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COMPASS DIRECTGlobal News from the Frontlines

May 14, 2004

Compass Direct is distributed monthly 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 is acknowledged as the source of the material.

Copyright 2004 Compass Direct

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

BHUTAN

House Churches Raided After Easter ServicesPolice warn church members against gathering for worship.

BOLIVIA

Villagers Observe Truce Following Church Demolition***Evangelicals are allowed to hold worship services but cannot rebuild their chapel.

CHINA

Chinese Christians Testify of Persecution before U.N. CommissionDespite testimony of official abuse, UNCHR fails to censure China.

COLOMBIA

Church Endures in War-torn ChocóEvangelical families are among the thousands of persons displaced by fighting.

Insurgents Kidnap Christian Agronomist***FARC 34th Front holds Ahimer Velasquez and municipal co-worker hostage.

Insurgents Release Christian AgronomistAhimer Velasquez and his family were robbed as they traveled to Medellin.

INDIA

Christians Apprehensive as General Elections Begin

Compass Direct May 2004 1

Ruling BJP Party woos Christian voters while promising an anti-conversion law to Hindu hardliners.

Veteran Missionary Ordered to Leave KashmirResidence visa cancelled for prominent educator and Bible translator.

INDONESIA

Pastor to Receive Urgent Medical TreatmentRev. Damanik seriously ill; finally receives permission for hospital transfer.

Violence Flares Again in AmbonRenewed violence since flag-raising ceremony on April 25 leads to deaths, church burnings.

JORDAN

New Evidence Emerges in Custody Case ***Judge investigates Muslim guardian for embezzlement.

NIGERIA

Muslim Fanatics Burn Down 10 ChurchesUndisclosed number of Christians killed in northern town of Makarfi.

Fresh Violence Erupts Estimates put death toll between 350 and 630.

Nigeria Bans Televised Miracles, and Violence Continues ***Christian leaders grapple with issues from media standards to public security.

PAKISTAN

Christian Student Dies from Torture***Muslim seminary implicated in forcible conversion attempt.

RUSSIA

Moscow Court Rules to Ban Jehovah’s WitnessesDecision could signal trouble for other religious minorities in Russia.

SRI LANKA

Re-opened Church Attacked on Easter Sunday***More than 146 churches attacked since January 2003.


SUDAN

Sudan Imposes Islamic Law on Khartoum’s Southerners***Christian girl whipped for not wearing headscarf.

TURKEY

Court Opens New Case Against Pastor***Diyarbakir Protestant church allegedly ‘illegal.’

TV Producer Sentenced to Jail***Ankara court punishes false provocations against Protestant Christians.

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

***********************************Bhutanese House Churches Raided After Easter ServicesPolice warn church members against gathering for worship.Special to Compass Direct

THIMPHU, Bhutan, April 23 (Compass) -- Three house churches in Sarpang district of southern Bhutan were visited by police on the night of April 11 following their Easter Sunday services. According to a respected Christian leader in Bhutan, the church members were warned to discontinue meeting together for worship. The raids seem to confirm a growing crackdown against Christian activity in Bhutan.

The source, who cannot be named for security reasons, said police swooped down on three homes in Gelephu subdivision of Sarpang district after Sunday services. Most of the church members had already left when the police arrived. Police questioned the few remaining believers and asked for the names of others who had attended the meetings.

No arrests were made. However the three pastors and one elder were asked to report daily at 9 a.m. to the administrative office of Gelephu subdivision.

Officials also reprimanded the homeowners and warned them not to allow their homes to be used as worship facilities. Aside from this warning, they took no further legal action.

According to the source, police told the believers that their meetings were an expression of support for international Christian organizations which had been labeled as “terrorist” groups by the Bhutanese government.

Officially, the Christian faith does not exist in Bhutan, and it is illegal for Christians to gather for public worship.


Bhutanese authorities say it is possible to celebrate mass in private homes. However, a report from the Catholic news agency Zenit in January 2004 showed that Catholics are also facing greater repression in Bhutan.

Until the end of the 1990s, priests who emigrated from neighboring India and Nepal could celebrate mass in public. However from the year 2000 onwards, Bhutan outlawed “public non-Buddhist religious services, and imprisoned those who violate the law,” according to Indian Bishop Stephen Lepcha, whose diocese includes Bhutan.

Bishop Lepcha said he believed the crackdown was a response to Protestant pastors who were preaching the gospel and gaining converts. He claimed that Catholic priests were not trying to proselytize but simply wanted to attend to the needs of Christians.

Bhutan is still recovering from a wave of violence that erupted in December 2003. A second source who works in Bhutan told Compass that severe fighting broke out just before Christmas between the Royal Bhutan Army and the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), a group of Indian separatists who had occupied the eastern districts of Bhutan.

The Bhutanese government asked the rebels to evacuate the land but they refused. Bhutan then asked the Indian government to deploy forces in a joint effort to push out the Indian insurgents. Because of this unrest, many believers in the area had to abandon their plans for Christmas services.

“The pastors I met told me that some husbands were made to watch their wives being raped at gunpoint by soldiers of the Indian and Bhutanese armies,” this source explained. “Countless corpses were fallen on the ground and they were not permitted to bury or burn them.

“At that point they were afraid that persecution against the believers might also erupt. In fact, in some places it had already started. When any natural calamities or untoward incidents take place in Bhutan, they blame the Christians. They say, ‘It’s because you have believed in a foreign god that our gods are pouring out their wrath upon us.’”

In February 2004, the source reported, “The situation in Bhutan is still very tense, but believers are strong in the Lord. The operation against the ULFA militants is ongoing. This has really jeopardized the life of innocent people, including the believers.

“Bhutan is in a very pathetic state at this time. We believe the government of Bhutan is secretly planning an operation against Christianity. In many ways, Christians are already deprived of their national rights, like children’s education, government jobs and even setting up private businesses.

“The Buddhist monks are persuading the government to enforce this operation against Christians. In fact, His Majesty of Bhutan is not against the Christians but he is bound by the religious law in Bhutan. That is, ‘one nation, one religion.’”


Meanwhile, believers in Bhutan have asked for prayer. “Dearly beloved people of God, we need your prayer support and words of encouragement. Please do pray for all the believers in Bhutan, that we would remain faithful and strong in Jesus.”

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***********************************Bolivian Villagers Observe Truce Following Church DemolitionEvangelicals are allowed to hold worship services but cannot rebuild their chapel.by David Miller

ORURO, Bolivia, April 23 (Compass) -- Quechua-speaking villagers in Bolivia are living under an uneasy truce two months after an irate mob destroyed the sole evangelical church in their remote Andean community.

Community officials in Chucarasi have signed an accord with members of the local congregation of the Church of God. In return for pledges from evangelical Christians to “respect” traditional customs, their animist neighbors have agreed to allow them to continue to hold worship services in the community. However, the Church of God will not be allowed to rebuild its demolished chapel.

A rural community of 300 people in the department (state) of Potosi 100 miles southeast of Ururo, Chucarasi is inhabited by indigenous farmers, the majority of whom follow the animist religious traditions of their Inca forebears.

Conflict erupted in the community in late February following the celebration of Carnaval, a festival the village customarily observes with Christo-pagan rituals, dancing and heavy drinking. Since converting to evangelical Christianity several years ago, members of the Church of God in Chucarasi have declined to take part in Carnaval celebrations.

When a severe hail storm struck the village two days after the festival, animist villagers became convinced that evil spirits were punishing the community for allowing the Christians to abandon tradition.

Townspeople attacked Church of God elder Fortunato Bernal and beat him unconscious. Later the same evening, they completely dismantled the congregation’s adobe chapel with picks and wrecking bars. (See Compass Direct report, “Angry Mob Destroys Church in Bolivian Andes,” March 8)

Village leaders later insisted that the evangelical believers either renounce their faith or leave the community.


“The whole town rose up like a tiger against us -- everybody, as one man,” Gregorio Conde, the farmer-evangelist who introduced evangelical Christianity to the village in 1997, told Compass.

Conde and Bernal traveled to Oruro to alert denominational leaders of the crisis. In response, police, military and judiciary officials joined representatives of Churches United, an ecumenical association representing Oruro’s evangelical community, to form a special commission that visited Chucarasi on March 9 to negotiate a settlement.

“It would have been very helpful if we could have exchanged ideas and explained how the thing that happened was simply a normal occurrence of nature, but it was impossible to get a hearing,” said Victor Quispe, national president of Church of God. “The only one who spoke was the army commander, so the rest of us prayed that God would use that man, and that’s what happened.”

Colonel Luis Morales, commander of a local army base who arrived with a squadron of soldiers, managed to convince Chucarasi leaders to heed the negotiators.

“I am here to see that the constitution of Bolivia is respected,” Col. Morales told community elders, “and you must respect the religious freedom of the evangelicals. If not, we will take the five people into custody whose names are in the police report (regarding the February 28 attack). But I don’t want any violence.”

Quispe said village leaders deliberated from 11:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. before signing the document that guarantees evangelicals the right to live in the community and continue holding Sunday services.

The agreement also stipulates that Church of God members must contribute quotas of food and money to community festivals. Furthermore, it expressly prohibits the congregation from reconstructing its demolished chapel.

“There will never again be another evangelical church here,” one village elder reportedly vowed during the discussions.

In the interests of avoiding more violence, the commission did not press the issue. Nor did security officers move to arrest the five men accused of leading the attack on the church. “We decided to forgive them,” Conde said.

Due to community pressure, he said, three baptized members of the congregation have declared their intention to leave the evangelical faith and return to animist practice. Conde and Bernal are not among them.

“We declared in the meeting that, although we might die for it, we are going to follow Christ,” Conde said. “We have vowed to serve the Lord and will never give up.”


The Church of God in Chucarasi numbers 36 baptized members and an average of 64 in attendance at weekly worship. Three years ago, the congregation built the adobe chapel that was demolished on February 28.

Conde said believers observed a three-day fast during Holy Week, praying for community reconciliation. Despite the recent setback, they are going forward with plans to celebrate the annual junta (camp meeting), which draws several hundred evangelical believers to Chucarasi in late August for two days of open air worship.

“We are going to prepare for our junta on August 30,” Andres Pedro, the congregation’s pastoral deacon, told Compass. “You are invited to attend.”

Quispe added, “The brothers and sisters remain firm in the faith, and I am certain that sometime in the not-too-distant future, the whole town will be worshipping the Lord.”

***Photographs of the people and events named in this story are available electronically. Please contact Compass Direct for pricing and transmittal.

(Return to Index)

***********************************Chinese Christians Testify of Persecution before U.N. CommissionDespite testimony of official abuse, UNCHR fails to censure China.by Xu Mei

NANJING, China, May 10 (Compass) -- For the first time in history, Chinese Christians gave evidence of persecution in April at a special meeting called by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) in Geneva. Several speakers testified to beatings, imprisonment, torture and damage to church buildings in recent years.

The United States then asked the Commission to consider censuring China for its human rights record. However, 27 of the 53 member-states, including repressive regimes such as Cuba, Eritrea and Saudi Arabia, voted with China to defeat the move.

This is the 11th year in a row that politics within the UNCHR have defeated similar resolutions against China.

Speakers at the special meeting on “Repression of Religious Freedom in China” included Bob Fu, president of the China Aid Association which documents persecution of Chinese Protestants; Xu Yongze of the Born Again house church movement, who was imprisoned five times for his faith; and Brother Yun, hero of the best-selling autobiography The Heavenly Man.

The two-hour meeting was chaired by Lord Chan, a committed Christian and one of two ethnic Chinese peers in the British House of Lords.


Joseph Kung, president of the Cardinal Kung Foundation, submitted a written report on the persecution of unregistered Catholic churches in China. Ben Rogers of Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) spoke on behalf of Joseph Kung at the meeting. He was further supported by Catholic human rights campaigner Harry Wu, who spent a total of 19 years in Chinese labor camps.

Female members of the South China Church also gave testimony of how they were arrested and pressured through torture and sexual assault to give false evidence against their pastor, Gong Shengliang, in 2001.

One of these women, Cao Hongmei, told the Commission, “They questioned me for about a month. When I didn’t answer them, they would use different kinds of ways to torture me … They also threatened me, saying, ‘We can beat you to death, and throw you into the Han river or dig a hole somewhere to bury you. Who will question us about that?’”

Liu Xianzhi added, “I was taken to Zhongxiang Police Training Center. Six or seven male policemen started to question me in their dormitory. One asked me, ‘Do you know why we arrest you?’ I said, ‘Because I believe in Jesus.’ He slapped my face when he heard this. He said, ‘Do you know what age we are in today? And you still believe in Jesus?’ I didn’t answer him back.”

During the meeting, Bob Fu presented an official document issued in November 2003 by authorities in Qingdao city, Shandong province, as evidence of China’s ongoing campaign against unregistered churches.

Commission members also watched video footage of Chinese authorities destroying a church in Zhejiang province.

The U.N. hearing was a significant breakthrough in publicizing the plight of China’s unregistered Christians. However, China was able to block any official censure with the support of sympathetic member states.

The Voice of America quoted Nicholas Becquelin of Human Rights in China as saying the decision showed the true balance of power in the UNCHR.

“You have a lot of authoritarian countries who are members of the U.N. and of the Commission,” Becquelin said. “These states share with China the opposition to the scrutiny of their human rights situations, so they would vote with China to defeat resolutions attacking them.

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***********************************Colombian Church Endures in War-torn ChocóEvangelical families are among the thousands of persons displaced by fighting.


by Deann Alford

AUSTIN, Texas, April 12 (Compass) -- Fighting between paramilitaries and guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in Chocó, Colombia, abated during Holy Week. But war-weary Christians there know they cannot count on even a few days of peace in this hostile department (state) near the border with Panama.

Beginning in October, a wave of conflict in three Chocó villages has forced about 550 people from their homes. Many of them are Christians. The United Nations ranks Colombia’s three million displaced as the world’s second-highest population of internal refugees after Sudan’s, which is estimated at between 3.7 million and 4.5 million.

In the vast northern Chocó jungle, FARC guerrillas held three New Tribes Mission workers hostage from 1993 until they were apparently murdered three years later.

The Chocó-based indigenous group OREWA has called on illegal armed groups to respect the lives, honor, lands and other property of those living in this war-torn department of 400,000. The people are predominantly black; 75 percent of residents live below the poverty line, making Chocó Colombia’s poorest department. Much of Chocó is accessible only by river.

An OREWA communiqué detailed the presence of FARC guerrillas in the indigenous villages of Egoróquera, Union Baquiaza and Playita, and the corresponding armed response of paramilitaries. The military began controlling the river transit of goods and products that villagers produced, but it did not control the illegal armed groups’ actions in the zone. Like many parts of Colombia which have no institutional government presence, the state has done little to protect these communities.

Asdreubal Manzo is president of the Association of Evangelical Ministers of Chocó and pastor of Emmanuel Church, a congregation of 230 in the capital city of Quibdó. Quibdó lists its population at 100,000, a figure that does not count the displaced. No one knows how many displaced people are in the squatter communities that have sprung up on the outskirts of the city.

No one knows either how many Christians in Colombia have been displaced in the four-decade-long civil war. Manzo said that of the 35 families in his church, about a third of them are displaced. They have fled their homes and lands and come to the city seeking a better life.

But like most cities in Colombia, unemployment remains high in Quibdó. Manzo says that churches are doing what they can to teach job skills to those who are unskilled for living in the city. It’s not easy. The church has few resources for such a daunting task. Approximately 12 evangelical denominations and the Roman Catholic Church have a presence in Quibdó and in the Chocó department.


While the church seeks to mediate peace with the warring factions, war has changed the social fabric of this region forever. “They’re practically resigned” to abandoning their lands and living in the city, Manzo said. “Insecurity is great.”

Most of the displaced believe safety can be found in numbers, by living in a city rather than in sparsely populated rural areas where they are more vulnerable to attack. In some communities where fighting is hot, Christians are targeted, Manzo says. The army and guerrilla factions each accuse believers of being allied with the rival group.

“That’s where Christians suffer abuse because (the groups in conflict) believe they’re accomplices of one or the other,” he said.

Manzo said the church holds strong to its non-violence convictions. “It’s part of the persecution that the church must endure,” Manzo said, “preparing each believer to remain stronger in the faith. Amid all this, (we strive) to prepare the church and leaders and to keep ourselves faithful to the Lord.”

The 46-year-old pastor came to Christ as a young man through the work of a North American missionary. The area where Manzo grew up is now a battlefield. The missionary and her fellow foreign Christian workers left years ago when they became likely targets in the armed conflict.

“I remember with nostalgia what they did,” Manzo said, adding that he has seen some dreams realized for his city. The international community, including the Red Cross, has sent help. A medical doctor with the ministry Christ For The City International recently joined another physician working in Chocó with another Christian non-profit agency. Life remains difficult in Quibdó, but God provides.

“How good that we’re one in the body of Christ,” Manzo said. “We appreciate your prayers.”

(Return to Index)

***********************************Colombian Insurgents Kidnap Christian AgronomistFARC 34th Front holds Ahimer Velasquez and municipal co-worker hostage.by Deann Alford

AUSTIN, Texas, April 27 (Compass) -- A Roman Catholic priest who mediates hostage crises has confirmed that Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels are holding hostage the brother of a well-known Medellin pastor after kidnapping him on March 17.

Insurgents of the FARC 34th Front confirmed that they are holding Ahimer Velasquez, an evangelical Christian agronomist, and his co-worker, Luis Carlos Herrera.


Velasquez, 31, is the youngest brother of Carlos Velasquez, a pastor and prominent leader of Prison Fellowship in the department (state) of Antioquia, Colombia.

Father Giovani Presiga, a priest working with Social Pastoral, the humanitarian arm of the Diocese of Santafé de Antioquia, said that rebels told him days after the kidnapping they are holding the two men.

Ahimer Velasquez works for the municipality of Caicedo, a town about 80 miles west of Medellin. In the early evening of March 17, he drove a motorcycle to pick up Herrera at a community meeting center where Herrera was holding classes for about 35 crop producers in the mountains near Caicedo.

At 8 p.m., a dozen guerrillas armed with machine guns entered the meeting and demanded that Velasquez and Herrera leave with them, Carlos Velasquez said.

The mountains are impassible by vehicle, so kidnappers mounted mules and horses and took the two men away. Carlos Velasquez said that the guerrillas loaded the motorcycle on the back of a horse and took it with them as well.

Carlos Velasquez led his brother to Christ four years ago. He said that the FARC insurgents have been “fishing” -- looking for victims who might prove to be lucrative catches for ransom.

Later, FARC realized that although both men worked for the government, neither had money or power.

“We don’t know what they want” in exchange for the men’s freedom, Carlos Velasquez said. He and Presiga believe the FARC will use the men to seek concessions from the government.

Presiga said that he has known Ahimer Velasquez for years as the two have long supported each other’s agricultural development projects in this volatile region. Presiga appealed to the kidnappers to have compassion on Velasquez as a man who carries out greatly needed humanitarian projects that help the needy.

“What we’re hoping for here is that they can make a goodwill gesture” by releasing him, Presiga said.

The priest said he’s doubtful that the government will concede any demands the guerrillas may make, yet he remains “very optimistic” that the guerrillas will safely release him.

Ahimer Velasquez and his wife of six years, Mery Gaviria, have two children: Mateo, 5, and Jerónimo, 3.


“The hope is that he be freed alive and soon because his family is waiting for him at home,” Carlos Velasquez said.

The village of Caicedo achieved dubious fame on April 21, 2002, when FARC insurgents kidnapped Antioquia Governor Guillermo Gaviria and former Defense Minister Gilberto Echeverri while the men were leading hundreds of peace marchers from Medellin to Caicedo. The two officials were killed a year later during a military rescue attempt.

***Photographs of Ahimer Velasquez and his family are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct for pricing and transmittal.

(Return to Index)

***********************************Colombian Insurgents Release Christian AgronomistAhimer Velasquez and his family were robbed as they traveled to Medellin.by Deann Alford

AUSTIN, Texas, May 1 (Compass) -- The Christian agronomist kidnapped March 17 by rebels of the 34th Front of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) was suddenly freed on April 29 in what the agronomist’s brother said was the answer to prayers raised around the world for his safe release.

Ahimer Velasquez, 31, was freed physically unharmed in Urrao, a village about 100 miles west of Medellin where FARC 34th Front has its headquarters. His brother, Medellin pastor and Prison Fellowship evangelist Carlos Velasquez, said that no ransom was paid or promised in exchange for his freedom.

The trauma, however, didn’t end following his release from rebel custody. The municipality of Caicedo, a town about 80 miles west of Medellin which employs Ahimer Velasquez to help its peasant farmers improve crop production, showered the family with well-wishes and gifts in a party that lasted into the evening. To avoid night travel, Carlos, Ahimer and his wife and two sons delayed plans to travel to Medellin until daybreak May 1. But near the village of Santafé de Antioquia, three armed criminals stopped the Municipality of Caicedo vehicle in which the family was traveling and robbed them of everything, including the approximately $800 in cash gifts that Caicedo residents had given Ahimer.

Carlos Velasquez spoke with Compass on his cell phone from the Santafé de Antioquia police station, where one thief was taken after other robbery victims caught him.

Asked why Ahimer was freed, Carlos said, “There’s no explanation.” When a rebel guarding Ahimer received orders to free him, the rebel said, “I don’t understand this, but they told me to free you.”


Luis Carlos Herrera, the Antioquia department [state] secretary of agriculture kidnapped with Ahimer Velasquez, remains a FARC hostage. Carlos Velasquez said that the rebels are asking $80,000 in ransom for Herrera.

Carlos said that his brother had been held those 44 days in mountains of “pure jungle.” Guerrillas forced him and Herrera to move with them all night on foot. They slept from one to three hours during the day. Once Ahimer heard an army helicopter, but the helicopter couldn’t see him or his captors through the dense vegetation.

He was with Herrera during his entire captivity and at times with other FARC hostages. Ahimer had a Bible with him and comforted Herrera with Scripture.

Carlos Velasquez handed the phone to his brother for a few moments. Told that many around the world were praying for him, Ahimer said, “I felt it. I appreciate it. Thanks so much. May God bless you all.”

Still, Ahimer remains in a precarious nervous state. Carlos said that he plans to take Ahimer and his family to Medellin where Ahimer will see a psychologist.

(Return to Index)

***********************************Indian Christians Apprehensive as General Elections BeginRuling BJP Party woos Christian voters while promising an anti-conversion law to Hindu hardliners.by Vishal Arora

DELHI, April 22 (Compass) -- India’s 14th general elections began on April 20, with voting set to continue until May 10. Involving a total of 675 million voters and more than 40 regional and national parties contesting for 543 parliamentary seats, this is the world’s largest electoral event. Given the nation’s recent history of religious oppression, the election is critical for the future of Christians throughout India.

In the first phase of polling in 13 states, including the two union territories of Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, 175 million voters exercised their franchise.

The two major groups contesting the elections are the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA), led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and the secular alliance led by the opposition Congress Party.

The BJP has surprised some voters by wooing Christian and Muslim communities, previously seen as the exclusive vote bank of the Congress Party. As part of their campaign platform, BJP politicians have promised an economic uplift for religious minorities and downplayed their support of the fundamentalist Hindu cause of making


India a Hindu Rashtra (nation). The traditional right-wing party has pledged to make India a more developed nation by the year 2020.

In a surprising move, the BJP recently recruited Christians into the party itself. Four Christian priests belonging to the Church of South India (CSI) and the Pentecostal Church have joined the BJP in Kerala state, where Christians comprise almost 20 percent of the total population.

Abraham Thomas, a member of the CSI, told media representatives that, “I am joining the BJP to prove that the party is not anti-minority.”

In the southern state of Karnataka, H.T. Sangliana, a former superintendent of police in Bangalore, has also joined the BJP. Sangliana is well-known for his Christian beliefs.

Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani of the BJP paid special attention to Christian-dominated areas when he traveled through Kerala state as part of a countrywide election campaign in March.

However, most Christians refuse to believe that the BJP party, with its record for militant Hinduism and oppression of Christian minorities, has made any real change in its nationalist policies.

The BJP’s ongoing support of extremist Hindu organizations such as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Bajrang Dal is evident in its election manifesto which talks about a nationwide ban on unethical religious conversions. Such a ban would be based on anti-conversion laws already in force in Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh.

Some Christians are puzzled at the way politicians from the BJP have appealed to Christian voters while simultaneously promising to extend anti-conversion legislation. Dr. John Dayal, national vice president of the All India Catholic Union and the secretary general of the All India Christian Council, pointed out the inconsistency in a recent press release.

“Though the party is busy trying to seduce people of various minority communities, the vision document of the BJP, the manifesto of the NDA and statements of the BJP’s national leadership leave one in no doubt that the party and the NDA are wedded to the communal politics of the RSS, which are hostile to all minorities and specially to the Christian community,” Dayal stated.

Anti-Christian activities are still underway, despite the election rhetoric. According to a report in the Indian Express on April 15, the VHP recently held a “re-conversion” ceremony for Christians in the Dangs district of Gujarat, a state notorious for the violence perpetrated by Hindus against Christians.


Christians claim that the recent attacks on Christians in Jhabua, Madhya Pradesh, were orchestrated by BJP government officials in that state. The officials were elected on a platform that stressed development issues. However, oppression of the Christian minority began immediately after the elections.

Christians in other parts of India fear the same thing may happen if the BJP wins the general elections by a substantial majority.

“Even if the BJP returns to power using development issues, it is very likely that it would revert to its core Hindutva [nationalist Hindu] ideology,” Reginald Mukha, general director of the Evangelical Trust of North India, told Compass.

The Congress Party manifesto has also accused the BJP of misusing religion for political gain. The manifesto holds the BJP responsible for the deaths of more than 2,000 Muslims in the Gujarat riots of 2002.

In contrast, the Congress Party promises “strict action against those who promote social bigotry” and talks about “the enforcement of the rule of law to ensure social harmony and cohesion.” Its 32-page manifesto also advocates “full equality of opportunity in all respects for the weaker sections of our society.”

Most opinion polls give the NDA a comfortable majority. According to an Indian Express–NDTV poll held in mid March, the NDA is likely to win the elections with the BJP winning 190 to 200 seats. The same poll predicts the Congress Party will win 95 to 105 seats.

However, it will be several weeks before the final results are known. Vote counting will not begin until May 13. Until then, India’s Christian community can only vote, wait and pray.

(Return to Index)

***********************************Veteran Missionary in India Ordered to Leave KashmirResidence visa cancelled for prominent educator and Bible translator.by Joshua Newton

KOCHI, India, May 7 (Compass) -- As the campaign for elections to India’s parliament reached its heights, Indian officials ordered a Christian missionary to leave the country.

Jim Borst, 67, head of the U.K.-based Mill Hill Mission working in Kashmir since 1963, has been asked by the Foreigners’ Registration Office in Kashmir to leave on the pretext that his visa was not renewed. Borst is also the principal of Burn Hall School and St. Joseph’s school in the northern Indian state of Kashmir.


In an April 22 letter to Netherlands-born missionary Borst, the Foreigners’ Registration Office in Srinagar said that his application for a visa extension in India has not been recommended.

United News of India reported that the letter stated that it had come to the notice of the Foreigners’ Registration Office that Borst had left the country on December 30, 2003, and later entered Kashmir valley “illegally and unauthorized.”

“Thus you have violated the law of the land. Please note that for violation of the law you can be prosecuted. You are however, once again directed to leave India immediately on receipt of this letter, failing which, action under the Foreigners’ Act will be taken against you,” the letter read.

The Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC) has issued strong protests against the “unwarranted harassment of Father Jim.” The Council’s national convener, Sajaan K. George, said that Rev. Borst is an educator of international repute who has been rendering “yeoman’s service” to the people of Kashmir valley.

“We know that in a place like Srinagar he did that by braving bullets from terrorists and severe opposition by other groups against his mission,” George said.

“His four decades of peace activism and literary campaigns continue to divert terrorists from their diabolic agendas to a more humane approach. Some elements in the valley are hell-bent upon tarnishing his image by spreading canards against him,” George said a statement issued by the GCIC.

Sources said Borst is very much attached to the educational welfare of people in remote areas. He founded Good Shepherd’s School in Srinagar to provide low-cost, quality education to children.

“Christian history of 130 years here is marked with service to the people in the field of education and hospitals,” Jim Borst told Christianity Today two years ago. “Teaching tolerance through our schools is part of our outreach.”

The GCIC has appealed to India’s president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the National Commission for Minorities, and Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir Mufti Mohammad Sayeed to intervene in the case. Christian leaders are asking the government to extend Borst’s visa for another five years “in the interest of the people in remote areas of the state.”

Mill Hill Mission is an international fellowship of priests, lay members and associates founded in 1866 by Roman Catholic Cardinal Herbert Vaughan of Westminster, London, to serve the poor and destitute. Today, about 550 Mill Hill missionaries are active around the world. In India, they work with AIDS victims, lepers and the deaf, and are known to live closely with the people they serve.


Borst tackled the daunting task of translating the Scriptures into modern Kashmiri. At present, he has completed the New Testament and the Book of Psalms.

Sources in Kashmir said that in recent months, hundreds of young Muslims and lower caste Hindus disillusioned with conflict in the region are turning to Christian missionaries for answers. “That must be one of the real reasons of the provocation,” said a Christian leader in the Kashmir valley.

The region has known little peace since Britain partitioned the Indian subcontinent along religious lines in 1947. Two of the three wars India and Pakistan have fought since their independence have been over Kashmir.

Christian missions in Kashmir are facing threats from both Hindu and Muslim fundamentalists. A Gospel for Asia Bible school student named Neeraj B. was murdered last year. Many believe Muslim radicals are responsible for his death.

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***********************************Indonesian Pastor to Receive Urgent Medical TreatmentRev. Damanik seriously ill; finally receives permission for hospital transfer.by Sarah Page

DUBLIN, May 4 (Compass) -- Rev. Rinaldy Damanik, a pastor who many believe was framed on false charges of illegal weapons possession, has finally received permission to travel to Jakarta for urgent medical treatment. Damanik has been in and out of the Salvation Army hospital in Palu since mid-April, suffering from severe kidney problems. Doctors believe he needs urgent surgery, the facilities for which are only available in Jakarta.

Members of his support team have battled with authorities for permission to transfer Damanik to a hospital in the capital. After days of negotiation, officials finally agreed on May 3 that Damanik could be transferred to Jakarta. He would be accompanied by two policemen, two guards from Maesa prison where he is currently being held, a doctor, and his wife and daughter.

Dr. Jerry Bororing, who has been monitoring Damanik’s condition, believes Damanik is suffering from “Nephrohthiasris” in his right kidney, and “Urethrolithiasis” in his left. While in the hospital, Damanik has experienced acute pain and high fevers. Doctors say his condition has worsened due to the delay in appropriate medical treatment.

On Tuesday, April 20, Mona Saroinsong -- a staff member of the CC-SAG Crisis Center in North Sulawesi and a key member of Damanik’s support team -- told Compass that, “Rev. Damanik is out of the hospital now, and is back to his cell. He is better, but not completely recovered. According to the doctor, he needs an operation, but Palu hospitals have no such equipment, so it has to be done in Jakarta.


“Most important, we have no money for it,” she added. “He has to wait until we have the means to do so. Please keep praying for him.”

Damanik was returned in the same condition to Woodward hospital on April 25. Saroinsong noted that, “It seems he just tried to hold himself and try to look healthy outside, but in fact … he is not yet recovered.”

On April 30, Dr. Bororing was determined to move Damanik to Jakarta despite the consequences, fearing that any further delays in treatment might prove fatal. However, Damanik refused to leave the hospital before official permission was granted. In a phone conversation with Saroinsong, Damanik said he would prefer to stay put rather than implicate hospital and prison staff in an illegal transfer.

On Saturday, May 1, Damanik asked to be taken back to his cell. However, he suffered from high fevers that night and lapsed into unconsciousness, “longer than before,” according to prison guards, who returned him to Woodward hospital at 9 a.m. on May 2.

Dr. Bororing once again instructed that Damanik be taken to Jakarta for immediate treatment, but Damanik refused to leave as an official letter of permission had not yet been granted. Tensions were high in the emergency room as some insisted that Damanik be taken to the airport, until Damanik began singing, “I want to follow Jesus, I want to follow Jesus forever. Although I will be in pain and suffer, I will keep following Jesus forever.” In a subsequent phone call to Saroinsong, Dr. Bororing declared, “He is a true servant of God who really loves peace.”

Damanik’s advocacy team had submitted the necessary papers to the directorate general of Prison Affairs in the Department of Justice and Human Rights on April 27, but according to Saroinsong, head of the advocacy team, their submission was treated like a “ping pong ball.” Officials in the department then left for a tennis tournament in Bandung on April 28, leaving the office deserted with nobody to answer calls or process documents.

Permission was finally granted on Monday, May 3, leaving the future a little brighter for Damanik. Saroinsong and other members of the support team have asked for continued prayer for Damanik and his family, who lack the finances to pay for his surgery.

Damanik himself sees this incident as an illustration of the larger problem in Indonesia’s justice system. “If this little minute problem, although it’s a life and death matter really, cannot be resolved appropriately by the system, imagine the degree of failure concerning greater issues of justice and violation of the law,” he said, in a phone conversation with Saroinsong. “The system has really cost this country and its people.”


Damanik, a prominent figure in peace negotiations between Muslim and Christian communities in Poso, was convicted on charges of “illegal weapons possession” on June 16, 2003. The charge dates back to an incident on August 17, 2002, when his relief convoy was stopped by police, who then searched his vehicle. Days later, police claimed they had found firearms and ammunition in the vehicle and petitioned the High Court to bring charges against Damanik.

The court case opened in February 2003. Several witnesses for the prosecution admitted in court that police had pressured them into giving negative testimony for Damanik. Judge Somanada admitted that correct legal procedure had not been followed. However, Damanik was found guilty and sentenced to a three-year imprisonment, due to end in September 2005.

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***********************************Violence Flares Again in Ambon, IndonesiaRenewed violence since flag-raising ceremony on April 25 leads to deaths, church burnings.by Geoff Stamp

LONDON, May 4 (Compass) -- Sectarian violence has erupted again in Ambon, South Moluccas, Indonesia, dealing a blow to the tentative Muslim-Christian dialogue that brought relative peace to the area in February this year.

The flashpoint came last Sunday, April 25, when the independence party FKM-RMS (Moluccas Sovereignty Front) celebrated its 54th anniversary by hoisting banned flags. The ensuing violence has left more than 80 wounded and 26 dead.

Muslims see the RMS as an arm of the Christian community, seeking independence from the central government. Churches have denied any involvement with the RMS and have condemned their activities, but their denials have gone unheeded, leading to renewed fighting between Muslim and Christian communities.

Two churches were destroyed in the recent violence, the most recent being the Nazareth church, which went up in flames on Sunday night, May 3. The Christian University in Ambon city, largely rebuilt after attacks in previous conflicts, was set afire on Tuesday, April 27.

National television broadcasts showed Christians gathering outside police headquarters with tears in their eyes, singing national songs in an attempt to demonstrate their allegiance to the undivided Republic of Indonesia. Spokesmen for the crowd said Christians were not second-class citizens and should have their rights protected against activists and criminals.


A meeting of national religious leaders took place in Jakarta on Tuesday April 27, according to the Jakarta Post. “Muslim, Protestant, Catholic, Hindu, Buddhist and Confucian leaders from the Indonesian Committee for Religion and Peace said that “provocation” by “third parties” was the best explanation for the recent violence in Ambon.

Sigit Pamudji of the Bishops Council of Indonesia (KWI) said he believed “certain parties” had provoked this conflict for their own benefit and were trying to make other people think that the Moluccan people could not solve their own problems.

Religious leaders also met with Ambonese authorities and political leaders on April 27 to discuss strategies to end the conflict. Christian leaders were quick to point out that the small independence faction FKM-RMS was not at the center of the violence; its protests were peaceful and members had no resources or arms for such activity.

However, Mozes Tuanakotta, the general secretary of the FKM-RMS, was detained by police after the flag-raising incident.

Some observers believe activists are taking advantage of the confusion to burn, kill and loot in order to halt the peace process in the South Moluccas. At present, the violence appears to be restricted to the city of Ambon and has not spread to outlying villages.

The Jakarta-based newspaper Republika quoted Ja'far Umar Thalib, the leader of Laskar Jihad (a banned Muslim activist group), as saying he was ready to send his men to Ambon to protect the undivided Republic of Indonesia if police and other security forces could not control the conflict.

Thalib’s intervention with Laskar Jihad troops in the previous conflict prolonged the violence, rather than resolving it.

The death toll has now risen to 26, with more than 200 homes burned down. Hundreds of Muslims and Christians have fled their homes in the still-divided city, leaving them at the mercy of wandering arsonists. Last week, small groups armed with machetes and sticks stood guard at hastily erected street barricades at the entrance to the Muslim and Christian sectors of town. Only a few stalls in the market dared to open for business, selling only the essentials.

Thirty-one doctors have been sent to Ambon to help with the crisis. A contingent of 400 military police was also brought into the area, three of whom are now numbered among the casualties. The government also planned to bring in approximately 600 soldiers as reinforcements.

Authorities are still coping with the after-effects of sectarian violence that first erupted in 1999. They have built housing for a large number of the estimated 36,000 refugees still living in refugee camps in the South Moluccas. However, camp residents say the new houses are too small for families, and water and electricity supplies are


inadequate. Many of them have refused to leave the refugee camps, which they claim have better amenities.

Refugees have been warned to leave the temporary camps and move into the new housing within the next two months or face eviction. An influx of new refugees from the current fighting may cause further headaches for local authorities.

Father Kees Bohm of the Roman Catholic Crisis Center in Ambon said many had begun to hope for a permanent end to the killing and destruction of property in the South Moluccas. The recent outbreak of violence is a definite setback to the fragile peace process.

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***********************************New Evidence Emerges in Jordanian Custody CaseJudge investigates Muslim guardian for embezzlement.by Barbara G. Baker

ISTANBUL, April 14 (Compass) -- An Islamic court judge in Amman told Christian widow Siham Qandah yesterday that according to new evidence, her children’s Muslim guardian recently withdrew another large amount of money from their orphan trust funds.

Judge Mahmud Zghul of Amman’s Al-Abdali Sharia Court has reportedly ordered an immediate investigation into the apparent embezzlement, making inquiries through the national department of funds as well as the local courts in Irbid, near Qandah’s home in northern Jordan.

Qandah has been locked in a legal battle with her brother, Abdullah al-Muhtadi, for the past six years to retain custody of her daughter Rawan and son Fadi, now 15 and 14 years of age.

Shortly after Qandah was widowed in 1994, an Islamic court produced an alleged certificate of “conversion” claiming that her late husband became a Muslim three years before he died serving in the U.N. Peacekeeping Forces in Kosovo.

Under Jordanian law, this automatically changed his minor children’s legal identity to Muslim, which could not be contested. So Qandah asked al-Muhtadi to serve as the children’s Muslim guardian, since as a Christian she was not allowed to handle their monthly orphan benefits. She, however, retained custody of her children.

Her brother agreed, but he soon started appropriating some of the monthly funds, and later withdrew $20,000 of their U.N.-allocated trust funds without explanation.

Although al-Muhtadi is the children’s maternal uncle, he converted to Islam as a teenager and remains estranged from his Christian family.


In 1998 al-Muhtadi launched a four-year court case to gain custody of his niece and nephew, in order to raise them as Muslims. During the trial, he accused his sister of being an “unfit custodian” because she took her “Muslim” children to church and enrolled them in Christian religion classes at a local Catholic school.

Two years ago, Qandah was ordered by the Supreme Court of Jordan to surrender her children to her brother’s custody. She and her children immediately went into several rounds of hiding, buying time with several desperate legal and diplomatic appeals to reverse the decision.

When al-Muhtadi failed to appear this past Sunday at a decisive court hearing on the case, Judge Zghul ordered a routine public summons to be published in local newspapers, informing him that he was required to attend the next hearing on April 18 to testify under oath.

But when Qandah went to the Amman courthouse yesterday to obtain the formal court text for publication, the judge told her that he had decided to delay the official summons to her brother while investigating this new evidence.

“I am very happy about this news,” Qandah told Compass. “It is such a long time since I have had any encouraging news on my side of the case.” She said she could not bring herself to even attend church on Easter Sunday, knowing that the Islamic court was deliberating on her case that same morning.

Zghul is presiding over a case filed by Qandah’s daughter Rawan, who has petitioned that al-Muhtadi be removed as legal guardian for herself and her brother.

In reality, the dictates of Islamic law stand in al-Muhtadi’s favor. According to Qandah’s lawyer, her brother’s testimony under oath that he is a devout Muslim acting in the best interests of the children is considered solid proof before an Islamic court of law. So unless the judge has evidence to disprove her brother’s sincerity, he is obligated to rule in his favor.

Such a prospect admittedly terrifies Qandah, although she said she hardly expects her brother to appear at the trial next Sunday, or any subsequent hearings. “But if he does come, I am sure he will swear that he is a good Muslim and try to end the trial in his favor,” she admitted.

Personal assurances have come to Qandah from security police officials, local Christian clerics in the ecclesiastical court and several members of the royal family, all declaring she would not be jailed or her children taken away from her. But so far, no official solution has been found, with even prominent lawyers waffling on their promises to help her.


By court order, both children are blacklisted on immigration computers from leaving Jordan. At the same time, international treaties prevent most of the world’s nations from extending visas to them or their mother, as parties in an unresolved child-custody case.

When Rawan and Fadi reach age 18, Jordanian law allows them to choose whether they want their legal religious identity to be Muslim or Christian. But until then, they must remain Muslims by law.

***Photographs of Qandah and her children are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct for pricing and transmittal.

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***********************************Muslim Fanatics in Nigeria Burn Down 10 ChurchesUndisclosed number of Christians killed in northern town of Makarfi.by Obed Minchakpu

KADUNA, Nigeria, April 8 (Compass) -- Muslim fanatics burned down 10 Christian churches in the town of Makarfi in the northern state of Kaduna, Nigeria, on Saturday. Claims that a mentally retarded Christian teenager desecrated the Quran, the Muslim holy book, apparently incited the attack.

An undisclosed number of Christians were reported killed in the incident, which also resulted in the displacement of hundreds of other Christians from the town. These have now taken refuge in the city of Kaduna.

Bodies of the dead Christians from Makarfi were brought to police stations in Kaduna City on Sunday, the day after the attack. This Compass correspondent visited the Kakuri and Sabo Tasha police stations and saw corpses piled in trucks to be taken away for mass burial by the police.

Police prevented people there from getting close to the trucks bearing the dead bodies.

At a press conference in Kaduna on Monday, Dr. Sam Kujiyat, vice-chairman of the Kaduna state chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), confirmed the killings in Makarfi and the destruction of the 10 churches.

“We are still receiving reports from affected churches on this incident and would inform you adequately on the issue once the security situation there improves,” Kujiyat told journalists.

“Islamic terrorists hiding under the cover of religion have invaded the state and are now unleashing terror on Christians over stupid reasons,” he said.


“The situation we are witnessing today is the emergence of a dangerous trend in which religious sentiment is being used as a cover to victimize Christians.

“Having observed closely the trend and the pattern of the attacks, CAN has only one option and that is to alert the public through the mass media of the dangers and fears these incidents evoke in the minds and hearts of Christians in the state.”

During the press conference, CAN leaders demanded the arrests and prosecution of the Muslim fanatics that carried out the attacks on Christians. They also requested provision from the Kaduna state government to rebuild all the burned churches.

“It is our conclusion that Muslim leaders are deliberately using fanatics in the name of Islam to engage in periodic attacks on Christians with the sole aim to intimidate, terrorize and force Christians into submission and to denounce their faith,” Kujiyat concluded.

Malam Yusuf Abuakar, a Muslim residing in Makarfi, witnessed the attack on Christians. Abuakar described the incident to Compass at police headquarters in Kaduna on Monday, April 5.

“A teenager, who is said be mentally retarded, went into an Islamic school, took a copy of the Quran from one of the students and tore it,” Abuakar said. “This provoked the students and Muslims nearby, who then pounced on the teenager, beating him mercilessly.”

Abubakar explained that the teenager’s mother came to his rescue and took him to a nearby police station. But the Muslims pursued the pair to the police station and set it ablaze.

The mob then proceeded to burn down the 10 churches.

Kaduna Deputy Governor Stephen Shekari said in a statewide radio and television broadcast on Sunday night that the situation in Makarfi had been brought under control.

Kaduna State Police Commissioner Muhammed Yusuf, a Muslim, spoke to journalists on April 6 about the Makarfi attacks, which he blamed on “mischievous people (who are) fomenting trouble in the area.”

“So far, we have arrested five people. We are still making arrests,” Yusuf said. “It was a confused situation. The person who was being pursued (the teenager) is still in a coma.”

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***********************************Fresh Violence Erupts in Nigeria


Estimates put death toll between 350 and 630.by Obed Minchakpu

JOS, Nigeria, May 7 (Compass) -- Fresh religious violence has erupted in Yelwa town in the central state of Plateau, Nigeria, two months after Muslim militants killed a pastor and 48 members of his church there on February 23. The latest Muslim-Christian clash has resulted in the deaths of 350 people and the disappearance of 250 women and children, according to police reports.

Meanwhile, more than 120 people were reportedly killed and thousands more displaced by inter-religious violence in the northern state of Taraba in late April.

The latest crisis in Yelwa erupted in the early hours of Sunday, May 2. Victims who fled to the state capital of Jos said that more than 1,000 houses and religious buildings had been destroyed by fire.

“Not much is known about this crisis, but I can confidently tell you that we have report of its occurrence,” Plateau state police commissioner Innocent Ilozuoke told Compass in Jos the following day. “We have already deployed our personnel to the town and we will furnish you information when we have more details from there.”

Alhaji Dauda Lamba, Plateau state commissioner for information added, “We are aware that fighting broke out in Yelwa on Sunday night. We have, as a government, dispatched a team of security operatives to look into the matter.

“We don’t have the official figures but we are not unaware of the fact that after a crisis that has taken this long, casualties should be expected,” Lamba said

According to news reports yesterday from the Associated Press and Agence France Press (AFP), land disputes between members of the predominantly Christian Tarok tribe and Muslim Hausa-Fulani farmers sparked the violence in Yelwa. A Muslim city councilman told AFP reporters that at least 630 persons, most of them Muslims, had died in the fighting.

Local Christian sources said the crisis is linked to recent attacks on Christian villages in the area by Muslim extremists. They believe because only Muslims remained in Yelwa following the February 23 murders, aggrieved Christians carried out last Sunday’s attack in reprisal for the earlier assault.

Muslim-Christian violence broke out in the northern state of Taraba in late April, causing the death of over 120 people and leaving thousands more displaced.

The crisis reportedly erupted on April 27 in Sarkin Kudu and Dampar villages in Ibi local government area of the state. Local sources said an Easter Sunday attack by Muslim militants on Christian villages in the nearby state of Plateau provoked the Taraba violence.


“Christians in Plateau state believe that these two villages, Sarkin Kudu and Dampar, are operational bases for Muslim militants who use them to attack Christian villages in that state,” Alhaji Lawal Mohammed, a Muslim and the chairman of Ibi local government council, told Compass. “And because of this, the religious crisis has now spread into our state.”

The Muslim political leader confirmed the 120 casualties, adding that he is shaken by the crisis. Mohammed then called on the Nigerian government, as a matter of urgency, to deploy soldiers to the area in order to check the spread of anarchy.

In response to the tensions, Plateau state officials have created a peace committee to network with Taraba, Benue, and Nasarawa state governments. The peace committee is seeking a viable solution to the religious conflict that has engulfed the three states in recent months.

“We have contacted Taraba, Benue and Nasarawa states to check their borders to prevent unnecessary encroachment,” Michael Botmang, deputy governor of Plateau state, told Compass yesterday. “On our part, we have sent enough security personnel to the borders to prevent an influx of the Muslim militants.”

Over the Easter weekend, Muslim militants launched attacks against predominantly Christian villages in Plateau. Government sources reported only three Christian victims from those attacks, as opposed to the 20 deaths reported by eyewitnesses. About 20,000 refugees fled the area as a result of the violence.

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***********************************Nigeria Bans Televised Miracles and Violence ContinuesChristian leaders grapple with issues from media standards to public security.by Obed Minchakpu

ABUJA, Nigeria, May 11 (Compass) -- Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, has been troubled with religious and ethnic violence for nearly a decade. Recently, Christian leaders have been confronted with yet another thorny issue to resolve: what constitutes acceptable religious programming for TV and radio.

Beginning April 30, the National Broadcasting Commission of the Nigerian government has banned television and radio broadcasts of Christian programs portraying healings and other kinds of miracles. The move has sparked a sharp debate among church leaders over religious freedom and ethics in evangelism.

“In recent times, religious programs are not packaged in accordance with the NBC code,” said Dr. Silas Yisa, director-general of NBC, when announcing the ban. According to the NBC official, a “recent trend in religious broadcast” has created a


“problem of credibility to somebody who is young in faith or somebody who does not belong to that faith.”

Nigeria’s broadcasting code states that religious broadcasts “shall not be presented in a manner to mislead the public” and prohibits use of expressions such as “magical, miracle or miraculous.”

The ban affects 15 television stations that broadcast daily Christian programs to a potential audience of 80 million viewers, in addition to an undisclosed number of radio stations reaching several million more listeners.

Divided StandThe leadership of the Christian community in Nigeria was divided in its stand on the

ban. Pentecostal and Charismatic church leaders that use both radio and television as evangelistic tools descried the measure.

“The ban is against our freedom of worship,” said Sunday Peters, pastor of Royal Family Church in Lagos. “Miracles are proof of our belief that Jesus is alive and well. Miracles on TV give hope to the hopeless.”

“What has the federal government got against televised miracles?” Pastor Femi Emmanuel of Living Spring Chapel in the western city of Ibadan stated at a press conference on May 3. “It is incredible that while the nation is currently grappling to overcome the sharia (Islamic law) dilemma, another religious crisis is being provoked with the sanction on Christian programs.”

However, some clergy from historic churches expressed support for the broadcast commission ruling.

“If the NBC can hold on tightly to the law, it will curb all this nonsense,” Cardinal Olubunmi Okogie, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Lagos, told Compass.

“Most of these miracles are fake,” he added. “These people have been distracting people and destroying people’s conscience. Their actions have nothing to do with the propagation of the faith. They are rather destroying the faith.”

Dr. Sunday Mbang of the Nigerian Methodist Church observed that some TV preachers dwell on miracles just to gain cheap publicity and money.

“Why don’t they let us spend time trying to get Christians to be after God’s heart? What have miracles got to do with making Christians good people?” he asked.

Protesting ViolenceMeanwhile, Christian leaders in the northern Nigerian state of Kaduna have

withdrawn from the government established Peace and Reconciliation Committee in protest against continuing attacks on Christians by Muslim militants. The move came


shortly after 10 churches were completely burned down by Muslim militants in the town of Makarfi following allegations that a mentally handicapped Christian youth desecrated a copy of the Quran. (See Compass Direct report “Muslim Fanatics in Nigeria Burn Down 10 Churches,” April 8.)

“We can no longer trust a government that does not lead by example,” Dr. Sam Kujiyat, vice chairman of the state chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), told Compass in explaining the decision.

“We have been told that perpetrators of violence in this state would be made to face the law, yet no single arrested person has been brought before any court of justice in these past four years. The violence against Christians has not ceased, and our churches have remained targets of Muslim militants,” Kujiyat said.

The government of Kaduna set up the Peace and Reconciliation Committee four years ago, after religious conflict in the state claimed over 10,000 lives and destroyed more than $300 million worth of property.

Muslim-Christian violence continues in Nigeria. On Easter Sunday, Muslim militants attacked the villages of Jenku and Ruwan-Doka in nearby Plateau state. They killed three Christians, injured several others and burned down houses. The dead were identified as Jinfa Joseph, Longfa Dodip and Remi Gotip.

In response to the Christian leaders’ protest in Kaduna, Deputy Governor Stephen Shekari convened a meeting between Muslim, Christian and government leaders on May 3, hoping to reach a tripartite agreement that would bring peace to the state. No details about the outcome of the closed-door meeting have since been announced.

Anglican Archbishop Dr. Josiah Idowu-Fearon told Compass that Kaduna state has been under religious turmoil for 15 years. Christians constitute about 40 percent of the population of 3.9 million.

***Photographs of Pastor T. B. Joshua and Pastor Chris Oyakhilome, the pastors affected by the ban on Christian programming, are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct for pricing and transmittal.

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***********************************Pakistani Christian Student Dies from TortureMuslim seminary implicated in forcible conversion attempt.by Barbara G. Baker

ISTANBUL, May 10 (Compass) -- Pakistani police in the central province of Punjab reluctantly detained a Muslim cleric last week after a Christian university student


savagely beaten and tortured inside a local Islamic madrasseh (seminary) died of his injuries.

Maulvi Ghulam Rasool was put under detention at a Toba Tek Singh police station at midday on May 2, about 10 hours after 19-year-old Javed Anjum died in a Faisalabad hospital.

Despite attempts to obtain the cleric’s release on Saturday, May 8, and again today before judicial magistrates, he remains in temporary custody. At Saturday’s hearing, the lawyer for Anjum’s family persuaded the court to include the victim’s deathbed statement recorded by the police on April 26 in the formal First Information Report on the case.

Today, Judge Qamar Zaman Khoker ordered Rasool kept under physical remand for another two days, to give police until May 12 to recover further evidence and arrest two other suspects in the crime.

“The police are trying to cooperate with us,” a local Christian monitoring the case told Compass, “but the matter is politicized. The government does not want maulvis (Muslim prayer leaders) to be arrested.” Maulvi arrests can damage relations with the powerful extremist bloc of the Muslim electorate, the spokesman said.

Last week, Punjab Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi admitted that although Muslim religious leaders had been arrested in the past, the current government did not believe in such “extreme” action. “We will have to display sectarian harmony and unity in our ranks to dispel the impression of intolerance about Islam,” Elahi was quoted as saying in the May 6 issue of The News.

Rasool has been identified as a prayer leader and watchman at the Jamia Hassan Bin Murtaza Madrasseh in Tarandi village, near Toba Tek Singh, where Anjum was tortured for five days. The madrasseh’s principal, Maulvi Ghulam Murtaza Shah, was identified by Anjum as one of his tormentors.

On his hospital deathbed, Anjum declared in his formal statement to the police that he was tortured specifically because he refused to convert to Islam. According to his testimony videotaped by his family, Anjum had been seized by people from the madrasseh when he stopped to get a drink of water from the school’s water tap.

When they learned he was a Christian, they pressured him “from night until morning” to convert to Islam. When he resisted, he said, he was subjected to barbaric forms of torture.

His abuse included repeated electric shocks to his ears, a broken right arm and fingers, some of his fingernails pulled out, skin burns, severe beatings on his feet, and serious injuries to his kidneys and bladder. Reportedly 26 wounds were found on his body in the official post mortem report issued May 6.


Anjum said he was finally forced under torture to repeat the words of the Muslim creed, an act which according to Islamic law constitutes conversion to Islam. But he told his family he had not renounced his Christian faith.

In his third year of undergraduate studies in commerce at Quetta’s Government College, Anjum was the third of six children.

He disappeared on April 17 while traveling from Toba Tek Singh to his grandfather’s home in Gojra. His father came quickly from Quetta to report him missing to local police, placing a notice on cable TV and searching the area.

On April 22, madrasseh representatives took Anjum to the police, claiming they had caught him trying to steal their water pump. But his condition was so critical that police refused to take him into custody, asking his family to take him to a local hospital.

Within two days, both of the youth’s kidneys were failing, and local doctors ordered him transferred to Faisalabad’s Allied Hospital. Despite repeated dialysis treatments and intensive care, he died on May 2, 11 days after he was hospitalized.

According to an April 30 report in Dawn newspaper, the madrasseh’s principal told a district official that Anjum was a drug addict, and that he had confessed to stealing in order to buy his narcotics.

When an investigative team from Lahore’s Center for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement visited the Toba Tek Singh police station the day after Anjum’s death, head constable Mohammad Anwar ul-Haq declared that the accused attackers “had not beaten him with the intention to kill him.”

Since Anjum had gone to the madrasseh “intentionally with the motive of theft” and the madrasseh staff had caught him in the act, the constable reasoned, “It was God’s will that he had to die this way.”

“This whole atmosphere of intolerance [against non-Muslims] is being created by the curriculum,” a Christian cleric who attended Anjum’s funeral told Compass. “We’ve just made a study on the latest books issued by the government, and they are more Islamist, more fanatical, than before.”

For the past two years, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has declared that Islamic schools fomenting divisive “sectarian” teachings would be forced to revise their courses or face closure.

Yesterday Religious Affairs Minister Mohammed Ejaz ul-Haq declared at a madrasseh ceremony in Taxila that “Western propaganda against madrassehs is baseless and it must be countered.” Quoted in today’s Daily Times newspaper, ul-Haq claimed that the “erroneous” textbooks accused of promoting intolerance and violence among


madrasseh students had been removed from the market, and that those who prepared them would be tried and punished.

***Photographs of Javed Anjum after he was hospitalized are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct for pricing and transmittal.

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***********************************Moscow Court Rules to Ban Jehovah’s WitnessesDecision could signal trouble for other religious minorities in Russia.Special to Compass Direct

MOSCOW, April 20 (Compass) -- Though not yet legally in force, the recent decision of a Moscow court to ban activities of the city’s Jehovah’s Witnesses has already triggered problems for that religious community and stirred objections from defenders of religious freedom, who see it as an ominous signal of the future direction of freedoms for Russia’s religious minorities.

On March 26, Judge Vera K. Dubinskaya of the Golovinsky Inter-municipal District Court ruled to liquidate the Moscow community of Jehovah’s Witnesses and ban their activities in the city.

According to John Burns, a member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses legal counsel, Judge Dubinskaya cited as grounds for her ruling “inciting religious discord, breaking up families, violating individual Russian citizen’s rights, inclining people to commit suicide, and luring teenagers and minors.”

Burns said the prosecution introduced no evidence to support the charges and, in fact, testimony presented in the court refuted the claims.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses plan to formally appeal the decision and already filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights. Because the verdict is under appeal, it carries no legal force.

However, Jehovah’s Witnesses in Moscow and other parts of Russia already experience problems due to publicity surrounding the ruling in the Russian press. According to Christian Presber, spokesperson for the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia, no Russian media that reported the ruling mentioned that the decision as yet held no legal force. Presber said that, in several instances of attempts to hinder freedoms of the Jehovah’s Witnesses since the court ruling, opponents of the religious group pointed to the Moscow court decision for justification.

Monitors of international human rights see developments affecting Jehovah’s Witnesses as a “litmus test” for how religious freedom is progressing in a country,


Presber said. “As it goes with Jehovah’s Witnesses, that’s how it will go with other religious minorities.”

Presber expressed concern about how the Moscow decision would be perceived throughout Russia. “It sends a signal through Russia that this is what we need to do,” he said.

According to their own statistics, Jehovah’s Witnesses have 11,000 active members and 80 congregations in Moscow. They own only one building, or Kingdom Hall, that is shared by 38 congregations. The remaining 42 congregations meet in rented facilities.

During the Passover celebrations, one rental contract in Moscow that had been signed and paid was cancelled, affecting up to 300 members who planned to use the facility for religious meetings. Khabarovsk, Ekaterinburg and Krasnoyarsk witnessed similar denials of meeting places for the Passover.

A rental contract was cancelled on a facility planned for future use for a weekend assembly for Bible instruction in Vladimir. Management of the only other suitable venue in the area would agree to rent only if the local Orthodox priest approved.

In Kopeysk, the city withdrew in early April a previous agreement to give land to the local Witnesses community to build a Kingdom Hall.

Moscow police sometimes stop Witnesses approaching people on the street or going house-to-house and tell them “you can’t do that,” said Presber.

On the same day the Moscow court issued its ruling, President Vladimir Putin made a speech in Sochi. He spoke on the need to pursue extremism, “even religious extremism.” But he went on to say that “this should not draw up into the sphere of violation of human rights.”

“We don’t feel that this is the decision of the Russian Federal Government,” Presber said. He explained that the Federal government acknowledged the rights of Jehovah’s Witnesses to exist and enjoy freedom of worship by first registering the group in 1991 and re-registering them in 1999.

This court case first began in April 1998. It was dismissed in February 2001 as “having no basis whatsoever,” but revived in October 2001 in the same court with the same prosecutor but a different judge.

Attorney Burns says that during the first few years of the prosecution, high level officials said that the prosecutor’s office was independent and these officials couldn’t intervene.

“In other words, the prosecutor could proceed as a ‘knight errant’ independent of any supervisory mechanism,” Burns said. “In Russia’s answer to the European Court in


November of 2003, it said that the JW were getting a fair trail. These were official answers,” he said.

“The banning of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, if upheld on appeal, may well prove to be a harbinger of what is to come,” Burns said.

The April 2 issue of the liberal newspaper Moscow News carried a thorough report on the lengthy Jehovah’s Witnesses trial. “The Moscow City Court is known as one of the most politically attuned in Russia and its decision in this case will show the contemporary direction of the confessional policy of Russian authorities,” the article stated.

“Social principles of the Jehovah’s Witnesses bring them into conflict with ideological regimes,” it said, pointing out that treatment of Jehovah’s Witnesses shows the degree of totalitarianism in a state.

The article specifically cited Jehovah’s Witnesses’ refusal to bear arms and serve in the army, swear allegiance, make oaths, honor state symbols and state holidays and receive blood transfusions.

Moscow News reported that Witness literature criticizes “historic Christianity” and claims to be the “unique, true faith” and it was ruled that they “incited strife.” However, Orthodox Church literature presented in court made the same “unique, true faith” claims and contained numerous accusations against “Western heretics” of Catholics, Protestants and even Orthodox Old Believers.

Attorney Burns says that on the surface, a determined prosecutor and the “Salvation Committee” stand behind the prolonged Moscow case against the Witnesses. But standing behind them is the Russian Orthodox Church, with which the “Salvation Committee” is affiliated.

Burns says he saw Alexandr Dvorkin passing notes and questions to the prosecutor during one day of the trial. Dvorkin’s name was on the prosecutors list to testify as a representative of Russian Orthodox Church, but he was not called.

The official spokesperson for the Moscow Patriarchate, Rev. Vsevold Chaplin, was quoted in RIA-Novosti as saying, “It wasn’t the Russian Orthodox Church that initiated the criminal proceedings against the Jehovah’s Witnesses, but it does welcome the court decision to ban the sect’s activities as anti-social.”

The official traditional religions in Russia are Russian Orthodox Christianity, Muslim, Buddhism, and Judaism. Muslim and Judaism religious leaders also hailed the court decision.

(Return to Index)

***********************************


Sri Lankan Re-opened Church Attacked on Easter SundayMore than 146 churches attacked since January 2003.by Sarah Page

BANKOK, April 16 (Compass) -- A Christian Fellowship Church (CFC) in the Kalutara district of Sri Lanka was attacked on April 11, Easter Sunday, leading to minor injuries and damage to the church building. This latest attack adds to the total of more than 146 churches attacked since January 2003. Sixty of those attacks have occurred in the past four months.

The CFC church in Wadduwa village was forced to sign a temporary closure agreement in January 2004 after a crowd of villagers attacked the church on two consecutive Sundays.

However, the pastor and church members were determined to hold services over Easter weekend, saying, “How long can we go on like this, keeping the church closed?”

Pastor Sunil had approached local police for advice before resuming services on April 9, Good Friday. The police advised against it, but church members were eager for fellowship after being confined to small house groups for the past three months.

The service on Good Friday was held without disturbance. However on Easter Sunday, a small crowd of about 30 people, led by an influential Buddhist monk from the village, interrupted the gathering of 100 church members.

As the service began, the mob demanded that church members leave the building. They also threw stones, damaging the glass windows. The pastor and other church members, including some of the women, were slapped and beaten with sticks as they emerged from the church. Parents tried to shield their terrified children, but despite this, a few children were among the ten or so people injured in the attack.

The church has since made a police entry at the Wadduwa police station. A few members of the mob were arrested, but they were later released with the consent of the pastor.

The current problems at CFC church began on December 28, 2003 -- just a few short weeks after the death of Ven. Gangodawila Soma, an influential Buddhist monk who spearheaded a campaign to introduce anti-conversion laws to Sri Lanka. A rumor was soon spread by the Buddhist community claiming that Christians were responsible for Soma’s death, despite three official autopsies showing that Soma had died of natural causes.

In response, President Chandrika Kumaratunga called for a police guard on churches for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services. However, many pastors around the country were warned by local monks that they should cancel services as a mark of respect for Soma.


Pastor Sunil’s congregation gathered for services as usual on December 28. They were soon interrupted by a large crowd of about 300 people, led by three Buddhist monks, who rushed into the church. One of the monks stepped into the pulpit and ordered the pastor to stop the meeting.

A church member picked up a cell phone to call the police, but the monk in the pulpit shouted at him to stop. The phone was surreptitiously passed to another church member who ran out of the room and managed to call the police.

The police arrived five minutes later but were unable to control the crowd. According to Pastor Sunil and his wife, the crowd was “boisterous, running around and destroying things. They were shouting and letting off firecrackers to frighten the believers.”

The crowd stayed for about two hours, saying they would not leave until all the Christians had gone home. The pastor claimed some people in the crowd were carrying brass knuckles, clubs and iron bars, and had threatened to destroy the building.

“There were children with us, so I thought it was best to ask the believers to leave,” said Sunil. When the believers left two hours after the attack began, the crowd of Buddhist villagers finally dispersed.

“That evening I lodged a police entry for my future safety,” said the pastor. “The police told me not to hold the service again because of opposition, but the believers were keen, so I invited them back on the following Sunday.”

During that week, the church was attacked at night and stones were thrown at the windows, breaking two panes of glass.

“The next Sunday I kept some of my people at the main gate, some in the church office, and others at the back door,” said Sunil. “But we were attacked again, this time by a much bigger crowd -- so many that we couldn’t count them.

“In fact, there were so many of them that one of the mob asked us, ‘Why aren’t you afraid?’ One of our sisters replied, ‘Because, even if you close the doors of our church, you can’t take Jesus out of our hearts.’”

Several policemen armed with tear gas arrived in a van, but the mob attacked the van and the police had to remove it from the church premises. The officer in charge asked the Buddhist monks who were leading the mob to promise that nobody would be harmed. The church members were then asked to leave, and the pastor was taken to the police station to file a report. Around 100 villagers also came to the police station to lodge a complaint against the church.


Following this incident, representatives from the church and the local Buddhist temple had to sign an agreement stating that the church would “temporarily” suspend services. However, no date was given when services could be resumed.

Since the agreement was signed, church members have gathered in small house meetings in various areas around Wadduwa. “This makes our work more difficult,” says Sunil.

Buddhist monks have also questioned the legal status of the church, which is registered under the Companies Act rather than as a religious institution. This is a common practice for churches in Sri Lanka, and until the monks can change national laws, CFC is legally registered and has an official building permit, issued in 1998.

As for the future of the ministry, “Now we’re afraid to say anything to people because we don’t know whether they are open to the gospel or not,” says Sunil. “But we have not given up.”

He still remembers the days when, as a Buddhist teenager, he used to argue with Christians about their theology. “But when I was arguing with those people I realized who Jesus was,” he adds.

“Buddhism won’t really answer those questions about how the world began, or about sin. That’s why we have to keep preaching the gospel.”

***Photographs of the empty CFC church in Kalutara and several rocks used in the December 2003 attacks are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct for pricing and transmittal.

(Return to Index)

***********************************Sudan Imposes Islamic Law on Khartoum’s SouthernersChristian girl whipped for not wearing headscarf.by Barbara G. Baker

ISTANBUL, April 28 (Compass) -- Sudan’s Islamic regime in Khartoum lashed and fined a young Christian Sudanese woman in mid April for not wearing a headscarf in public in the capital city.

Cecilia John Holland, 27, was given 40 lashes on her back and fined 10,000 Sudanese dinars ($40) by the Sizana Islamic Court in Khartoum on April 14, sources in the capital confirmed to Compass.

A Christian born in southern Sudan, Holland was traveling by minibus to her home in the Khartoum suburb of Haj Yousif on the night of April 13 when she was arrested by a group of 10 public-order policemen, some in uniform and others in plainclothes.


She was just boarding the bus near Badr gardens in Khartoum Two at 9 p.m. when the police apparently spotted her. A police van pulled ahead of the bus, ordering the driver to stop, and Holland was dragged off the bus into the van.

When Holland tried to pull free, protesting that she was a Christian and a southerner, she was struck with a hard blow on the neck and forced into the van. Four other women were already detained there, all wearing scarves, although their attire was tight and revealing.

With temperatures in Khartoum ranging between 100 and 105 degrees F., Holland was wearing modest long sleeves and an ankle-length skirt, but her hair was uncovered.

The police told Holland she was being arrested for not wearing a scarf. No one in Khartoum, “even a non-Muslim,” she was told, was exempt from Islamic bans against wearing improper dress.

Two hours later, after seven more women had been arrested, the police delivered the van-load of detainees to the Dame police station, about 2.5 miles south of Khartoum’s city center. According to Holland, three of the women went elsewhere, but the remaining nine women were kept together in custody overnight.

On the morning of April 14, the accused women were taken to the Sizana Islamic Court. There a policeman swore an oath on the Quran and then read out the charges against Holland and the other women. None of the accused women were allowed to say a word to the court.

According to the police version of Holland’s case, she was accused of “standing near a garden at night” and “not wearing a scarf on her head at 11 p.m.” The police refused to register that she was employed, writing instead that she was “jobless.”

Holland, who holds a diploma in catering from Khartoum Applied Sciences College, is employed as a catering officer for a local non-governmental organization.

Declaring Holland guilty, the Sizana court sentenced her to be lashed 40 times on her back and pay a fine of 10,000 Sudanese dinars. That afternoon, after being whipped and paying the cash penalty, she was released. The fine represented a third of Holland’s monthly salary.

Born to Moru parents in Wau, in southern Sudan, Holland has three brothers and two sisters. Since the death of her father, John Holland Bay, her mother has gone to live in Juba, a government-controlled city in southern Sudan.

Because the young woman’s grandfather, Holland Bay, was Scottish, her skin color is lighter and her hair longer than the typical black southern Sudanese. However, her


Christian name and Arabic accent confirmed her identity and verbal testimony to the police.

Holland’s forced subjection to the restrictions and harsh punishments of Islamic law dramatizes one key issue now deadlocking a year of ongoing peace talks between the National Islamic Front government in Khartoum and the southern leadership of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM).

Earlier this month, the Khartoum government refused to compromise on its insistence that Islamic law govern all Sudanese citizens residing in Khartoum. More than two million non-Muslim southerners live in and around the capital, displaced by the last 20 years of civil war between the African Christian-animist south and the Arab Muslim north.

So far the SPLM’s alternative proposals have been rejected, to either establish a separate enclave within the capital for southerners, or subject its non-Muslim Sudanese to the same secular laws to be followed in the south during a six-year period of self-rule.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir claimed on April 13 that southern negotiators had abandoned their demands and agreed to have “only one legislation” in Khartoum. According to an Agence France Press report, Bashir said the compromise came “after we gave them convincing guarantees regarding the cultural and religious diversities among the citizens.”

But a SPLM spokesman denied any such agreement, which would in effect make the south’s non-Muslims “second-class citizens” in the country’s political capital.

***Photographs of Cecilia John Holland taken after her April 14 sentence was carried out are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct for pricing and transmittal.

(Return to Index)

***********************************Turkish Court Opens New Case Against PastorDiyarbakir Protestant church allegedly ‘illegal.’by Barbara G. Baker

ISTANBUL, April 8 (Compass) -- A criminal court in southeast Turkey has for the second time pressed charges against a Turkish Protestant pastor in Diyarbakir, this time accusing him of “opening an illegal church.”

Pastor Ahmet Guvener of the Diyarbakir Evangelical Church has been ordered to stand trial for an alleged violation of Turkish penal code 261/1, under which he could be jailed for up to two years if convicted. His first hearing before the Diyarbakir Criminal Court is set for May 12.


In charges dated February 9 and signed by state prosecutor Mehmet Isbitiren, Guvener was accused in file case 2004/1029 of “using a building registered as a home to open a Protestant church and conducting religious worship together with music for the people attending.”

In a separate official notice dated February 10 from the Security Directorate of the Diyarbakir Governate, Guvener was informed that he was “guilty” under the revised July 19, 2003, law regarding the establishment of new places of religious worship.

Last summer’s revision of Law No. 4928 replaces the term “mosque” with “place of worship” and requires permission from the civil administrator as well as conformity to zoning statutes. Even more problematic, the civil administrator must agree that there is “a need encountered in the municipality and region” for such a new place of worship.

Guvener had been served notice last October by the local Council for the Protection of Cultural and Natural Structures that the use of his building for public worship was illegal, since it was zoned as a private home.

Accordingly, Guvener filed a formal application on November 13 to the local municipality, requesting that the building be granted official zoning status as a church. Five weeks later, he submitted all the required documents verifying the revised structural changes, which the municipality then forwarded to the local council. To date, there has been no response from the local council to his application.

Turkish construction laws do not require the purpose of a building to be declared initially. Nevertheless, the first architectural blueprints submitted clearly indicated that the structure was to include pews, a pulpit and even a baptistry in the sanctuary on the second floor of the three-story building.

Although municipality authorities have registered no objection to the new church, the local council, reporting through the Diyarbakir governor’s office to the Ministry of Culture, has repeatedly blocked all efforts to establish its legal status.

The original blueprints were approved by both the city and the Ministry of Culture in February 2001, but nine months later, when the exterior construction was almost complete, the protection council issued a stop order and sealed the site.

Only 10 months later, after Guvener was acquitted of charges of making “illegal structural alterations” in the building, was a revised blueprint approved and the building’s interior finished.

The church has functioned openly as a center for Christian worship and fellowship in the city’s traditionally Christian neighborhood of Lalebey since April 6 of last year. The congregation, which now numbers from 50 to 60 at Sunday worship services, formerly met in Guvener’s home.


“Of course, the real purpose of this court case is to shut down our church,” Guvener told Compass. “This does not only involve the future of our church,” he said, stating that the decision to be handed down will set a precedent for all other “existing and newly opened” Protestant churches in Turkey.

According to a report on Turkey issued by the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Commission on March 17, Turkey’s current secularist policies restrict freedom of religion and conscience. Noting the need for radical reform of the Turkish Constitution, the report called on the government to “immediately end all kinds of discrimination applied to religious minorities in Turkey.”

***Photographs of the Diyarbakir Evangelical Church and Pastor Ahmet Guvener are available electronically. Please contact Compass Direct for pricing and transmittal.

(Return to Index)

***********************************Turkish TV Producer Sentenced to JailAnkara court punishes false provocations against Protestant Christians.by Barbara G. Baker

ISTANBUL, April 16 (Compass) -- The host of a Turkish TV news show was sentenced to nearly two years in jail last week for airing false provocations against Turkish Protestants.

A unanimous panel of three judges ruled that anchorman Kerim Akbas’ programs on Baskent TV had incited violent attacks last year against local Christian citizens and their places of worship in Ankara.

In an April 5 decision by the 2nd Ankara State Security Court, Akbas, 37, was found guilty of “inciting hostility and deep-seated resentment within the populace to the extent of disturbing public order,” in violation of Sections 312, 80 and 59 of the Turkish penal code.

According to Fatih Selim Yurdakul, lawyer for the plaintiffs, Akbas’ sentence cannot be converted to a fine, although he has already exercised his right to appeal the decision. The convicted defendant was ordered to pay 254,100,000 Turkish liras ($195) in court fees.

Video clips from three Friday night “Haber Dosyasi” (News File) shows hosted and produced by Akbas were presented as evidence in the case. First broadcast on March 21, April 11 and June 20 of last year, the sensationalized footage was screened repeatedly by the channel on Friday evenings.


“Priests, pastors and shepherds, beware. We know about your dirty games,” Akbas stated in one program. “You are trying everything possible to undercut the foundations of Turkey.”

During the broadcasts, the anchorman read out the names and addresses of two local Protestant churches, and also targeted The Open Door, a Christian bookshop run by Turkish Protestants in the capital.

Akbas accused these and other local Protestant groups of “opening illegal churches without permission in Ankara,” claiming their underlying purpose was not religious propaganda, but rather “ethnic, radical division to disturb the peace.”

In blanket statements flavored with nationalistic rhetoric, the TV host declared that Protestants were maintaining secret links with foreign intelligence organizations, and even paying Muslim young people to become Christians.

After one video clip panning views of The Open Door bookshop, the camera zoomed in as a Turkish Bible was opened, revealing a $100 bill hidden between the pages.

Ten days after Akbas’ first “exposé,” the newly rented Kecioren Mujde Church was attacked by a small mob armed with sticks and stones who broke out windows in the rented premises. The following day, a textile shop run by church leader Erol Dagli suffered a similar fate.

Twice attackers set fire to the church premises, ruining most of the furniture and doors and blackening all the inner walls. The building was later vandalized on several other occasions.

Both Dagli and an expatriate friend were attacked with a long butcher knife by Tuncay Ergon, who now has three criminal indictments filed against him by the public prosecutor for a string of death threats and harassment against Dagli, his family and his church.

Despite Ergon’s ongoing threats against Dagli, local police officers have refused to take seriously the pastor’s request for protection for his family and small congregation. “I’ve registered more than 12 complaints, and they always treat me like the person who is guilty,” he told Compass. “They tell me to just close down my church, and my problems will be over.”

After a steady campaign of threats warning Dagli and other Protestant believers to close down their church, the congregation was forced to cancel its rent contract and begin meeting elsewhere.

Across town, the Balgat Protestant Church received threats that a bomb had been planted near its premises, frightening attendees from coming to worship services.


Although Dagli filed official complaints against the “News File” broadcasts with the Supreme Board of Radio and Television (RTUK) twice, last April and again in June, he was told the program “had not committed any crime” in its comments.

So together with Bora Guler, manager of The Open Door bookshop, Dagli filed a case before the State Security Courts, charging that Akbas had incited violence in violation of both RTUK and Turkish criminal codes.

The final ruling from the State Security Court came after four hearings, presided over by Judge Yunus Karabiyikoglu. Akbas, who is currently employed by Ankara’s Isik TV station, was ordered to prison for a total of one year, 11 months and 10 days.

“This is a major step of progress for religious minorities in Turkey,” attorney Yurdakul told Compass today. “This may be the first such legal ruling here in favor of non-Muslims,” he said. “It shows that our justice mechanism is starting to treat all our citizens equally.”

Despite Turkey’s secular identity, Muslims who convert to Christianity have been repeatedly slandered with impunity by the Turkish media.

About 75 Protestant churches and house groups exist today in Turkey, which is 99 percent Muslim. But the state’s secularist laws have yet to be revised to permit former Muslims to freely establish legal places of Christian worship.

***Photographs of the damaged Kecioren Mujde Church are available electronically. Please contact Compass Direct for pricing and transmittal.

(Return to Index)

**********************************************************************COMPASS DIRECTGlobal News from the Frontlines

David Miller, Managing EditorGail Wahlquist, Editorial AssistantSuzi Quinones, Design

Bureau Chiefs:Barbara Baker, Middle EastSarah Page, Asia

For subscription information, contact:

Compass DirectP.O. Box 27250


Santa Ana, CA 92799USAPhone: 949-862-0314FAX: 949-752-6536E-mail: [email protected]


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