphanage in advance that they would not stop the violence. Also on February 10, police in Kota notified Emmanuel Seminary that they would not provide security for the graduation ceremony of 10,250 students and advised Archbishop Thomas to cancel or postpone it. More than 8,100 students relocated their graduation ceremonies to cities in southern India.

Hindu extremists on February 25 called for a boycott of the Kota orphanage, ending legal aid from lawyers and food from merchants for the children. EMI officials said that on February 27, building inspectors were being recruited to find fault with the orphanages, schools and church buildings in order to have them condemned and torn down and replaced with yoga centers and Hindu temples. Hindu extremists on March 3 had offered a reward of US$26,000 each for the heads of Archbishop Thomas and his son.

A delegation from the All India Christian Council (AICC) submitted a report to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on March 21 concluding that the Rajasthan state government was harassing Christians due to pressure from the BJP. The delegation concluded that the Rajasthan government machinery, including the justice, law and civil administration systems, was “overwhelmed by political pressure from the BJP” and that Dilawar, the state minister for social welfare, was behind attacks on Christians in Kota. “BJP’s members roam free offering large sums of money for the murder of Archbishop M.A. Thomas and his son, while the state machinery merrily strangulates his orphanages and schools by summarily rescinding their registrations without even giving enough time to respond to a show cause notice,” AICC Secretary General John Dayal reported.

7 – Islamic Violence Hits Classrooms in Nigeria Educational institutions became the new battleground for Islamists in Nigeria bent on spreading their religion by force. Christian teachers and students in high schools and

universities suffered. At the Government Day Secondary School in Bauchi, capital of Bauchi state, on February 20 Muslim students attacked English teacher Florence Chuckwu after she confiscated a Quran that a student was reading during her lesson. With her dress torn and blood gushing from her head, Chuckwu was locked in the principal’s office to keep her from being killed in the ensuing riot. By the end of the day, more than 20 Christians were killed, and two churches were burned along with many houses belonging to believers. Chuckwu’s whereabouts are unknown. At the Government College in Keffi, in the northern state of Nasarawa, a Christian high school teacher went on trial in October for blasphemy after he disciplined a Muslim student. English and history teacher Joshua Lai was charged with blasphemy against the prophet of Islam, Muhammad, and for “public incitement, rioting, and mischief,” after he disciplined a Muslim student for arriving late to class. Muslim students attacked Christian students and teachers and burned four houses, including Lai’s home. Alerted by Christian students of a plan by Muslim students to behead him that night, the teacher and his son fled their home. Police caught up with Lai in Abuja, and he was remanded to prison custody for eight days before being released on bail.

In Sokoto, students, teachers and officials at the School of Nursing and Midwifery in the northern Nigeria city in February condemned a student to death by stoning for “blasphemy.” Ladi Muhammed, 22, went into hiding. A friend had rebuked her for being a Christian after overhearing her telephone conversation that led her to mistakenly conclude that Muhammed’s mother was Muslim – making Muhammad an “apostate.” In fact Muhammed was raised mainly by her mother, a Christian living in Kebbi state who was divorced from a Muslim when Muhammed was very young. The ensuing argument led to Muhammed supposedly making “blasphemous” statements and an interrogation by school officials. School personnel judged her and were taking her to a sharia court for confirmation of the death sentence when Muhammed escaped. The following morning, Muslim students went on a rampage, burning down the house of the administration officer for allowing her to escape, and Christians living near the school were also attacked.

At Ahmadu Bello University in Zaira, Kaduna state, two female Christian students went missing after seven Muslims, also young student women, assaulted them on March 18 at the school. The two students were about to bathe at the women’s residence when the Muslim women, veiled and covered in Islamic robes, emerged from a mosque and attacked, beating them until they were unconscious. Identified only as Joy and Priscilla, the victims were treated at the university health clinic, but they have not been seen since the campus reopened on March 28.

*** Photos of Joshua Lai and his burned home are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.

8 – Pastor Zhang Sentenced in ChinaThe Zhongmu City People’s Court sentenced Chinese house church pastor Zhang Rongliang to seven and a half years in prison on June 29 – though he was not notified of the verdict until July 4. A key leader of the China for Christ house church movement

formerly known as Fangcheng, Zhang was arrested by Henan police without charges on December 1, 2004. Only months later was he charged with “attaining a passport through cheating” and with “illegal border crossing” (Chinese authorities often deny passports to well-known house church leaders).

Following his arrest, authorities confiscated Christian DVDs and other materials from Zhang’s house that allegedly linked him with foreign Christians; contact with foreign co-religionists can constitute illegal activity in China. Zhang’s lawyer, Zheng Laiyou, was not optimistic about an appeal. “It is very clear that the verdict was not made independently by the People’s Court,” he said. The verdict followed a series of court hearings, the last of which was held on April 6. By April 13, the Zhongmu City People’s Court had acknowledged that “there was insufficient evidence and ambiguous facts,” and submitted the case to the Zhengzhou City Intermediate People’s Court for legal advice. At the April 6 hearing, Zhang had argued his right for a passport as a Chinese citizen and denied the charge of “attaining passports through cheating” for three of his co-workers. Pastor Zhang’s wife, Chen Hongxian, was shocked at the verdict. “It is the Communist Party’s court, not the People’s Court, that makes the real decision,” she said. Pastor Zhang has five chronic diseases, including high blood pressure and severe diabetes, which were all acknowledged in an official hospital diagnosis in 2005.

According to a government official sympathetic to the plight of house church members, the Zhengzhou City Political and Legal Committee was displeased with an impending decision by the People’s Court of Xinmi to dismiss all charges and release Zhang. The Zhengzhou committee therefore asked the Zhongmu city court to re-examine the case. Officials in Zhongmu refused to accept Zhang, however, fearing he might die in their custody as a result of serious health problems. Zhang was then admitted to the Xinmi city People’s Hospital on December 19, 2005, where he stayed until January 23. One witness reported seeing Zhang handcuffed and chained to his hospital bed. Later Zhang was transferred to a Zhongmu City hospital.

*** Photos of Zhang Rongliang and his wife Chen Hongxian are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct for pricing and transmittal.

9 – Vietnam’s Forlorn Pastors Some Vietnamese church leaders were disappointed when the U.S. State Department removed Vietnam from the list of the world’s worst violators of religious freedom in 2006. On November 13, the state department declined to re-designate Vietnam as a Country of Particular Concern after including the country on the list for two years. The department cited steps the Communist regime had taken after enacting new religion laws banning forced renunciations of faith, opening once-closed churches, and clarifying how churches can register. Compass did not report on the state department decision, which received broad mainstream media coverage, but rather on the concerns that Vietnamese church leaders voiced – largely ignored – before the decision was made.

While U.S. diplomats claimed hundreds of Vietnamese churches had reopened, were operating freely and were getting registered, pastors in the country saw progress as

modest at best. After U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom John Hanford visited Vietnam in September, two church leaders there told Compass they were surprised that he later asserted there was “enormous progress” in religious freedom in the country. A major point of contention is the number of Vietnamese congregations that have registered. Of the legally recognized Evangelical Church of Vietnam (North), only 32 of its 1,214 congregations have been recognized, or 2.5 percent. Of the Evangelical Church of Vietnam (South), some 475 of its 1,600 churches have been registered, or 29 percent. Combined, 18 percent of the churches of the two ECVN groups registered. Compass sources in the country estimate only about 240 of the non-ECVN churches registered, or 16 percent of 1,500. In total, only about 750 of 4,350 congregations, or 17 percent, were registered by year’s end.

Nor does local registration – only a one-year permission – always appear to allow the churches to operate “freely.” When 18 of 534 Hmong churches who applied learned that their registrations had been accepted in September, some Vietnamese pastors pointed out that since being forced to list members by name under the registration rules, their churches have suffered numerous and wide-ranging threats and intrusive actions by local authorities. Police and officials who long persecuted the Hmong, for example, now sit in some of their church services as observers. In some churches, authorities prohibited anyone under 14 years old from attending. In other churches, authorities did not accept the leadership and forced congregations to choose another under their supervision. Authorities have also checked the attendance of some churches against membership lists and expelled any visitors or guests, the leaders said. Government officials have tried to stop the movement of respected church leaders and teachers, and they have even dictated the order of service.

Interestingly, authorities chose to register only the 18 smaller churches of the Hmong, most with leaders not considered strong, of the 534 that applied. Pastors of larger, more vigorous Hmong churches have said they will refuse to register if these are the “benefits” of doing so. Elsewhere, about 50 house church organizations have agreed that they should try to register their activities according to the new religion legislation. But the church leaders say that the highly intrusive nature of some of the questions they must answer are unnecessary and incompatible with religious freedom. House church leaders refused to comply with a procedure requiring the signing of a pledge to obey the decrees of local officials without any specification of what these decrees might be. In some parts of the country, such local officials have often capriciously harassed and persecuted Christians in spite of laws to the contrary. Yet without receiving registration, these house churches representing more than 200,000 Christians will remain illegal.

One house church leader also reported obtaining a new internal government document indicating a strong push by Vietnam to gather information about all Christian groups – to decide on that basis which ones are eligible for registration. According to the new directive, he said, Christians not considered to have a “genuine need for religion” are to be mobilized and persuaded “to return to their traditional beliefs and practices.”

*** A photo of a uniformed officer beating a construction worker when an estimated 50 police and other security forces and officials in Ho Chi Minh City converged on the Mennonite church, office and residence of the Rev. Nguyen Hong Quang on May 22, demolishing new construction and arresting the pastor and 10 others, is available electronically. Contact Compass Direct for pricing and transmittal.

10 – Democracy, Afghan StyleAn avalanche of media coverage of an Afghan man facing the death penalty for converting to Christianity apparently prompted the arrest and deepening harassment of other Afghan Christians in the ultra-conservative Muslim country. Authorities arrested Abdul Rahman, then 41, in February for the “crime” of leaving Islam for Christianity. Compass confirmed the arrest of two other Afghan Christians. Another Afghan convert to Christianity was beaten severely outside his home by six men who ultimately knocked him unconscious with a hard blow to his temple. He regained consciousness in the hospital two hours later. Several other Afghan Christians were subjected to police raids on their homes and workplaces, as well as to telephone threats.

Rahman faced the death penalty for the “crime” of converting from Islam to Christianity in mid-March, but after international pressure he was released and whisked out of the country. Although Islamist militants have captured and murdered at least five Afghan Christians in the past two years for abandoning Islam, Rahman’s case was the local judiciary’s first known prosecution case for apostasy in recent decades. Prosecutor Abdul Wasi called Rahman a traitor to Islam. “We are Muslims, and becoming a Christian is against our laws,” the prosecutor reportedly said. “He must get the death penalty.”

Rahman’s plight dramatized the judicial paradox within Afghanistan’s constitution, ratified in January 2004. Although it guarantees freedom of religion to non-Muslims, it also prohibits laws that are “contrary to the beliefs and provisions of the sacred religion of Islam.” At the same time, the constitution obliges the state to abide by the treaties and conventions it has signed, which include the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In outlining freedoms of thought, conscience and religion, Article 18 of this convention explicitly guarantees “freedom to change [one’s] religion or belief.” 

(Return to Index)

***********************************Eritrea Arrests 68 More Christians in New ClampdownGovernment ministry officials jailed, conscripts’ Bibles burned.Special to Compass Direct

LOS ANGELES, January 23 (Compass Direct News) – Police and military authorities in the East African nation of Eritrea jailed 68 more Christians in three official round-up operations conducted the first week of January.

The new arrests of both Protestant evangelicals and Orthodox renewal movement church members marked the Eritrean government’s widening crackdown against Christians whose faith and freedom to worship have been outlawed for nearly five years.

In an unprecedented arrest, on January 5 police officials in the northern town of Keren took into custody eight staff members working in government ministries.

The jailed Christians are all members of Medhane Alem, a renewal movement within the Coptic Orthodox Church.

Police interrogations reportedly have focused on attempts to force the eight detainees, five men and three women, to identify local leaders of their movement and to name everyone known to be supporting them.

Three Medhane Alem priests have been jailed for nearly two years, and 10 months ago 65 of the group’s lay leaders were excommunicated from the church by government order.

The Keren police station commander told families of the eight imprisoned government staff members that the arrest order had come from higher authorities.

“This is a new strategy of the government,” one local Christian commented, echoing the belief of other area believers. It was the first known arrest of government ministry staff solely for their religious beliefs.

The same day, security police in the southern port city of Assab arrested 25 Christians from their homes, workplaces and schools. All 25 prisoners were incarcerated at the Wi’a Military Camp and subjected to harsh pressures to recant their religious beliefs. Seven of the 25 Christian prisoners are women.

Remarks from security authorities in Assab have indicated that the roundup of local Protestants was expected to continue.

Military Burns Conscripts’ BiblesIn another incident confirmed on January 4, military commanders at the national Sawa Military Center conducted what they termed a “random check-up on the activities of Christian extremists” among student conscripts.

While searching the conscripts’ personal effects, military personnel found 250 Bibles that the Christian students were using in their personal devotional time. After burning all the Bibles before the entire military camp, the commanders arrested 35 of the teenage students and ordered them subjected to severe military punishment, including physical torture.

In May 2002, Eritrea closed down all independent religious groups not operating under the umbrella of the government-sanctioned Orthodox, Catholic, Lutheran or Muslim faiths. Anyone caught worshipping outside the four recognized religious institutions,

even in private homes, has been subjected to arrest, torture and severe pressure to deny their faith.

Independent Protestant churches have been refused legal registration, and subsequently the Orthodox Church and its flourishing renewal movement also fell out of favor. Last month the government of Eritrea wrested financial and personnel control away from the Eritrean Orthodox Church, under de facto government control since Patriarch Abune Antonios was placed under house arrest and then divested of his ecclesiastical authority 18 months ago.

More than 2,000 Christians, including pastors and priests from both Protestant and Orthodox churches, are now under arrest in police stations, military camps and jails all across Eritrea because of their religious beliefs. Although many have been incarcerated for months or even years, none have been charged officially or given access to judicial process.

In its 2006 religious freedom report, the U.S. State Department for the third year in a row named Eritrea a “Country of Particular Concern,” designating it one of the worst violators of religious freedom in the world.

(Return to Index)

***********************************Another State in India Passes Anti-Conversion BillChristians term Congress Party’s move in Himachal Pradesh a ‘cruel joke.’by Vishal Arora

NEW DELHI, January 3 (Compass Direct News) – The Congress Party has passed an anti-conversion bill in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh, where only 8,000 of the more than 6 million people are Christian.

The Himachal Pradesh Freedom of Religion Bill was passed on Saturday (December 30) during the four-day winter session of the state assembly. It remains to be signed into law.

Vijay Kumar, principal secretary of the state home department, told Compass that under the bill any person found forcibly converting another person could be imprisoned for up to two years and/or fined up to 25,000 rupees (US$565).

Kumar also said that any person wishing to convert to another religion must give prior notice of at least 30 days to the district government. “If he or she fails to do it, the penalty will be a fine up to 1,000 rupees (US$23),” he said.

Asked if the government had any official data on forcible conversions in the state to justify the bill, Kumar said no such data was available.

“It is not a reactionary measure, but a proactive one, to infuse confidence among the people of the state that the government is thoughtful of the issues,” he said.

Dr. John Dayal, secretary general of the All India Christian Council, termed the move of the state government a “cruel joke.”

“[Congress Party leader] Sonia Gandhi had written to me expressing her government’s and party’s opposition to such laws being passed by the BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] governments,” he told Compass. “But now, her own party in Himachal Pradesh has brought about such a bill.”

Dayal, who is also member of the National Integration Council, said the state chief minister, Vir Bhadra Singh, was playing into the hands of Hindu extremists.

“It is no honor to the Congress Party, and it must disown the bill and have it withdrawn,” he added.

Ministry as ‘Allurement’Known as “Freedom of Religion” acts, anti-conversion laws are in force in the states of Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Arunachal Pradesh.

Christians point out that anti-conversion laws allow Hindus to term any social work among people of other faiths as “allurement,” and any talk of eternal destiny as a consequence of sin as “force.”

Anti-conversion laws recognize the sacrament of baptism as conversion and hence require churches to report all baptisms of non-Christian converts to government officials.

The opposition BJP, a Hindu nationalist party that had in September 2006 promised to enact an anti-conversion law if it came into power in the state assembly elections in 2008, welcomed the bill’s passage, reported Asia News International (ANI).

The leader of the opposition, Prem Kumar Dhumal, told national daily The Indian Express last September 22, “After coming to power in Himachal Pradesh, the BJP would bring legislation against religious conversion and slaughtering of cows [considered holy by Hindus], as the present government has completely failed to protect the rights of the Hindus.”

On April 7, 2006 the BJP passed a similar bill in Rajasthan state. It also passed bills to amend the existing anti-conversion laws in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh on July 25 and August 3 respectively.

In addition, the party passed a bill to amend dormant anti-conversion legislation in Gujarat on September 19 of last year.

The chief minister of Tamil Nadu state, J. Jayalalithaa, had announced the repeal of that state’s “anti-conversion” law (the Prohibition of Forcible Conversion of Religion Act) in May 2004, following the poor performance of her party in April 2004 general elections.

(Return to Index)

***********************************Anti-Christian Attacks Mark New Year in IndiaHindu extremists beat believers, damage vehicles and stage protest rally.by Vishal Arora

NEW DELHI, January 5 (Compass Direct News) – After launching several anti-Christian attacks during the last week of 2006, Hindu extremists went on to beat more Christians, vandalize vehicles and organize a protest rally against a church, dampening New Year celebrations.

Extremists beat four pastors and vandalized a vehicle in the north central state of Uttar Pradesh state on Tuesday (January 2). They attacked two more Christians and damaged another vehicle in neighboring Madhya Pradesh state, while others staged an anti-Christian rally in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, the same day.

At midday on Tuesday (January 2), around 200 members of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP or World Hindu Council), attacked four pastors of the Brethren Assembly church in Indrapuram, near Delhi, Uttar Pradesh.

The victims, identified as Samuel John, George Thomas, Abraham George and V.P. Paulouse, received internal injuries.

“We were attacked while we were distributing tracts on God’s love to the local residents,” George told Compass.

George said the attackers accused the pastors of offering money to Hindus for their conversion to Christianity, an allegation that he denied.

The extremists also badly damaged a car belonging to Pastor Paulouse.

After the attack, the mob dragged the Christians to the local police station. Officers kept the injured Christians in the police station for more than four hours but did not register the extremists’ complaint of forced conversions.

Police also refused to file an incident report on behalf of the Christians. When the All India Christian Council (AICC) offered assistance in lodging an official complaint, the pastors said they preferred not to press charges. “We are Christians, and we believe in forgiveness,” George said.

Dr. John Dayal, secretary general of the AICC, condemned the attack. “The fact that Christians can be attacked in the National Capital Region (NCR) reflects how insecure we are in this country,” he told Compass.

The NCR includes Delhi and neighboring cities of Ghaziabad, Noida, Faridabad and Gurgaon.

Madhya Pradesh AttackThe same day, extremists of the Dharma Sena (Religious Army) beat two Christians in Devera village in the Singroli area of Madhya Pradesh.

The Rev. Madhu Chandra of the AICC told Compass that local Christians Shyam Sunder and Ram Deen received injuries in the chest and legs.

He said the attack took place when nine Christians – guests of Nahum Das, a local Christian belonging to an independent church – were visiting Tez Bali, a believer in Devera village.

When the Christians were in Bali’s house, local residents told them that Hindu extremists were approaching to launch an attack. Hearing the news, Bali hid the nine guests in a room and locked it from the outside.

The extremists, however, damaged the boundary wall and broke into the house. They also broke the lock of the room where the Christians were hiding and beat Sunder and Deen.

They also vandalized a car belonging to Das in which the Christian visitors were traveling.

When Das was informed about the attack, he called the police, who rescued the Christian visitors. The police reluctantly registered a complaint against the attackers after the intervention of a government official.

“To justify their attack, the extremists lodged a counter complaint against the Christians accusing them of conversions,” a representative of the Christian Legal Association of India told Compass.

Police registered a case against the victims for disturbing religious harmony under the Indian Penal code and for “indulging in conversions” under the Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act. 

Police had not arrested anyone at press time and were investigating the complaints.

Anti-Christian Rally The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) organized a protest rally against the construction of a building by the Good Shepherd

Community Church (GSCC) in Rodham, Ananthapur district, Andhra Pradesh on Tuesday (January 2).

According to an AICC report, a leader of the RSS, identified only as Giri, and a BJP leader, Lokesh Gupta, gathered about 200 people raising objections to the GSCC’s plan to construct a church near a Hindu temple. The crowd also accused the church of converting Hindus in the area.

Hindu extremists had on Christmas Eve burned down a church, arrested carol-singers and disrupted yuletide services in several states. (See Compass Direct News, “Yuletide Carol-Singers Arrested, Church Burned in India,” December 27, 2006.)

(Return to Index)

***********************************Hindu Extremists Beat Four Pastors in India‘Christ shed his blood – now you do the same,’ youths tell pastor.by Nirmala Carvalho

MUMBAI, India, January 10 (Compass Direct News) – Seven youths beat Pastor Robert Kennedy of Bangalore in Karnataka state on Sunday (January 7), after asking him to “pray for a sick friend.” The pastor required 16 stitches to his head and back after the assault.

In neighboring Andhra Pradesh state, Hindu extremists beat two pastors on January 6 and 7, and another on December 28, after warning them to cease Christian activities in their villages.

Pastor Kennedy and the small congregation of Jesus Preeti Church had gathered for worship for about and hour on Sunday morning when seven young men entered the house church and sat down. They talked among themselves, and one of them made calls on his mobile phone as Kennedy preached.

At about 12:30 p.m., when the service had ended and the believers had left, the youths approached Kennedy and asked him to accompany them to the home of a sick friend who needed prayer.

Since the house was supposedly nearby, Kennedy asked some of the young men to bring the patient to the church for prayer.

As three in the group made their way towards the front door, the others turned on the pastor and beat him severely.

“Suddenly all four attacked me, slapping my face, back and chest,” Kennedy told Compass. “One of them grabbed the microphone stand and struck me across the back, causing a deep gash, and blood began flowing out.”

The three who had not yet left the church came back and slapped the pastor, who had fallen to the floor. They then struck him with the circular base of the microphone stand, causing severe bleeding.

“They said to me, ‘You were telling everyone that Christ shed his blood – now you do the same,’” Kennedy added.

The youths also beat a church member identified only as Rajendran, who by chance returned to the church.

Kennedy believed his assailants were members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) or some other Hindu extremist group, since “they were mocking the teachings of Christ.”

Ten minutes after the assault began, the youths left. Rajendran called for assistance from other church members and Kennedy was taken to a nearby clinic, where he received 13 stitches to his back and three stitches to his head.

Kennedy later filed an official complaint at the Rajgopal police station. At press time no arrests had been made.

Assaults in Andhra PradeshAlso on Sunday (January 7), Hindu extremists at about 8:30 p.m. severely beat Pastor Narsimullu Jacob of Vanasthalipuran village, Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh state.

The extremists had warned Narsimullu that morning to cease holding worship services and conducting evangelism in the area.

A day earlier, 34-year-old Pastor Malaiya Gabriel was returning home from a weekly catechism class when a group of nine men approached him and warned him to stop indoctrinating the village children with stories about Christ.

Gabriel, who converted from Hinduism two years ago, lives in Shivalingam village in Nizamabad district.

Lionel Francis, coordinator of the Global Council of Indian Christians, said the men threatened Gabriel with dire consequences if he continued his missionary activities.

That evening (January 6), at around 8:30 p.m., Pastor Gabriel was returning from a visit to another Christian’s home when a mob of around 50 people thrashed him with wooden clubs and batons. “They threatened to kill him if he did not stop evangelizing,” Francis said.

Gabriel was taken to a hospital for treatment.

“There is a worrying pattern of behavior in the activities of the RSS in Telangana,” Francis told Compass. “First they issue a warning, and later the mob attacks.”

On December 28, Hindu extremists beat Pastor Pawan Kumar, an independent pastor ministering near Bodhan, Telangana. The extremists entered the home of local believer Issac Raju and beat some 14 Christians, burning their Bibles and sound system.

Extremists had warned Pawan earlier that day to cease his Christian activities.

“The RSS and the Bajrang Dal have become much bolder in their attacks on Christians in Telengana,” Francis said. “Even though we have filed complaints, no arrests have been made in relation to these attacks.”

(Return to Index)

***********************************Christian Weds Despite Hindu Protests in IndiaExtremists try to halt marriage of couple on false charge of allurement.by Nirmala Carvalho

MUMBAI, India, January 15 (Compass Direct News) – An Indian couple whose marriage was postponed three times due to protests from a Hindu extremist group finally married last Thursday (January 11) in Jabalpur.

Peter Abraham, 38, and Meena Gond, 36, first applied for permission to marry at the Jabalpur district marriage office in October 2006. The Special Marriages Act requires the office to invite objections after a couple applies to register a marriage. Objections must be filed during a mandatory 40-day notice period.

When the 40 days had expired last November, Jabalpur marriage officer Deepak Singh refused to register the marriage, saying he had received objections from a member of the Hindu extremist group Dharma Sena.

“Peter is a Christian – we suspect he has lured this innocent tribal girl by offering her money,” Sudhir Aggarwal, Dharma Sena convener in the Mahakaushal region told local reporters. “Meena will later be forced to change her religion.”

Gond is an animist. The couple met through relatives and developed a liking for each other that superseded their religious differences.

Ceremony PostponedThe marriage registrar asked Abraham and Gond to appear before him on December 20. To the couple’s dismay, however, the office then postponed the wedding ceremony as investigations into Aggarwal’s complaint were still underway.

A second date was set for January 4. On that day, however, a mob of about 65 to 70 Dharma Sena members waving saffron flags surrounded the registrar’s office.

“In spite of the bride being physically crippled from polio, the couple had to flee from the mob,” a local source said.

Singh, the marriage officer, denied any miscarriage of justice.

“Since I received two objections, we had to investigate the matter,” he told Compass. “On January 8, once the complaints were found to be baseless, we gave the couple permission to marry. They fixed their date for January 11, and after recording their statements, the marriage certificate was issued.”

Singh also denied any involvement of the Dharma Sena in the repeated postponement of the marriage.

Baseless AccusationsGond’s brother, Radhey Gond, strongly objected to Aggarwal’s charge of Christian missionaries encouraging people such as Abraham to convert poor tribal people.

“Abraham has been a daily wage earner for years. How can a poor rickshaw-puller bribe a woman if he has no money?” he said.

He said he was touched by Abraham’s decision to marry his sister. “She can barely walk,” Gond said. “We had all along thought that nobody would marry her.”

John Dayal, secretary general of the All India Christian Council, told Compass that Aggarwal and others had no legal grounds for their complaint. “They are in fact committing a crime by physically, socially or psychologically injuring any partner by way of assault, boycott or social marginalization,” he said. Indira Iyenger, president of the joint Madhya Pradesh-Chattisgarh Christian Forum, agreed. “This is another attempt of Hindu extremists to harass the Christian community,” she told Compass. “Abraham and Gond are consenting adults, and it is their fundamental right to marry.”

Marriage IncentivesMoreover, Iyenger added, if anyone could be accused of offering financial inducements, it was the Madhya Pradesh Bharatiya Janata Party government, which has offered a cash incentive of 50,000 rupees (US$2,209) to any non-tribal person who would marry someone from a tribal background.

Tribal Welfare Commissioner K.K. Singh admitted that the state had offered this incentive but said he was “not sure” if it applied to Christians and Muslims.

“The broad objective of the scheme is to end social discrimination and untouchability among Hindu castes,” Singh argued. “How can religions that do not have untouchability be eligible for this incentive?”

Jabalpur Congress Party chief Naresh Saraf, however, told the Telegraph that the scheme’s provisions made no reference to religion.

(Return to Index)

***********************************‘Disappearance’ of Children Alleged at EMI Orphanage in IndiaState turns away returning kids, then serves notice on mission in Rajasthan state. by Vishal Arora

NEW DELHI, January 16 (Compass Direct News) – After Rajasthan state officials turned away hundreds of children returning to an orphanage run by Emmanuel Mission International (EMI) last year, the state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government has formed a committee to investigate EMI for the alleged “disappearance” of children.

EMI attorney Mohammad Akram said the state Social Welfare Department first served notice to EMI on December 5, saying a committee had been formed to look into the disappearance of children at the orphanage after the number of residents fell from more than 1,700 to only 435. 

Akram explained that most of the children had left for summer vacation in their villages in March 2006. Only 435 children stayed at the orphanage.

“When the other children returned, the department officials refused to accept them back,” Akram explained.

District authorities told the children they needed government permission to stay at the orphanage.

“Since they were all from poor backgrounds, they did not dare to approach the authorities and consequently went back to their villages,” Akram said. “In fact, some of them who had nowhere to go have now become rag-pickers.”

The BJP helped launched a campaign against EMI in January 2006. On Wednesday (January 10), the state Social Welfare Department served notice to EMI for the third time in a month, asking it to promptly furnish details about the children at its Hope Center Orphanage in Raipura, Kota district.

The department asked for EMI’s registration number, the names of its members and a list of the children registered at the orphanage, along with names, addresses and contact information. It gave EMI less than 24 hours to comply.

The notice also sought an explanation as to why a large number of children had left the orphanage and where they had gone, even asking which airlines they had used were they to have left the country.

“EMI replied to the notice on December 5, saying it needed at least 20 days to provide the details,” Akram told Compass.

The department sent another notice on December 22, 2006, saying the details must be submitted by December 25.

“However, by this time we had realized that some documents, seemingly taken away by department officials who were deployed at the orphanage last year, were missing,” said Akram.

EMI wrote to the department on December 26, 2006, asking it to return the missing documents so that the requested paperwork could be completed. The department, however, denied taking any documents from the orphanage.

Lengthy Smear CampaignThe department sent officials to the orphanage after the state High Court dismissed five petitions filed by EMI on June 13, 2006.  

EMI filed the petitions after the Kota Registrar of Societies revoked the registration of five EMI institutions on February 20, 2006 and froze their bank accounts, claiming infringements of society regulations.

Social Welfare officials remained at the orphanage until the high court ordered them to leave on August 8, 2006. (See Compass Direct News, “Court Restores EMI Registration, Bank Accounts,” August 8, 2006.)

EMI operates the Emmanuel Bible Institute Samiti, Emmanuel Anath Ashram (Orphanage), Emmanuel School Society, Emmanuel Chikitsalaya (Hospital) Samiti, and Emmanuel Believers Fellowship. The organization leads a native church movement and serves over 10,000 children through humanitarian and educational work.

Akram said it was “extremely unfortunate” that the department had targeted the Rev. Dr. Samuel Thomas, president of EMI and the son of Archbishop M.A. Thomas, EMI’s founder, who “are selflessly serving the poor and the downtrodden.”

“As a result, many destitute children are suffering,” he said.

Tensions in Kota began on January 25, 2006 when Archbishop Thomas and his son received anonymous death threats warning them not to hold an annual graduation ceremony for hundreds of orphans and Dalit Christian students, scheduled for February 25.

The Rajasthan state police then arrested Thomas junior on March 16, 2006 for allegedly distributing the book Haqeekat (The Truth), which supposedly denigrated the Hindu faith. The police had earlier arrested several other EMI leaders in connection with the book.

In March 2006, a delegation from the All India Christian Council submitted a report to the Indian prime minister concluding that the ruling BJP party had encouraged state authorities to harass Christians, including EMI staff. The report named Social Welfare Minister Madan Dilawar as a key figure in the campaign against EMI.

Thomas was released on bail on May 2, 2006, while Thomas senior remained underground until the state High Court granted anticipatory bail for him on August 7, 2006.

(Return to Index)

***********************************Mystery Shrouds Death of Christian Convert in IndiaBelievers suspect Hindu extremists pushed 18-year-old from train.by Vishal Arora

NEW DELHI, January 31 (Compass Direct News) – An 18-year-old convert from Hinduism breathed his last on January 12, four days after he was found lying wounded near a railway track in the north-central state of Madhya Pradesh. Christians say he was pushed out of the train by Hindu extremists.

Passersby noticed Bansi Lal, an independent Christian worker, lying with a severe head injury at the S-12 signal post near the Bolai railway station in Shajapur district at about 7 p.m. on January 8.

Lal, who hails from Madhya Pradesh’s Dewas district and attends a house church, accepted Christ in 2004. He was reportedly returning from a Christian meeting when the incident took place.

Lal died before he could give a statement to railway police, who have reportedly registered a case of suicide.

Station master of the Bolai railway station, Chinmay Rai, told Compass that as soon as he was informed about it, he made arrangements to send Lal to a hospital in nearby Ujjain district.

Rai, who said Lal had a deep head injury and was lying unconscious near the railway track, ruled out the possibility of a suicide.

“The kind of injuries he had sustained and the way he was found lying do not suggest it was a suicide,” he said.

Asked if Lal was pushed out of the train, he said, “It is difficult to find out now, as he alone could say what exactly happened.”

Rai claimed that someone on the train saw Lal sticking out of the door too much. “He could have possibly hit against the signal post and fallen out of the train,” he said.

He also said that the police had not questioned him.

The railway police could not be contacted for comments.

Christian organizations, including the All India Christian Council (AICC) and the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), condemned the incident, alleging that Hindu extremists had thrown Lal out of a moving train.

Dr. John Dayal, secretary general of the AICC, demanded a “full-fledged” investigation of the case by government agencies as well as independent human rights organizations.

Dayal said it seemed like “murder, and nothing else.”

Dr. Sajan K. George, national president of the GCIC, said Christians were saddened by the tragic death of the Christian youth.

“This attack on Bansi Lal is to be condemned in the strongest terms,” he said. “Lal had on earlier occasions received threats from Hindu extremists groups, and it is unfortunate that the police are claiming that it was a case of suicide.”

The incidence of Christian persecution is high in Madhya Pradesh, which is ruled by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The state BJP government on July 25, 2006 passed a bill strengthening the state anti-conversion law to make it mandatory for clergy and “prospective converts” to notify authorities of the intent to change religion one month before a “conversion ceremony.”

(Return to Index)

***********************************Service Cancelled in Otherwise Quiet Christmas in IndonesiaMuslims help protect churches during Yuletide season.by Samuel Rionaldo

JAKARTA, January 10 (Compass Direct News) – A 200-strong mob prevented a church here from holding a Christmas Eve service in what was an otherwise peaceful

holiday season in Indonesia. Some Muslim groups even provided protection for churches alongside police and army personnel.

In Cengkareng Timur, the large mob prevented the Pentecostal Church in Indonesia from holding the Christmas Eve service.

The crowd gathered at the church premises on Christmas Eve, demanding that no Christmas services be held. Mob leader Kodri said the church was violating a West Jakarta regulation banning worship services in private homes.

The church began meeting in a private home in 1998. There were no problems until some neighbors objected in 2004. The Islamic Defenders Front and Betawi Discussion Forum then warned the church committee not to conduct worship services in the house, but members chose to ignore these warnings.

“All this time we’ve been able to hold services without difficulty,” Pastor Parlinggaman Simorangkir told local reporters. “So why could we not do it on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day?”

After a discussion between church members, neighbors, police and the district chief of Cengkareng, the Christmas Eve service was eventually called off and the church committee found another location for the service on Christmas Day.

One police officer apologized, saying the cancellation was unfortunate but that police “couldn’t do much other than protect the church from harm.”

Security ChallengeIndonesia has provided Christmas security for churches annually since a series of bombs were planted in or near churches across the country on Christmas Eve 2000. The bombs killed 19 people and injured well over 100.

Police and security officials blamed the Islamic terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) for the bombings. Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, the spiritual leader of JI, was charged in 2003 in connection with the Christmas Eve bombings and with bombing attacks in Bali in October 2002 that killed over 200 people.

Courts found Ba’asyir guilty, but Indonesian authorities released him from prison in June 2006, and on December 21 of last year the Supreme Court overturned his conviction.

In the lead-up to Christmas Eve, more than 17,000 policemen and soldiers were deployed to protect churches, shopping malls and airport terminals in Jakarta.

Several Muslim organizations also took part in providing security. These included the Multifunction Front (Banser) and the Betawi Family Discussion Forum (Forkabi), among others.

Andi Mohammad Soleh, coordinator of one such group, said his people simply wanted to prevent violence during the Christmas season and prove that there was “inter-faith harmony in Jakarta.”

Several churches affected by bombings in previous years were able to conduct worship services safely, including the Santa Anna Catholic Church in Duren Sawit district, bombed in 2001, and the GPIB Koinonia church in Matraman, East Jakarta, which suffered a bombing in 2000.

2007 Begins PeacefullyResidents of Central Sulawesi breathed a sigh of relief as the new year opened without a repeat of last year’s violence.

At about 6:30 a.m. on New Year’s Eve 2005, a bomb exploded in a Christian marketplace in Palu, Central Sulawesi, killing eight and injuring 56.

The bombing followed a series of violent attacks on Christians in 2005, echoing previous conflict between Muslims and Christians in the region from 1998 to 2001 that claimed over 1,000 lives.

A peace accord was signed in December 2001, but sporadic attacks have continued ever since with Christians forming the overwhelming majority of victims.

Following the New Year’s Eve 2005 blast, the government announced plans to send an additional 1,100 policeman and an unspecified number of soldiers to Central Sulawesi.

Approximately 4,000 extra police and military personnel had already been sent to restore order to the troubled province in 2005. Security forces, however, failed to prevent repeated attacks or arrest perpetrators of the ongoing violence.

In one positive development, police in 2006 finally arrested and brought to trial three men accused of murdering three Christian teenagers in Central Sulawesi in October 2005. At least one of the men has admitted to his role in the murders. (See Compass Direct News, “Muslim Extremist Admits to Beheadings in Indonesia,” November 22, 2006.)

Police have yet to identify those responsible for the 2005 New Year’s Eve bombing.

(Return to Index)

***********************************Police Raid Nest of Islamic Terrorists in Poso, IndonesiaOne suspect and one teacher, not a suspect, are killed; mourners later murder policeman.Special to Compass Direct

JAKARTA, January 16 (Compass Direct News) – Police in Central Sulawesi last Thursday (January 11) raided the home of one of 29 Islamic terrorists suspected of

carrying out violent attacks on Christians. A suspect was killed in the raid – as was an Islamic teacher who was not a suspect. Four suspects were arrested, and a policeman was killed after the raid.

Security forces began a serious crackdown on Islamic terrorists in the area only after a prominent Christian leader was assassinated on October 16, 2006.

After the assassination, police clashed with Muslim residents and clerics at an Islamic boarding school in Tanah Runtuh. Police then declared an official manhunt for the 29 suspects as part of their commitment to restore peace in the province.

Thursday’s incident took place in Gebang Rojo sub-district.

“I heard several gun shots at around 5 a.m.,” Pastor Hanny Ticoalu of the local Pentecostal Church in Indonesia (GPdI) Parakletos congregation reported. “The raid took place only two kilometers from my home. But I did not go out to investigate; this kind of thing doesn’t surprise us anymore.”

Terrorist suspects fought back, firing automatic weapons and throwing bombs at the police, local media reported.

A terrorist suspect, Dedi Parsan, was killed in the raid, while two others were severely wounded.

Police detained four suspects and flew them to the provincial capital, Palu, for further investigation. Authorities also confiscated rifles, home-made bombs and ammunition from the house.

Local police chief Brig. Gen. Badrodin Haiti said officials had already tried to resolve disputes through dialogue with local Islamic leaders in the area, with no success.

“We had to take this action in order to uphold the law,” he said. “I would like to express my thanks for the support of several Islamic clerics who have helped the police.”

Civilian, Police Officer KilledAn Islamic teacher known as Ustad (teacher) Rian was accidentally killed during the raid, although he was not on the suspect list, sparking outrage among local residents.

Rian was buried on Thursday afternoon, and as mourners made their way home from the funeral, they assaulted and killed a policeman, Dedi Irawan.

Nobody in the mob was detained after Irawan’s murder. “I think the police want to avoid triggering another act of violence,” Ticoalu said. “They might investigate the murder after the situation has calmed down a little.”

With the exception of the assault on Irawan, both Muslim and Christian communities in Poso have reacted well to the incident, Ticoalu added.

“In the past, there would have been a mass uprising,” he explained. “People would have tried to get revenge. But now they leave it to the security officers. This is a good development.”

(Return to Index)

***********************************Extremist Confesses to Murder of Christians in IndonesiaIslamist admits taking part in beheading deaths of three girls and killing pastor, attorney.by Samuel Rionaldo

JAKARTA, January 19 (Compass Direct News) – An Islamic extremist on Wednesday (January 17) admitted to taking part in the killing of three Christian high school girls in Poso in 2005. He also confessed to shooting the Rev. Susianty Tinulele to death in Palu in 2004.

In a written statement in Central Jakarta District Court, Lilik Purnomo also confessed to participating in other acts of violence in Poso: a bombing at Immanuel Church, beheading a village chief, and shooting Ferry Silalahi, a Christian attorney who had defended the Rev. Rinaldy Damanik, a Christian peace activist.

Purnomo admitted taking part in the murder of the three girls – Theresia Morangke and Yarni Sambue, both 15, and 17-year-old Alfita Poliwo – as they walked to school on October 29, 2005. State Prosecutor Payaman (known by the single name) read the confession signed by Purnomo.

A fourth girl in the 2005 attack, Noviana Malewa, then 15, received serious injuries to her face and neck but survived. She has said that at least six men attacked the girls.  After the murders, the girls’ heads were wrapped in black plastic bags; one was left on the steps of a church in nearby Kasiguncu village, and the other two near a police station five miles from Poso town. The bags contained a note stating in part, “We will murder 100 more Christian teenagers and their heads will be presented as presents.”

A 24-year-old Islamic extremist known by the single name of Hasanuddin last year admitted planning the murders as a “gift” to celebrate Idul Fitri, a festival marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. The beheadings were also carried out to avenge the deaths of Muslims during inter-faith clashes in the eastern province of Central Sulawesi between 1998 and 2001, according to the defendants.

Purnomo (alias Haris or Arman) and Irwanto Irano (alias Irwan, also known as Apriyantono), appeared in court on Wednesday. Purnomo confessed that he along with Irano was an “execution coordinator.”

“It is true,” he said without emotion. “I was the execution coordinator.” He admitted having worked with Irano, Papa Yusron, Agus Jenggot, Nanto alias Bojel, Basri, and Wiwin Kalahe. Purnomo also confessed that he recruited other accomplices.

Purnomo testified that before launching the attack, he and six other executioners sought advice from Hasanudin. “The murder was carried out after Hasanudin – one considered as elder by the community – gave us permission,” Purnomo said.

After consulting with Hasanudin, Purnomo said, he and the other accomplices bought six machetes with the money Hasanudin provided. He also bought the plastic bags later used to wrap the victims’ head. After the assault, he brought the victims’ head to Hasanudin.

Hasanudin, also present at the court, denied Purnomo’s testimony, saying “I have never been asked for advice to execute the Christian schoolgirls.”

Murder of Rev. TinulelePurnomo’s confession included the shooting of the Rev. Susianty Tinulele, then 26. She was shot during worship services at the Central Sulawesi Christian Church (GKST) in Efatah on July 18, 2004.

Rev. Tinulele had just finished preaching on that Sunday evening when a man wearing a black mask appeared at the door and sprayed the congregation with machine gun fire. She died instantly. A choir member, 17-year-old Desrianti Tengkede, received a bullet in the forehead and died in the early hours of the next morning (see Compass Direct News, “Death Toll Rises in Sulawesi, Indonesia,” July 22, 2004).

Four other worshipers received non-fatal bullet wounds. Eyewitnesses said three other men waited on motorbikes outside the church and all fled the scene with the gunman immediately after the shooting.

Rev. Tinulele had been ordained as a minister in the GKST church. She was an active supporter of the Rev. Rinaldy Damanik, another GKST minister who had been imprisoned on what many believed were false charges. Tinulele had visited Damanik in prison July 16, two days before she was shot.

Rev. Damanik is a key signatory of the Malino Peace Accord, signed by Christian and Muslim representatives in December 2001 as an effort to end sectarian violence that began in Sulawesi in 1998. Authorities granted him an early release from his cell in Palu, Sulawesi, on November 9, 2004. Purnumo also confessed to shooting Ferry Silalahi, a Christian lawyer who defended Damanik. Silalahi was shot and killed on May 25, 2004, as he and his wife left a house church meeting.

*** Photos of the church where the Rev. Susianti Tinulele was shot are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.

(Return to Index)

***********************************Iran Still Holding House Church LeaderAuthorities demand heavy bail payments for arrested leaders’ release.by Peter Lamprecht

ISTANBUL, January 4 (Compass Direct News) – All but one Iranian house church leader arrested for “evangelization” in a coordinated sweep of four cities last month were released by last week.

Behrouz Sadegh-Khandjani is still in police custody in Tehran, where officials are holding him on the pretext that he must pay an outstanding debt, one source said.

Members of the group raised a 30,000-euro (US$39,743) bail for the release of two other leaders held in Tehran last week but paid smaller amounts to free members in the cities of Karaj, Rasht and Bandar-i Anzali, the source said.

Iranian police began arresting the house church leaders from their homes in the early morning hours of December 10. According to one source, officials accused them of evangelization and actions against the national security of Iran.

Tehran officials continue to hold Sadegh-Khandjani on grounds that he has not paid off debts incurred in an uninsured rental car crash two years ago, one source said. According to the source, secret police have encouraged the owner of the rental company to pursue demands for reimbursement.

Tehran leader Hamid Reza Toluinia was reportedly freed on Christmas Day after his father presented officials with the title deed to a house. Behrouz Sadegh-Khandjani’s sister, Shirin was freed two days later, though Compass sources remained unsure how her 30,000-euro bail was paid.

Rasht city authorities freed Yousef Nadarkhani, Parviz Khalaj and Muhammad Reza-Taghizadeh within two weeks of their arrest, agreeing to accept “work charters” (employment permission) for their bail.

Karaj city officials also accepted work charters as bail, freeing Bahman Irani on December 14 and releasing Behnam Irani and Peyman Salarvand the following week.

His arrest previously unreported, Karaj group member Muhammad Beliad was set free last week.

Seyed Abdolreza Ali Haghnejad, the only member of the group known to have been arrested in Bandar-i Anzali, was released on December 14.

Holocaust Conference

One house church member disavowed reports that group leaders had been arrested for their opposition to a controversial Iranian conference that questioned the existence of the Holocaust.

A December 14 report by Adnkronos International news service stated that congregation members suspected the reason for their arrest was “criticism of the government-sponsored conference.” The arrests immediately preceded the beginning of the conference.

“It is true that we do not accept the [denial of the Holocaust],” said a house church member. “But a lot of Iranian intellectuals reject the revisionism too, and they were not arrested.”

An indigenous house church movement, the group of approximately 600 people describes itself as a nondenominational Christian community of “free evangelicals,” although Iranian evangelicals question some of the group’s unorthodox doctrines, including rejection of the Trinity.

While several of the group’s leaders were still in jail, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delivered a rare acknowledgement of Iran’s Christians on Christmas Eve, wishing them “joy, health and a year full of blessings and love.”

The gesture came a day after the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution sanctioning Iran for continuing a uranium enrichment program that could be used to produce bombs.

Over the past year, Iran’s harsh Islamic regime has targeted various Christian groups known to use literature and other means to spread their faith among the majority Shiite Muslim population. In at least eight known incidents this year, former Muslims who had converted to Christianity were arrested and held in custody for several weeks before being released. In most cases, they were forced to pay large bail amounts and told their cases remained open for possible criminal prosecution.

Under Iran’s strict apostasy laws, any Muslim who leaves Islam to embrace another religion faces the death penalty.

(Return to Index)

***********************************Nigerian State’s Policies Said to Strangle ChristianityMuslim governor of Nasarawa promotes Islamic dominance in leadership.by Obed Minchakpu

LAFIA, Nigeria, January 15 (Compass Direct News) – As soon as Christians in this capital city of Nasarawa state tried to rebuild a Reformed Church building that Muslims burned down two years ago, more than 200 Islamists attacked the workers.

The rebuilding came to a halt, and the Nasarawa state government subsequently banned reconstruction of the facility. The church had been planted more than a century ago by missionaries of the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa under the auspices of the then-Sudan United Mission, headed by German missionary Dr. Karl Kunn.

“I personally witnessed the attack on the workers at the reconstruction site of the church,” said the Rev. Jerry Modibo, chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Nasarawa state chapter. “The Muslims were chanting, ‘Death to Christians, death to infidels. This town is for Muslims, we don’t want Christians here.’” The church was known as NKST, or Nongo u Kristu u ken Sudan hen Tiv, Church of Christ in the Sudan Among the Tiv. The Tiv are an ethnic group of central Nigeria. The congregation in the Angwan Tiv area of Lafia had lost their church building in religious rioting.

Angwan Tiv is just one of many areas of Lafia town where the government now forbids building churches, Modibo said. At the same time, he said, the Nasarawa administration has financed the building of mosques across the state with public funds. Some of these mosques have been built on the premises of various government ministries and agencies.

The church leader said Nasarawa state has also built mosques in the Governor’s House and in the state House of Assembly, or parliament.

“If you are traveling from Lafia to Akwanga through Keffi to Abuja, you will see mosques being built along the road,” Modibo said. “These mosques are being built by the state government in towns and villages like Shabu, Nasarawa Eggon, Akwanga, Sabon Gida, Keffi, and Gora. Yet no single church or chapel has been built for Christians in this state.”

Christian public servants recently raised funds to build a chapel within the confines of the office of the deputy governor, who happens to be a Christian, Modibo said.

“They were ordered by the governor to stop the building of the chapel,” he said. “But there are two mosques built by the government in the same premises. That is the kind of injustice confronting us in this state.”

Gov. Alhaji Abdullahi Adamu was not available for comment, and his commissioner for information and internal affairs, Suleiman Adokwe, declined to speak on these and other issues to Compass. “Religious issues are sensitive, and I cannot therefore speak on them,” Adokwe said.

Muslim Chiefdoms

Nasarawa state policies are strangling Christian presence in the central Nigerian state, Modibo said. Officials deny Christians appointments to government institutions; at the same time, they promote junior-ranking Muslims above Christians in public service positions.

Nasarawa state has 51 “traditional rulers,” or community leaders recognized by the government. Modibo said that of this number, only 10 are Christians – the other 41 are Muslims.

“Abdullahi Adamu, the governor, did this by creating more chiefdoms to favor Muslims, and meanwhile he was stifling Christian community leaders by making them second fiddle in the scheme of things in this state,” Modibo said.

Discrimination in public service, the Christian leader said, has become a lifestyle for Christian public servants in the state. Of the 18 commissioners in government service, he said, only six are Christians.

“Last year Gov. Adamu appointed 18 commissioners, and 12 are Muslims,” he said. “Yet Christians constitute the largest population of the state – if you visit all 29 local government areas of this state and take statistics of all the people of these areas, you will discover that Christians constitute well over two-thirds of the state’s 1.2 million population.”

In addition, Modibo said, in the past 10 years appointments of federal ministers and ambassadors – based on recommendations from the state governor – have favored Muslims.

“Only one Christian in the past 10 years has ever been appointed a minister, and even then he was not allowed to complete his term of office,” Modibo said. “The same scenario played out in ambassadorial appointments – only one Christian has been appointed an ambassador in the past 10 years from this state.”

In the Christian-majority state, elections have been manipulated to perpetuate Muslim political leadership, he added.

Modibo, also a pastor with the Evangelical Reformed Church of Christ said Christians have made concerted efforts to dialogue with Gov. Abdullahi Adamu on these issues without success.

“Several attempts have been made by us to sit with the governor on a round table to discuss and find solutions to these issues, but our efforts yielded no results,” Modibo said. “In addition to personal contacts with officers of the protocol department, we have written thrice seeking to have an audience with the governor but have waited almost eternally.”

Pilgrimage to Justice

Nigerian state governments have assumed responsibility for helping to finance pilgrimages for Muslims to Mecca and for Christians to Jerusalem. Christians in Nasarawa believe the state has discriminated against them in this area as well.

In 2005, Nasarawa state budgeted and distributed 200 million naira (US$1.6 million) for Muslim pilgrims. The state budgeted 15 million naira (US$121,832) for Christians.

“Even this amount was not released for the sponsorship of Christian pilgrims after its approval,” Modibo said. From 2000 to 2005, Muslim pilgrims to Mecca sponsored by the state totaled 6,220, while the state supported only 355 Christians – and many of those encountered difficulties in obtaining the assistance, Modibo said.

“We have been facing a lot of tribulations, trials, and frustrations here in Nasarawa state,” he said. “The church here is facing the most difficult period of her life.”

Modibo noted that Proverbs 31:8-9 advocates speaking up for those who cannot speak for themselves, defending the rights of the destitute, and letting justice flow.

“So, we are demanding that there be justice and fairness to all,” he said. “All religions in this state should be treated fairly.”

*** A photo of the Rev. Jerry Modibo is available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.

(Return to Index)

***********************************Pakistan Court Overturns Life Sentence for ChristianAnother ‘blasphemy’ suspect, Shahid Masih, is freed on bail.by Peter Lamprecht

ISTANBUL, January 22 (Compass Direct News) – A Pakistani court last week acquitted a Christian “blasphemy” prisoner on grounds that the convict was mentally unstable, while another Christian facing the same accusation was released on bail.

Justice Muhammad Ijaz Chaudhry overturned Shahbaz Masih’s life sentence at a Lahore High Court hearing on Friday (January 19), citing evidence that the Christian was mentally handicapped. He has been incarcerated for more than five years.

The judge also noted that no one had seen Masih, 28, commit the alleged crime, defense lawyer Khalil Tahir Sindhu said.

A Faisalabad court condemned the Christian to 25 years in prison in September 2004 for allegedly tearing up a Quran in a Muslim graveyard in Faisalabad.

Though psychiatrist Dr. Pervez Ahmed had testified under oath that Masih suffered from a “bipolar effective disorder,” the mentally unstable man was found guilty under sections 295 A and B of Pakistan’s Penal Code, two of the country’s blasphemy laws.

Defense lawyer Sindhu told Compass that tomorrow he plans to secure his client’s release from Faisalabad District Jail’s mental ward, where he has been jailed since June 4, 2001.

‘I will get him tomorrow and keep him in a secret place,” Sindhu said, noting that his client’s life may still be in danger from Muslim fanatics angered by the verdict.

Threats from radical groups have forced Masih’s family into hiding several times during the case. More than 60 armed Muslim clerics were present at the Christian’s final Faisalabad court hearing in 2004, chanting slogans and praising the judge and Islamic law when he was found guilty.

Sindhu remains uncertain whether Masih will eventually be reunited with his parents and five siblings in Lahore. The Catholic lawyer said he hoped his client would be able to obtain refugee status abroad.

Second Released Christian in DangerAnother Christian in Faisalabad went into hiding last week while awaiting a court decision over accusations that he defiled the Quran.

Faisalabad Judge Muhammad Tanveer Akbar granted Shahid Masih bail, saying that evidence against him was only “circumstantial,” said Sindhu, who is also defending this “blasphemy” suspect.

Sindhu’s legal aid organization, ADAL Trust, posted bail for the 17-year-old’s release using a property title deed worth 100,000 rupees (US$1,644).

“Even after getting bail, I do not feel safe, because I have to live in hiding,” Shahid Masih told Compass by telephone from Faisalabad today with the help of a translator.

Muslim fanatics have followed the Christian’s case since he and a Muslim friend were accused of tearing pages from a book containing Quranic verses and their Urdu translations last September.

“He is in danger for his life, because they [the fanatics] are very emotional and feeling that this is unjust that he has been granted post-arrest bail,” Sindhu said. He added that the young man and his family are only able to meet secretly at night.

Shahid Masih is one of only a few Pakistani Christian blasphemy suspects to obtain post-arrest bail from a lower court. Most blasphemy prisoners spend years in prison before an Additional District and Sessions Judge decides their fate.

“Generally, we do not request bail because of security,” commented Peter Jacob, executive secretary of the National Commission for Justice and Peace. Jacob, an expert on blasphemy cases, pointed out that Christian blasphemy suspects are often safest in prison under police protection.

But even in prison, blasphemy suspects may face danger. “When I was sent to jail, I was beaten by my fellow prisoners before they put me in an isolation cell,” Shahid Masih told Compass.

The blasphemy suspect’s mother has suffered from depression since her son’s arrest last September.

“I am very sick, but I am happy to see my son,” Alice Masih told Compass from an undisclosed location in Faisalabad where she and her husband were visiting Shahid Masih.

Due to his own work with blasphemy prisoners, much of it pro bono, Sindhu and his family have faced ongoing threats. The lawyer’s wife and sons have temporarily gone into hiding to avoid attack.

Last month State Minister Tariq Azim hinted that “minorities would hear the ‘good news’ of amendments to the blasphemy law this Christmas,” the English-language Daily Times reported on December 25. Concrete amendments have yet to materialize.

*** Photographs of Shahbaz Masih, Shahid Masih and Khalil Tahir Sindhu are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.

(Return to Index)

***********************************Sudanese Police Deny New Year’s Church AttackOn national television, vice president demands prosecution of culprits.by Peter Lamprecht

ISTANBUL, January 10 (Compass Direct News) – Sudanese police have denied attacking 800 Christians at a New Year’s Eve service at Khartoum’s Anglican cathedral and injuring six members of the congregation, the church priest said.

Canon Sylvester Thomas of All Saints Cathedral told Compass that officers firing tear gas into the church claimed they were trying to apprehend a man involved in a stabbing.

Church staff registered a case with local police on January 2, but officials have not established who carried out the attack that caused US$7,000 damage, Thomas said.

“The police were trying to claim, ‘This group doesn’t belong to us and we don’t know where they came from,’” Thomas said. “But they were all in uniform and using guns and [police] cars.”

A police spokesman in Khartoum contacted by Compass refused to comment on the attack.

Sudanese Vice President Salva Kiir, a southern Christian, publicly called for the church attackers to be punished yesterday in Juba.

Kiir’s comments came in a nationally televised speech when he and northern President Omar Al-Bashir met to commemorate the second anniversary of a peace deal that ended the nation’s 21-year civil war between northern Islamists and southern Christian, Muslim and animist factions.

During the ceremony, broadcast live on Sudan TV, Kiir and Bashir criticized each other openly for blocking implementation of the peace agreement and the sharing of oil revenues.

Beaten with WhipsNo government official from the north, where the Islamist regime holds power, has openly commented on the church attack.

The governor of Khartoum has yet to respond to a protest letter from the Episcopal Church of Sudan (ECS) Bishop of Khartoum, the Rt. Rev. Ezekiel Kondo, who was among those attacked on January 1.

In the letter, Bishop Kondo noted that members of the Cathedral had felt threatened by police cars parked outside the cathedral all day prior to the attack. “Most of the officers were of high rank,” the letter said.

Police first fired 10 canisters of tear gas into and around the cathedral 20 minutes after the midnight service had begun, Thomas told Compass. The congregation panicked and began to stampede out the front door of the church, only to be met by officers who beat them with whips and sticks.

In the ensuing confusion, a 19-year-old man was badly injured in the leg and stomach when the chair he was sitting on went up in flames, Thomas said. The sound system, pews, chairs and windows were damaged.

Among those present were United Nations workers and government officials, including Vice President Kiir’s secretary as well as former Vice President Abel Alier.

“The second assault of tear gas fell just in front of [Alier] and he was almost suffocated,” Thomas said. “His wife had to carry him near the tap and pour water on him, and that is how he survived.”

Thomas helped members of the congregation escape through his office into his home. When police continued to fire on his house, the priest, still in his robes, ran through the smoke towards them to halt their assault.

An officer told Thomas that they had not been firing on the church but had been trying to apprehend a group of men fighting in the street, one of whom had been stabbed. The police claimed they opened fire on the group after the men began throwing rocks to resist arrest.

Church staff investigated police claims that a man named Stephen Chol, from Hag-Yousif in Khartoum North, had been stabbed. But the telephone number provided by police turned out to belong to someone else, and no hospital in the area had any record of a patient treated for stabbing, Thomas said.

Minority RightsSigned in January 2005 to end Sudan’s civil war, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) provides guarantees for non-Muslim minorities living under Islamic law in northern Sudan.

A CPA commission for the rights of non-Muslims was to be established for significant numbers of Christians and other religious groups living in Khartoum.

Two years on, little concrete progress has been made in establishing the commission. Christians living in the capital city of Khartoum continue to report discrimination and harassment.

In May 2006, the Rev. Elia Komondan of All Saints Cathedral was jailed for a week over the disappearance of a Muslim convert to Christianity (See Compass Direct News, “Sudan Releases Priest Suspected of Kidnapping ‘Apostate,’” May 23, 2006). The incident highlighted restrictions placed on Christian evangelization of Muslims and the lack of freedom Muslim-born citizens have in choosing their own religion.

*** Photographs of All Saints Cathedral and Canon Sylvester Thomas are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.

(Return to Index)

***********************************Turkish Church Vandalized, Pastor ThreatenedLandlord demands eviction as two-year campaign against Black Sea church continues.by Peter Lamprecht

ISTANBUL, January 30 (Compass Direct News) – Assailants on Turkey’s Black Sea coast vandalized a Protestant church this weekend, days after nationalists from the region murdered a well-known Armenian journalist.

Attackers shattered the Agape Protestant Church’s windows and spray-painted its street sign early Sunday morning (January 28) in the city of Samsun, Pastor Orhan Picaklar told Compass.

Located in a region infamous for producing the nationalist killers of Armenian journalist Hrant Dink 11 days ago and an Italian Catholic priest last year, the congregation has suffered a dozen stoning attacks and weekly e-mail threats during the past two years.

“I was shocked, because, though we’ve been stoned before, it was never this big of an attack,” Picaklar said. “When I arrived at 5 a.m., there were about 20 police on the premises, including Samsun’s deputy police chief.”

According to Picaklar, approximately 30 heavy rocks had been thrown through church windows, some of them smashing interior windows and denting walls.

The pastor said a note was left inside the church but that police refused to show him what was written on it, claiming that it “wasn’t important.”

Samsun’s police chief later refused to include the note in the official investigation, stating that it had “nothing to do with this case,” Picaklar said.

“How could a paper thrown into our building not have anything to do with our case?” the pastor commented.

Samsun’s chief of security, present at the initial investigation, refused to comment on the incident when contacted by Compass.

Several Turkish national dailies mentioned the attack yesterday after The Associated Press covered the incident, but local papers that previously had published negative articles against the church failed to report the vandalism.

‘I Will Kill You, Orhan’Picaklar received two death threats by e-mail on the day of the attack, one signed by the Turkish Vengeance Brigade.

“I will kill you Orhan, you have very little time left,” read one e-mail, which cursed the congregation as “Christian pigs” who would “burn in Hell.”

“I’ve received so many of these in the last three years that I don’t even pay attention to them, I just delete them,” Picaklar told Compass. “But in recent days I’ve started to take them seriously.”

The murder of Armenian writer and thinker Hrant Dink, gunned down by a young nationalist from the Black Sea city of Trabzon on January 19, has created concern over growing militant nationalism in Turkey.

The event has also fueled debate over the responsibility of the state to protect individuals targeted by violent elements in society.

“After these events, both Dink’s death and this church attack, the police are planning to provide us with security,” Picaklar said.

“In Samsun,” a legal advisor from Turkey’s Alliance of Protestant Churches (APC) told Compass, “the church may not have asked for protection, but it was threatened and stoned 10 times, so the police had the responsibility to protect it.”

In a similar case in the city of Odemis, a Protestant church opened a case against the Ministry of Interior in December for failing to protect its building during repeated attacks.

The Samsun congregation’s biggest problem may now be finding a place to meet.

Sunday’s attack has convinced the church’s landlord that the congregation must leave, the pastor said. The church only moved into the building from its former location three weeks ago.

“I think people don’t want to work with us because of the rock throwing attacks,” Picaklar said. “Where are we supposed to worship this winter, on the street?”

“Legally, the government doesn’t have to provide its citizens with a place of worship,” an APC legal adviser told Compass. “But as a social state, it’s something it should provide [for churches]. Mosques are built by the Religious Affairs Directorate.”

Turkey’s officially secular government funds and constructs most of the country’s mosques. The state pays the salaries of Muslim clerics and provides mosques with free water and utilities.

History of HarassmentRegular vandalism, negative media and e-mail threats against the Agape church increased soon after the mayor of the city’s Atakum municipality, Adem Bektas, stated in November 2004 that he would never allow a church to be built there.

A revision of Turkey’s laws allowed the Samsun congregation to register officially as an association in November 2005 but did little to diminish social stigma attached to the church.

Four days before the church attack, the Black Sea online site Kuzeyhaber published a column praising efforts to stop the spread of Christianity in Samsun.

“I am aware of the struggle you have been waging against the churches and priests [in Samsun],” stated a letter allegedly from one “prophet Jesus” addressed to columnist

Kenan Erzurumlu on January 24. “Blessed are you for being on His path,” the column said in praise of Erzurumlu.

The last previous attack on the church came last October, when police managed to catch one rock thrower whose confession led to the arrest of 11 young men. But after taking their statements, officials released the culprits on grounds that they were underage, Picaklar said.

A date for the first court hearing against the young men has yet to be set.

*** Pictures of the newly damaged Agape Protestant Church are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.

(Return to Index)

***********************************Turkish Police Clamp Strict Security on Christians’ TrialMeasures follow murder of Armenian journalist; defense lawyer smells conspiracy plot.by Barbara G. Baker

ISTANBUL, January 31 (Compass Direct News) – Strict security controls surrounded the second court hearing for two Turkish Christians facing criminal charges for insulting Turkish identity under the nation’s controversial Article 301.

Police had thrown cordons around the Silivri courthouse and main streets into the town hours before Hakan Tastan and Turan Topal arrived from Istanbul with their lawyer for the 2 p.m. trial on Monday (January 29).

Heightened police protection for the two Christians and their lawyer was attributed to the shocking assassination 10 days earlier of another Turkish Christian, prominent Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, murdered in Istanbul by a teenage nationalist.

Editor of the weekly Agos newspaper, Dink had drawn the wrath of Turkish nationalists after his trial and conviction last year under Article 301, the same restrictive law against freedom of speech under which Tastan and Topal are charged.

Uniformed police officers met the defendants’ car as it approached the center of Silivri, a town 45 miles west of Istanbul. Authorities were already questioning and thoroughly searching everyone entering the courthouse, refusing admittance to onlookers or members of the press.

Meanwhile, small groups of young men could be seen idling around the streets adjoining the court building, eyeing the entrance and all passersby.

But police spirited the defendants in and out of the back door of the courthouse, preventing tensions like those aroused by nationalist demonstrators at the first hearing in

November. In doing so, they also frustrated a mob of journalists and photographers lying in wait for the court participants at the front steps of the courthouse.

As soon as the hearing concluded, the Christians and their lawyer were immediately escorted out of town. When onlookers spotted them leaving the courthouse grounds, one police officer climbed in their car until they left the city limits under police car escort and approached the main highway.

“Of course, they provided us with very serious protection,” defense lawyer Haydar Polat told Compass afterwards. “But at the same time this created a lot of apprehension for my clients, with police climbing into our car, taking photographs of our license plate, etc.”

The two Christians, who are both converts from Islam, are also accused under less-known penal statutes of reviling Islam (Article 216) and secretly compiling private data on Turkish citizens for a Bible correspondence course (Article 135).

At their January 29 hearing, the presiding judge again closed his court to all observers, with only the defendants and their lawyer present for the defense. They faced seven prosecuting lawyers led by ultranationalist attorney Kemal Kerincsiz, notorious in Turkey for having hounded the outspoken Dink with multiple charges under Article 301.

Contradictory TestimonyFatih Kose, 23, the only adult among the three accusers, took the witness stand for the first time in the case. In his testimony, Kose reportedly admitted that he had visited Tastan’s church in Istanbul several times of his own free will.

While reiterating his written accusations, Kose contradicted himself several times as to where and when he had heard specific “illegal” statements, and from which of the two defendants. “His testimony was very contradictory,” Polat said, “and this kept angering the judge, who really chewed him out over many of his statements.”

When Polat asked the court whether Kose was a member of any known political group in Silivri, Kerincsiz reportedly shook his fists at Polat, objecting so vehemently to the question that the judge ordered him to stop “making a show.”

Kerincsiz further embarrassed himself when the judge demanded to know why he had not produced the two teenager accusers in court. The lawyer’s explanation that the two boys had not gotten permission to be absent from school that day fell flat with the judge, who dryly reminded Kerincsiz that all the nation’s schools had closed three days earlier for their annual winter recess.

A 16-minute video submitted by the prosecution at the first hearing as evidence against the defendants proved to have been filmed at a distance, with no sound track of anyone’s voices to corroborate the accusers’ claims. Tastan and Topal had been filmed secretly while conversing in a tea garden in Silivri with several youths.

The prosecution then submitted another video, said to have been filmed secretly in Tastan’s church during a communion service, to be examined before the next hearing for alleged insults against Turkishness or Islam uttered by the defendants.

“This was exactly a plot, a conspiracy,” lawyer Polat said, after hearing Kose’s testimony in court. “The youths asked for Bibles, for brochures, they go of their own accord to church – and then they come and complain!”

Setting the next hearing for April 18, the judge ordered police escorts to ensure that all three complainants were brought, “by force if necessary,” to testify. The underage plaintiffs have been identified by their first names as Alper, 16, and Oguz, 17.

Gendarme Ordered to TestifyThe judge also issued a summons for an official witness to testify from the regional gendarme headquarters, which initiated a raid last October on Tastan’s home and the defendants’ Istanbul office, allegedly searching for weapons.

In addition, the court requested a copy of news footage aired on Turkey’s ATV channel on November 20 and 21. Kose was interviewed in the broadcast, denouncing Tastan and Topal for “working to Christianize Turkish Muslims en masse.”

In his statements at Monday’s hearing, Kerincsiz reportedly accused Tastan’s church of breaking the law by collecting offerings and tithes from the congregation. The attorney insisted that Turkish law required all domestic institutions to obtain permission from their local civil authorities to collect funds.

“Every mosque in Turkey has an offering box for the donations of the faithful,” Topal commented to Compass. “So don’t we Christian citizens have that same right?”

When Kerincsiz exited the courthouse front entrance after the 55-minute hearing, he refused to speak with either Compass or the Turkish media, simply repeating the date of the next hearing, April 18.

In the wake of considerable international media on the case, the European Commission and various officials within the European Parliament have sent inquiries to the Turkish Ministry of Justice and other government bodies, requesting judicial developments on the charges against the two Christians.

Ever since the case was filed against them, Tastan told Compass yesterday, he has been made aware that his e-mails, telephone calls, home and even movements in the area have been under constant surveillance.

“The day after I visit anyone, whether it’s a relative or some acquaintance in another town, the secret police come around and question them about my visit,” Tastan said. “Am I considered a terrorist, that I warrant such attention?”

“We don’t know what the results of this trial will be,” Tastan said. “But God knows. And I think that the judge understood on Monday that the people accusing us are not telling the truth.”

*** Photographs of police security protection at the Silivri Criminal Court on January 29 and the two Turkish Christian defendants are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.

(Return to Index)

***********************************Uzbek Secret Police Arrest Andijan PastorJailed Protestant leader accused of treason and ‘inciting enmity.’by Peter Lamprecht and Barbara G. Baker

ISTANBUL, January 25 (Compass Direct News) – Uzbek secret police arrested a Protestant pastor from his church in Andijan last weekend, seven months after a regional prosecutor had accused him of committing high treason.

Pastor Dmitry Shestakov, 37, is apparently now accused of “incitement of national, racial and religious enmity” under Article 156 of Uzbekistan’s penal code. If convicted of this charge, he could face up to five years in prison.

In a raid on Shestakov’s registered Full Gospel Church in Andijan last Sunday (January 21), secret service officers asked the pastor to step outside with them for five minutes and then immediately escorted him to the nearest police station.

Shestakov has remained in police custody ever since, Protestant sources told Compass.

According to a lawyer who gave Shestakov legal advice last year, the pastor has also been charged under Article 244-1 for the “illegal manufacture and spread of literature which rouses dissension between religions.”

Shestakov, his wife and three daughters went into hiding in June 2006 after regional prosecutor Kamolitdin Zulfiev accused the pastor of committing treason under Article 157 of Uzbekistan’s penal code.

Though Shestakov had received no written charges at the time, he was informed verbally that authorities also planned to try him under Article 156, according to a June 20 report from Forum 18 News Service.

Growth Brings HarassmentIn an October 2006 interview obtained by Compass, Pastor Shestakov described how authorities began to harass him in May 2006, apparently in reaction to the conversion to Christianity of some ethnic Uzbeks.

“Uzbeks started coming to faith [in his church], and this was not good news to the authorities,” one Tashkent source told Compass.

In June 2006, police raided the pastor’s house, temporarily detaining Shestakov and confiscating videos of his sermons. Although the pastor was ordered to list all of his church members, he refused to do so.

“It was clear that the National State Security were going to find something to charge me with and remove me from my position as a Christian pastor,” Shestakov said in the interview.

Authorities also searched Shestakov’s Andijan church, confiscating religious CDs and videos and pressuring members of the congregation to testify against their pastor.

Many of the laws contained within Uzbekistan’s legal infrastructure violate internationally recognized norms of religious freedom. At the same time, local prosecutors frequently file falsified charges in order to obtain arrest orders against religious leaders perceived to be a threat against “national security.”

Discouraged but DeterminedShestakov and his family initially fled Andijan, located in eastern Uzbekistan’s Ferghana Valley, to avoid arrest. But after several months they returned to a nearby city, continuing covert contact with their Andijan congregation.

“Yes, I do get depressed [and] it is hard to be joyful,” Shestakov commented in the October interview. “I am no hero!”

But after pastoring for 13 years, Sheshtakov said he did not believe it would be right to leave his country and abandon the church that he started four years ago in Andijan. Seeking asylum abroad was not an option for him, he said, although he wants to clear his name in his homeland.

“I am called by God to be a pastor to the people in Uzbekistan,” the pastor said. “I am on a pilgrimage without a home, a church or status – but with God.”

Religious restrictions became especially harsh in Andijan after government troops killed hundreds of protestors in a May 2005 uprising, causing widespread international criticism of Uzbekistan’s worsening human rights violations.

“The authorities are more strict on Christians and Muslims after the Andijan events,” one Uzbek Christian told Compass. The Uzbek government contends that the Akramia group at the center of the uprising is an Islamic terrorist organization, while Akramia leaders insist it is a peaceful religious group. Christian pastors in the area are also accused of being “extremists” on far-fetched court charges.

The U.S. State Department’s 2006 religious freedom report released last September noted a decline in the status of religious freedom within Uzbekistan.

“As in previous years, Protestant groups with ethnic Uzbek members reported operating in a climate of harassment and fear,” the report noted.

In November, U.S. Ambassador for Religious Freedom John Hanford announced the addition of Uzbekistan to Washington’s annual list of Countries of Particular Concern for its “abysmal record on religious freedom and other human rights,” urging the Uzbek government to “rethink its policies and undertake the necessary reforms.”

(Return to Index)

***********************************Police in Vietnam Detain Members of Pastor’s Family Authorities arrest 17 people at prayer meeting this morning, demolish part of building.Special to Compass Direct

HO CHI MINH CITY, January 9 (Compass Direct News) – Police burst into the Vietnam Mennonite church and residence of the Rev. Nguyen Hong Quang here at 8:20 this morning, broke up a prayer meeting and arrested 17 people, including his son and elderly mother-in-law.

They were all released at 5 p.m. – after officials had demolished part of the family’s church/residence.

Pastor Quang and his wife were not among those detained. The 17 people had complied with authorities’ request to halt the prayer meeting and exited the building, but nevertheless they were taken into custody and detained at the police station of Binh Khanh Ward, District 2.

Those arrested included the elderly mother of Pastor Quang’s wife, the Quangs’ 12-year-old son Huy, another child named Truc of the same age, and a woman named Thuong who is five months pregnant. The Christians reported that some of the women were crudely grabbed and led by the hair, some people were hit, and some slapped in the face.

At the police station, authorities took the two young boys to a separate room where they hollered at them and threatened them.

While virtually all buildings in the area were constructed irregularly without proper building permits more than 20 years ago, ward authorities have long singled out the Mennonite church and residence for selective enforcement because of Pastor Quang’s advocacy activities.

Police wrote up charges against the detainees and demanded they all explain in writing what they were doing at the Mennonite church and residence.

After the 17 were taken away, a large contingent of police cordoned off the street and then entered the church compound to “enforce the law.” They demolished a floor of the building above the meeting room, as well as a kitchen and bathroom at the back of the building.

Threat to ‘Get Even’In July of 2005, just before Pastor Quang was released from prison, authorities similarly tore down the top floor and back lean-to because of alleged violation of a building permit. The destruction threatened the structural integrity of the building.

Authorities did not back off of their requirements even while the building permit issue was being contested. Last year Pastor Quang went forward anyway, reconstructing and strengthening the demolished parts of the building. Authorities did nothing to stop the building activity. Even when he became active with protest political activities last year – in the 8406 Democracy Movement and the Alliance for Democracy and Human Rights – officials left him alone.

Observers believe that higher officials prevented local authorities from harassing the Mennonites in the run-up to the high-profile Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting last November and the U.S. decision to remove Vietnam from its list of the world’s worst violators of religious liberty. The U.S. State Department took Vietnam off the blacklist on November 13, and the country was awarded Permanent Normal Trading Relationship with the United States, thus allowing its full accession to the World Trade Organization.

House church leaders reported to Compass last October that authorities had told them they would “get even” with Pastor Quang in early 2007, shortly after the high-profile international events had passed.

“While the authorities can hide behind the fig leaf of building permits, most people here understand this as ‘get even’ time,” one church leader in Vietnam said.

Even church leaders who do not approve of Pastor Quang’s political advocacy said they were disappointed. They fear this new demonstration of force shows the government’s continued ill intentions toward the Christian community.

Another Vietnamese church leader ventured that this action was a government test to see what kind of support Pastor Quang and his church will get from the international community – churches and governments, peers, and the fledgling democracy movements that he has supported.

As Pastor Quang had posted the government’s threats to carry out this action on the Internet last week, observers saw the enforcement actions as brazen and heavy-handed.

(Return to Index)

**********************************************************************COMPASS DIRECT NEWS

News from the Frontlines of Persecution

Jeff Sellers, Managing Editor

Bureau Chiefs:Barbara Baker, Middle EastSarah Page, Asia

Peter Lamprecht, Middle East Correspondent

For subscription information, contact:Compass Direct NewsP.O. Box 27250Santa Ana, CA 92799www.compassdirect.org