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COMPASS DIRECTGlobal News from the Frontlines

July 8, 2005

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 2005 Compass Direct

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

EGYPT

Convert Released from Mental Hospital ***New Christian still suffers from security police torture.

INDIA

Hindu Extremists Attack Church in ChhattisgarhChristians are charged with ‘disturbing the peace.’

Christians Accuse Hindu Villagers of Sexual AssaultHindus lodge counter-complaint, accusing Christians of ‘desecrating Hindu idols.’

Demolition Ordered for Christian Settlement in OrissaAdministration passes interim order, delaying demolition until monsoon season is over.

Catholics AttackedBishops ask for government intervention.

INDONESIA

Muslim Leaders Push for Islamic LawFreedom of worship for Christians is restricted.

Three Women Arrested, Charged ***Leaders of ‘Happy Sunday’ program accused of attempted conversion.

JORDAN

Widow Wins Final Court Battle ***Appellate court permanently cancels Muslim guardianship.

Compass Direct July 2005 1

MEXICO

Evangelical Christian Denied BurialRecent laws permit indigenous communities to invoke ‘use and custom’ rules.

NIGERIA

Christian Students File Suit Against University ***Expulsion for campus evangelism claimed as religious persecution.

Christian Lecturer in Nigeria Disappears After Death ThreatMuslim dress code stirs unrest in Kaduna and Kano states.

Persecution Memo Sent to Reform Conference *** Christian leaders express concern about Islamic institutions.

Nation Joins Islamic Development Bank Membership raises religious tension in the country.

SAUDI ARABIA

Five Christian Prisoners ReleasedEast Africans return to their Riyadh jobs.

TURKEY

Protestants Seek Legal StatusGovernment encourages ‘association’ route for new churches.

Conference ‘Researches’ Missionary ActivityGovernment co-sponsors academic symposium.

Report: Missionaries ‘Cover Turkey Like a Spider’s Web’Christians are accused of promoting ethnic divisions.

Europe Reacts to Turkey’s Missionary Phobia Protestants call government rhetoric ‘active disinformation.’

Court to Assess Injured Christian’s Recovery ***Official medical reports due next week on Yakup Cindilli.

VIETNAM

Church Leaders Submit Testimony in Washington, D.C.Religious persecution highlighted during Prime Minister’s historic U.S. visit.


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***********************************Egyptian Convert Released from Mental HospitalNew Christian still suffers from security police torture.by Barbara G. Baker

ISTANBUL, June 21 (Compass) -- Five months after he was forcibly committed to a mental hospital for converting from Islam to Christianity, Gasir Mohammed Mahmoud has been discharged from his locked psychiatric ward in Cairo and set free.

Mahmoud was released June 9 from Cairo’s El-Khanka Hospital for Mental and Neurological Health, where two police officers from his home city of Suez had institutionalized him last January.

Mahmoud, now 31, told Compass last week that the doctor who discharged him called his adoptive mother and asked her to come and collect him from the hospital.

“But she told me not to return to Suez,” Mahmoud said, warning him that he would face problems there, both from his father and the state security police.

Adopted as an infant, Mahmoud was raised by the Muslim couple, who were alarmed last December to learn that he had converted to Christianity two years earlier. But his father’s angry appeal to local Muslim sheikhs prompted them to issue death threats against the son for committing apostasy.

After his mother asked local state security police to protect her son from being killed, they subjected Mahmoud to an endless round of interrogations and arrests.

Initially, Mahmoud said, he was questioned “in a decent way” in front of a state security officer named Mohammed Amar. He was then transferred to another official who brought two Muslim sheikhs to talk with him, trying to convince him to return to Islam. After eight days’ detention, eating only food that other detainees shared with him, he was sent to the Suez Security Directorate for an investigation that lasted four days.

Then he was released. Because his only Bible had been destroyed, he stopped at an evangelical church on his way home to ask for another copy. “But they were afraid,” Mahmoud said, “and refused to give me a Bible.”

Shortly after he returned home, a messenger was sent to tell him to meet Mohammed Amar again. When the policeman asked why he had gone to the church again, Mahmoud told him he could not stop himself from going there.


“So he started to torture me, to pull off the nails of my toes,” Mahmoud said. “Now I’m still not able to wear shoes because of the pain.” This continued for 18 days, he said. The torture included stripping him naked and dousing him with ice-cold water over and over.

After 15 days at the Suez police station, he was brought before the Suez district attorney, facing charges from his father that his son had beaten him. “How could I do this,” Mahmoud said he asked the district attorney, “while I was being detained by the state security?”

So the district attorney ordered his release, instructing him to report to the local police, to be sure there were no other accusations against him. But four days later, a police lieutenant and commander took Mahmoud by police car to Cairo’s Abbasseya Hospital.

When this psychiatric institution refused to take him, they returned to Suez. Then on January 10, the police committed him to the El-Khanka Hospital, where a medical committee was formed to examine his case.

“Once they put me in a room without any clothes,” Mahmoud recalled. “They filled the room with water, to prevent me from sleeping.” During his confinement, he was beaten at times and given heavy doses of medication twice daily.

Mahmoud’s supervising physician, Dr. Nevine, had told him he would never be allowed to leave the hospital unless he came back to Islam. But a round of international publicity released in May focused considerable attention on the case, apparently convincing hospital authorities to discharge him.

Although Mahmoud’s mother reserved a hotel room for him in Cairo after his release, he has since found other lodging through Christian friends in the city.

Egyptian law forbids Muslims the right to change their official religious identity when they become Christians, although non-Muslims can freely convert to Islam and legally change their I.D. cards from Christian to Muslim.

Under the virtual impunity of emergency law regulations, officers of Egypt’s State Security Investigation regularly harass, interrogate and arrest Muslim citizens suspected to have converted to Christianity.

***New photographs of Gasir Mohammed Mahmoud taken since his hospital discharge are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct for pricing and transmittal.

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***********************************Hindu Extremists Attack Church in Chhattisgarh, IndiaChristians are charged with ‘disturbing the peace.’by Vijayesh Lal


NEW DELHI, June 9 (Compass) -- Around 200 Hindu extremists attacked a church in Moti Chowk village in Durg district, Chhattisgarh, India, while Sunday services were being held on June 6.

The extremists were from the Bajrang Dal, the youth wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP or World Hindu Council). They came fully armed and, according to eye witnesses, were accompanied by two police officers.

Pastor Jaichand Dongre and other church members were physically assaulted. The mob also looted the church, took away Bibles, other Christian literature and musical instruments.

Nine church members -- seven men and two women -- were then taken to the police station.

According to local sources, they were charged with “disturbing the peace” under Section 151 of the Indian Penal Code, which states: “Whoever knowingly joins or continues in any assembly of five or more persons likely to cause a disturbance of the public peace, after such assembly has been lawfully commanded to disperse, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to six months, or with fine, or with both.”

Dongre and his congregation were meeting peacefully for worship in full accordance with their rights as outlined in Article 19 and 25 of the Indian Constitution. Article 19 promises the right to freedom of speech and expression, and the right to assemble peacefully without arms; while Article 25 provides for freedom of conscience and the free profession, practice and propagation of religion.

Eye-witnesses said police slapped Dongre several times and attempted to humiliate him. The crowd following Dongre to the police station also slapped him, with no intervention from the police officers.

When a representative of the Minority Commission in Madhya Pradesh, Patras Habil, contacted the police station by phone, he was told that the beatings and arrests were due to conversion activities carried out by the Christians and that they “deserved” it.

When the representative revealed his connection with the Minority Commission, the tone of the police officer changed. He then claimed to have rescued the Christians from the mob who had gathered to attack them.

Church members later met with the local superintendent of police, who promised to help them. However, the nine Christians taken to the police station were kept in prison for two days before being released on bail.

At press time, the situation in the village remained tense. The Bajrang Dal had mobilized people against the Christian community; Christians were no longer able to use the


community well or buy food supplies in local markets after a social boycott was ordered by the extremists.

Meanwhile on June 3, also in Chhattisgarh, the Sarpanch (village headman) of Hathod village, Balod, Durg district, called 13 Christians to a village meeting. At the meeting, they were asked to renounce their faith or face the consequences.

Seven of the 13 refused. They were immediately locked up in the Balod jail and charged under Sections 151, 107 and 116 of the Indian Penal Code.

Compass spoke to Ram Kishore Sahu, the lawyer representing the seven, who said this type of threat was not new to the area. A similar incident occurred two years ago. The Christians charged in that incident still await trial.

Sahu said these tactics were commonly used against rural Christians to encourage them to give up their faith.

The police have also made it difficult for the Christians in Hathod village to be released on bail. The bail orders explicitly stated that the security of 10,000 rupees ($230) per person must come from within the village itself; no person outside the village could provide security for the bail amount.

However, fellow villagers who sympathized with the Christians were reluctant to post bail, due to the social influence of the Sarpanch and Hindu extremists living in the village.

At press time, bail had not been secured and the seven Christians of Hathod village remained in jail.

FOR THE SIDEBAR

Chhattisgarh state is still ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), renowned for its negative attitude towards religious minorities. In state assembly elections held in December 2003, the BJP campaigned on an anti-conversion platform. In one “cartoon” advertisement placed in local newspapers, a bishop was depicted forcibly converting a tribal man while an assistant stood guard over others who were held in a cage, waiting to be baptized.

In their party manifesto, the BJP also promised to ban conversions to Christianity if they were voted into power.

Based on this campaign, the BJP won 50 of the 90 available seats.

Following the election, Bishop Victor Kindo of Raigarh said that the outcome was not favorable, and the Christian minority community in Chhattisgarh was likely to face “tough times.”


In March this year, the Dainik Bhaskar, a local newspaper, reported that, “The state government has prepared a draft to amend the provisions of the Dharma Swatantraya Adhinayarn (Freedom of Religion) Act, making them more stringent to restrict conversions of poor tribals to Christianity,” (See Compass Direct, “India’s Chhattisgarh State to Strengthen Anti-Conversion Law,” March 28, 2005.)

Reconversion is also high on the agenda of the Hindu Jagran Manch, an activist group closely associated with the BJP. The Manch claimed in April that hundreds of Christians were “reconverted” to Hinduism in a ceremony held in Chamtari district, Chhattisgarh.

During the reconversion ceremony on April 2, former BJP cabinet minister Dilip Singh Judeo threatened Christian workers, saying, “If Christian missionaries don’t stop converting people, we will take up arms.” (See Compass Direct, “Hindu Extremists in India ‘Reconvert’ Christians, Threaten Missionaries,” April 7, 2005.)

Only 1.9 percent of Chhattisgarh’s 20.8 million residents are Christians, according to the 2001 census.

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***********************************Christians in India Accuse Hindu Villagers of Sexual AssaultHindus lodge counter-complaint, accusing Christians of ‘desecrating Hindu idols.’by Vishal Arora

NEW DELHI, June 21 (Compass) -- Eleven Christian families who were physically attacked in Jamanya village, Jalgaon district, Maharashtra state, on May 16 now face social ostracism after they accused Hindu villagers of sexual assault.

On May 15, a community court asked the families to give up their faith in Christ, but they refused. On the following day, a group of Hindu villagers beat up the men and sexually molested their wives and daughters.

“When one wife came to save her husband who was being beaten up, [villager] Sattarsingh Barela abused her, using the filthiest possible language, and pushed her with a stick on her private part,” Pastor Sarichand Chauhan, area coordinator of the Indian Evangelical Team told Compass.

“The attackers hit another woman with a stick in her upper thighs and waist. Although she had difficulty in walking, she had to flee with her whole family to a nearby jungle for fear of further attacks.

“They slapped a 16-year-old girl several times, due to which her face was severely swollen and she was not able to wash her face for many days.


“They also said to each other that they could do whatever they liked with the Christian women as nobody would come to save them,” he added. “While beating up yet another woman, a widow, they said that five of them could rape her because she was a widow.”

The attackers also allegedly tried to disrobe some of the women.

Chauhan said the Christians had informed the police about these indignities. However, when recording details in a First Information Report (FIR), the police did not record the alleged sexual assaults, and later denied that any such incidents had occurred.

“There was no sexual assault on the women during the attack,” Constable Yogesh Patil of the Yawal Police Station told Compass. “We have not used any section of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) that deals with sexual assault in the FIR lodged against the Hindus.”

Chauhan then asked the women to write statements detailing the abuse.

When the Christians lodged an official complaint, the whole village turned against them.

“On June 12, a group of Hindu villagers from Jamanya village led by Moti Juga Patel held a meeting with villagers of nine neighboring villages. They asked them to socially ostracize the Christian families,” Chauhan told Compass.

“Christians can no longer collect water from common wells or buy food from the shops. Declaring the Christian community as lower castes or untouchables, these Hindus have instructed the Christians not to enter any house belonging to a Hindu family,” he added.

When seven Hindus were arrested on May 18 in connection with the attack on May 16, a counter complaint was lodged against the Christians, accusing them of desecrating Hindu gods. Thirteen Christians were arrested that same day under sections 295, 506 and 34 of the IPC.

Ten of the accused Christians were released on bail on May 24. However, three minors were held in a remand home for 8 days and released on bail on June 2. The three minors are Suresh Ransingh Barela, 12; Suresh Sahmal, 14; and Kiran Resla Barela, 16.

Another Christian, Garubindya Barela, was arrested on May 26 but released on bail the same day.

The seven accused Hindus have also been released on bail.

Chauhan rejected the claim that Christians had desecrated Hindu idols. “It was only after the arrests that these idols were broken,” he said. “I overheard some villagers saying that when members of the local Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS, a Hindu nationalist group) heard about the arrest of the Hindus, they asked local villagers to break the idols and accuse the Christians.”


The Christian Legal Association of India is providing legal aid for the Christian families. The Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, an RSS affiliate that works among tribal groups, is assisting the Hindu villagers.

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***********************************Demolition Ordered for Christian Settlement in Orissa, IndiaAdministration passes interim order, delaying demolition until monsoon season is over.by Vishal Arora

NEW DELHI, June 23 (Compass) -- On June 4, a government official ordered the demolition of 109 houses in a Christian settlement in the town of Jeypore, in Koraput district, Orissa state, as part of a “beautification” campaign.

When District Collector Shubha Sharma ordered that the houses be demolished “within 48 hours,” residents urged her to “stop the inconsiderate expulsion of the poor people on the eve of the monsoon season,” according to reports in the local Sambad newspaper.

Their plea was rejected and an extra deployment of police was ordered to supervise the demolition.

However, “on June 6, the district collector’s office passed an interim order to stop the demolition process until the monsoon season is over,” the Rt. Rev. Aman Khosola, bishop of the Jeypore Evangelical Lutheran Church, told Compass.

The monsoon season runs from approximately June 15 to August 15.

The district administration plans to build a boating park on the site to promote tourism.

Vasudev Pradhan, a district administrator, confirmed to Compass that the demolition was postponed due to a public outcry, but would be carried out “sometime in November or December.”

“The administration will look after the basic needs of the displaced residents,” he added.

The subdivision of Raja Nagar, in the northwest of Jeypore township, covers approximately 2,500 square yards and belongs partly to the state government. The majority of residents are Christians from tribal or Dalit backgrounds; they work as manual laborers and survive on minimal daily wages.

A senior administrative officer, who requested anonymity, pointed out to Compass that although there are illegal settlements all over Jeypore, the administration appeared to have singled out the Christian settlement for demolition.


Rabi Narayan Nanda, a local member of the state legislature and a minister in the state government, said on June 12 that he would work hard to prevent the demolitions, according to the Sambad report.

The newspaper accused Nanda, a member of the ruling Biju Janata Dal party, an ally of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, of taking up the issue to gain political mileage.

Meanwhile, local Christians suspect that the demolition order was inspired by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu extremist group.

“The RSS held a paramilitary training camp from June 2 to 4 in the town. This was presided over by the state minister of finance, Mr. Manmohan Samal, and the minister of water resources, Mr. Rabi Nanda,” said Khosola.

Plans to build a boating park were first announced in May, but the demolition order was not given until June 4, immediately after the RSS camp.

“The administration is trying to harass the minority Christian community,” Khosola alleged. “Christians are living together in one place in Raja Nagar, which fundamentalist organizations do not seem to like. That’s why they are trying to displace and scatter them.”

The Rev. Dr. D. B. Hrudaya, general secretary of the local chapter of the All India Christian Council, agreed. “Of course the land belongs to the state government, but they can easily find another site if they want to build a tourism center,” he told Compass.

Amar Thomas, an activist working on behalf of the residents, told Compass, “Development is welcome as it would benefit the local people, but it cannot be given preference over people’s basic right to live.”

Meanwhile Father Babu Joseph, spokesman of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, said in a statement to the Catholic news agency Fides that, “the order is a violation of the freedom and rights of these Indian families.”

“We call on the government to guarantee and protect these rights and to take measures to halt the spread of fundamentalism promoted by the RSS.”

When Compass contacted Sharma, the district collector, she declined to comment.

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***********************************Catholics Attacked in IndiaBishops ask for government intervention.by Vishal Arora


NEW DELHI, July 7 (Compass) -- Hindu extremists launched a series of violent attacks against Catholics in India during the month of June, causing concern in the Catholic community.

In response, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) has appealed to central and state governments to make an official inquiry and take action against the perpetrators.

Most recently, 10 young men attacked a group of nuns at the Chetanalaya Center in Rajgir township, in the eastern state of Bihar, on June 21.

The Catholic news agency Zenit reported that the youths, armed with guns and other weapons, broke into the facility late at night. Sister Rose Plathottam, director of the center, said she was “sleeping on the terrace along with 11 handicapped girls, who had stayed back during vacation.”

“Seeing nobody downstairs, the [youths] ransacked the convent ... to get hold of the keys to the rooms. Later they came up to the terrace, threatened me with a gun and dragged me to the ground floor,” Rose said.

The youths took cash and a mobile phone from Rose, and covered the girls’ faces with blankets. They then ransacked the entire center, fleeing with valuables such as an emergency lamp and 18,000 rupees ($410*) that had been set aside to buy medication for the dispensary.

Two weeks earlier, on June 9, a group of 15 men broke into the convent of Notre Dame in Raxaul, a small town in Bihar’s Champaran district.

The assailants broke open the gate and doors just before midnight and demanded money from an elderly nun, Sister Manjula. The men also attacked and beat Manjula, breaking one of her ribs and causing a serious head injury. Another nun suffered minor injuries.

On the same night, miscreants attacked another convent operated by the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth in Sokho village, Nawada district, in the southeast of Bihar.

Two more attacks took place in Rajasthan in the north and Madhya Pradesh in central India.

On June 12, three men broke into the “Maria Sadan” center, run by the Franciscan Sisters of Our Lady of Grace, in Bhivadi village near Ajmer in Rajasthan, as reported by South Asia Religious News.

The men assaulted two nuns and a maid with a knife, tied them to a bed in the dormitory, and fled with 9,000 rupees ($205*).

They also tried to abduct an 18-year-old girl who worked as a cook in the center, but the nuns protected her by saying she was married with two children.


Also on June 12, a number of young men entered the Holy Trinity Church in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, and threw rotten eggs and colored water against a statue of the infant Jesus.

Youths had previously attacked the same church on June 5.

About 2,000 parishioners from the diocese of Jabalpur met on June 14-15 to pray that God would bring about a “change of heart in those who desecrated the holy shrine,” according to Asia News, another Catholic news agency.

Earlier in the year, Father Mathew Uzhuthal, vicar general of the Archdiocese of Patna, Bihar, was stabbed for refusing to pay extortion money to a local criminal. He was injured on April 11 and died of his wounds on May 1. (See Compass Direct, “Catholic Priest Stabbed in East India,” April 14, 2005.)

Thomas Thiruthalil, Bishop of Balasore in the eastern state of Orissa, and Joseph Powathil, an archbishop in the southern state of Kerala, have also reported threats and acts of physical violence against parish members in recent weeks.

Father Babu Joseph, spokesperson for the CBCI, told Compass that the bishops were “seriously concerned about the recent spurt in violence against the Christian community and its institutions in some parts of the country.”

“We take strong exception to such lawlessness and anti-social activity,” he said.

“We ask the respective state governments to take immediate and effective action against criminal elements that play havoc with the lives of people, particularly the religious women who render meritorious service to humanity.”

Catholics comprised 1.54 percent, or 16.7 million, of India’s 2001 population of 1.2 billion, according to the country’s census. The population has since topped 1.3 billion.

* Correction

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***********************************Muslim Leaders Push for Islamic Law in IndonesiaFreedom of worship for Christians is restricted.by Steven Nasta

JAKARTA, June 9 (Compass) -- In the wake of the May 28 bombing in Tentena, both Muslim and Christian leaders have expressed concern about corruption and violence in Indonesia. Some Muslim leaders say the bombing is yet another reason why Indonesia should adopt sharia, or Islamic law, to combat moral decline.


A key leader of Indonesia’s largest Muslim group, the Majelis Ulama Indonesia (MUI), recently said that since 214 of the 240 million people of Indonesia are Muslim, it makes sense to adopt sharia to govern every aspect of life.

To date, efforts to amend the Constitution of 1945 to include sharia have failed. However, supporters of sharia are now using provincial laws as their entry point.

Provincial governments are increasingly using local bylaws -- Peraturan Daerah or Perda -- to introduce sharia principles. The easiest Perda to issue is the compulsory wearing of Muslim dress in government schools or offices, regardless of the person’s religion. Muslim dress includes the baju koko for men and the jilbab and rok panjang (headscarf and long dress) for women.

Sixteen of 32 provinces in Indonesia have now implemented some form of sharia at the district level. The province of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam, more commonly known as Aceh -- and sometimes as the “Verandah of Mecca” -- has formally adopted sharia. Under sharia, Muslim Acehnese are forbidden to attend churches or convert to Christianity.

Another province, West Sumatra, calls itself the “Verandah of Madina.” Here, evangelism is forbidden and evangelists who violate that ruling can be sentenced to imprisonment.

Muslim leaders on the island of Sulawesi, long affected by inter-religious violence, are also pushing for the implementation of sharia law.

In March, the Third Regional Congress of Muslims in Sulawesi was held in Bulukumba, 150 kilometers from Makassar, the capital of South Sulawesi province.

A key agenda of the Sulawesi Congress was the implementation of sharia law. The Komite Persiapan Penerapan Syariah Islam di Sulawesi (KPPSI), or Preparation Committee to Implement Islamic Sharia in Sulawesi, was established several years ago to lay the groundwork for such legislation, and now holds the Congress once a year.

The KPPSI hope sharia will be adopted in Sulawesi no later than 2008, according to Komintra, a Christian news agency based in Jakarta.

Komintra quoted Dr. H. Abdul Azis Qahhar Mudzakkar, a key leader of the KPPSI, who said the Congress had set a short-term target. “We hope that in one year, all districts and regions in South Sulawesi will pass local laws [based on sharia principles], as Bulukumba has done.”

The city of Bulukumba is a good example of how sharia can be implemented gradually in many spheres of life. People entering the city are greeted by billboards saying, “Free Bulukumba from Al-Quran Illiteracy.” The city is also in the process of implementing a dual economic system using zakat, infaz and sadaqah -- the Muslim alternative to ordinary taxes -- as a source of revenue.


The local government of Bulukumba also plans to adopt a sharia banking system to replace the conventional banking system. This is the traditional Muslim way of handling finances; but it leaves few options for people of other faiths.

‘Jakarta Declaration’Another Congress of Indonesian Muslims, the Kongres Umat Islam Indonesi (KUII IV), held in April 2004 in Jakarta, recommended that sharia law be adopted as the ultimate solution for Indonesia’s problems.

The KUII IV drew up a 14-point resolution, called the “Jakarta Declaration.” The declaration recommended adopting a dual economic system, both conventional and sharia-based, throughout Indonesia. Every bank in the country has now been encouraged to develop sharia banking services.

The KUII IV also asked the government to revise Indonesia’s criminal law, the Kitab Undang-Undang Hukum Pidana (KUHP), to reflect sharia law.

To speed up this process, a KUHP bill was drafted by a committee and presented to parliament. Professor Dr. Muladi, who chaired the committee, acknowledged that some sharia principles were included in the bill, and said the new bill was designed as a tool for “social engineering” to improve society.

Many Christian leaders believe it is only a matter of time before President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono signs the bill into law. The KUHP bill has had a remarkably low profile in its passage through parliament, keeping public discussion and objection to a minimum.

The KUII IV also suggested changes in religious education, as mandated by the National Education System Law No. 20/2003, which made it compulsory for all religious schools to provide religious education for students of other faiths.

Under this law, Christian schools with a certain quota of Muslim students were required to provide Muslim worship facilities and an appropriate religious instructor. (See Compass Direct, “Christians Protest New Education Policy,” June 13, 2003.)

However, some schools have yet to implement the required changes.

Restrictions on Christian WorshipMeanwhile, churches are still being destroyed or forced to close. A total of 966 churches have been burned or closed down since 1945, six of those since current President Yudhoyono was elected seven months ago.

The highest number of church closures or burnings occurred in the Malukus -- a total of 180; followed by West Java, which lost 132 churches. East Java lost 91, while Central


Sulawesi lost 51. These are the still the areas most wracked by inter-religious conflict today.

In West Java, it is very difficult to build new churches or obtain permits to use existing buildings for Christian worship. West Java was the center of the Darul Islam/Tentara Islam Indonesia (DI/TII or Islamic State/Islamic Indonesia Army) rebellion, which began in 1950 and lasted for about 12 years. Strong Islamic views are still prominent in the region, and as a result, less tolerance is shown to churches.

Law No. 20/1999, which sets guidelines for regional autonomy, granted governors and mayors the power to close down churches.

Christians also need official permits before they can build churches or worship in rented facilities. However, the government of West Java has granted permits to just four percent of the 1,965 congregations in the province, leaving the remaining 96 percent vulnerable to closure at any time. (See Compass Direct, “Churches Struggle to Find Worship Facilities,” February 11, 2005.)

Christians DividedThe situation is not helped by a lack of unity among Christians. For example, a Letter of Decision issued by the governor of West Java dictates that a church can only be built if there are a minimum of 20 Christian families living in the neighborhood.

The requirement for a minimum of 20 families has led to “sheep-stealing,” where pastors try to attract people from other churches in order to build up their own congregations as a precursor to applying for a building permit.

Because of this, churches are unwilling or unable to offer a joint protest against discriminatory laws and practices in the province.

In contrast, several groups have already formed to protect and promote Muslim values in West Java. These include the Gerakan Anti-Pemurtadan, or Anti-Proselytism Movement; the Persis or Muslim Brotherhood, and the Front Pembela Islam (Islamic Defender Front).

A prominent Christian leader in West Java, who declined to be named, said some Christians were their own worst enemies.

“Many of our Christians don’t live in accordance with Jesus’ teachings,” he said. “They don’t behave as light or salt. Many of them are involved in criminal gangs or become thugs. This has to change if we want to maintain a place for Christianity in Indonesia.”

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***********************************Three Women Arrested, Charged in IndonesiaLeaders of ‘Happy Sunday’ program accused of attempted conversion.


Special to Compass Direct

JAKARTA, June 23 (Compass) -- A Muslim council has accused three Indonesian women of attempting to convert Muslim children. Dr. Rebekka Zakaria, Eti Pangesti and Ratna Bangun were arrested on May 13 and taken to the Indramayu State Prison, where they await trial.

Dr. Zakaria is the pastor of Gereja Kristen Kemah Daud (GKKD), or Christian Church of David’s Camp, located in the small town of Harguelis, Indramayu district, West Java.

In 2003, a public elementary school in nearby Babakan Jati approached the church staff and asked if they would establish a Christian education program for the school.

After the National Education System Bill became law in June 2003, all public schools were required to provide religious education for children of religious minorities attending their schools (see Compass Direct, “A New Twist on Indonesia’s Controversial Education Bill,” September 12, 2003.)

The school in Babakan Jati had no means of providing Christian education, and therefore asked the GKKD church to provide teachers and an appropriate program. The Christian students would then be evaluated at the end of each semester and given the required marks in their school reports.

The women of the GKKD church set up a “Happy Sunday” program, with Christian songs, games and Bible study for the children. The program was run by Bangun and Pangesti, under the direction of their pastor, Zakaria.

After running for approximately 18 months, the number of children attending the program had grown to 40 -- but only 10 were from Christian homes.

The Muslim children attended the popular program with the full consent of their parents. Some of them began to sing Christian songs at school and at home, and this attracted the attention of Islamic elders who, in December 2004, forced the church to close down.

The women then continued to run the Happy Sunday program from Pangesti’s home.

On March 26, they organized an Easter bus tour to the Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, an amusement park in Jakarta. Each of the participating children was given a t-shirt displaying the name of the church and the Star of David logo, so that the teachers could keep track of them during the outing.

The children had also received gifts on other occasions. For example, at Christmas time each child was given a carry bag.

During the tour, one of the children asked for and received a Bible from one of the teachers.


As a result, Islamic leaders approached church staff and demanded that Muslim children no longer be allowed to attend the program. A complaint was also made to the Indramayu District Majelis Ulama Indonesia (MUI) council. As a result, the local MUI chairman, K. H. Muzakir Mahmud, made an official complaint to the Indramayu police.

On May 1, a local Islamic leader interviewed four of the Muslim children who had attended the Happy Sunday program and recorded their answers on video.

The children were asked whether the women had ever offered them money, to which they responded, “No.” However all the children said they had received gifts, and one told the interviewer that he had asked for and been given a Bible.

On the evening of May 13, the three women were arrested and taken to the police station for questioning. They were accused of breaching the Child Protection Law, Chapter 86, No. 23/2002. If convicted, they could be sentenced for up to five years and fined 1,000,000,000 rupees ($103,600).

Pastor Edward Monijong, the head of the GKKD Synod based in Bandung, West Java, immediately launched a campaign to secure the women’s release. Initially he contacted former president Abdurahman Wahid, more commonly known as Gus Dur, who was known for his policy of religious tolerance and now chairs the Islamic group Nadhlatul Ulama (NU).

Monijong also wrote a letter of appeal to the MUI chairman, Mahmud, asking that the women be released.

Mahmud, who is also a member of NU, agreed to drop the case.

However, H. Erik Isnaeni, an influential lawyer acting for the MUI Council, refused to drop the case. He also asked that bail be refused for the women, which meant they were unable to live at home under house arrest and take care of their own children.

The women were moved from police detention to the Indramayu State Prison on June 1 under the “protection” of the Attorney General’s office, to await trial. At press time, no date had been set for the first court hearing.

One source, who declined to be named, visited the women last week at the prison. Apart from being “eaten alive by mosquitoes,” all three were in good spirits; apparently many visitors had come to express their support and encouragement.

Bangun has sent her children to live with their grandfather on Sumatra island. Pangesti and Zakaria’s children will also be moved to another location in the near future to protect them from possible attacks or intimidation during the trial.

Meanwhile, legal assistance has been arranged for the women, and their lawyers are currently preparing for a trial that could make headlines in a country still clearly divided along religious lines.


*** A photograph of Dr. Rebekka Zakaria, Eti Pangesti and Ratna Bangun is available electronically. Contact Compass Direct for pricing and transmittal.

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***********************************Jordanian Widow Wins Final Court BattleAppellate court permanently cancels Muslim guardianship.by Barbara G. Baker

ISTANBUL, June 16 (Compass) -- A Jordanian court of appeal rejected a last-ditch appeal this week from the Muslim guardian fighting for custody of Christian widow Siham Qandah’s two minor children.

The June 13 decision reconfirmed an earlier verdict from Amman’s Al-Abdali Sharia Court two months ago which revoked the legal guardianship of Abdullah al-Muhtadi, the maternal uncle of Qandah’s daughter Rawan and son Fadi.

According to Qandah’s lawyer, this final verdict from the appellate court cannot be appealed. It effectively cancels all other pending cases regarding permanent custody of the children, now 16 and 15 years of age.

Al-Muhtadi has been ordered by the court to repay misspent funds he had withdrawn from his wards’ inheritance accounts without judicial approval. He is also expected to be required to repay several thousand dinars in monthly orphan benefits which he failed to forward over the past 11 years.

Qandah may now select a new guardian for court approval to oversee her children’s legal affairs until they reach maturity at age 18. In accordance with Islamic inheritance laws enforced in Jordan, the new guardian also must have a Muslim religious identity.

After the April 12 verdict in Qandah’s favor, al-Muhtadi had waited until the very end of the 30-day deadline to exercise his right of appeal under court procedures. One Jordanian Christian who read the appeal statement said it presented “a very weak argument which lacks any evidence.” Nevertheless, the lower court judge accepted the appeal for formal consideration.

Qandah’s attorney then had 10 days to present his counter arguments to the Court of Appeal of the Al-Abdali Sharia Court, which issued its written decision three days ago.

Although born, baptized and raised as Christians, Rawan and Fadi were designated legally as Muslims after their soldier father’s death 11 years ago in Kosovo, where he served in the U.N. Peacekeeping Forces. At that time an Islamic court had produced an unsigned “conversion” certificate claiming that their father had secretly converted to Islam three years before his death.


Under Islamic law, this automatically made his minor children Muslims, thus preventing their Christian mother from handling their financial affairs. So Qandah asked al-Muhtadi, her estranged brother who had converted to Islam as a teenager, to serve as their legal Muslim guardian.

But al-Muhtadi gradually began pocketing some of the children’s monthly benefits. Later he filed suit to take personal custody of the children, in order to raise them as Muslims. In the process, he withdrew nearly half of their U.N.-allocated trust funds, allegedly to pay lawyers’ fees.

After a four-year court battle, Jordan’s Supreme Islamic Court ruled in al-Muhtadi’s favor in February 2002, ordering Qandah to give her children into his custody. Subsequently, she and her children went into hiding several times to avoid arrest or forced separation.

Although the case remained virtually unreported in Jordan, Qandah’s dilemma has attracted international press coverage for more than three years. King Abdullah II and other members of the Jordanian royal family have since monitored the case, pledging that she would not lose custody of her children.

“I am very happy with her results,” Prince Mired bin Raed of the Jordanian royal family told Compass from Amman yesterday, after speaking with Qandah by telephone. “She told me that she won the case, and she is really delighted that everything is over now.”

With the child custody impasse resolved, Rawan and Fadi Qandah will no longer be blacklisted from traveling outside the country.

At age 18, each of the children will be permitted to decide whether their official Jordanian identity will be Muslim or Christian. But under Islamic laws of inheritance, their choice to be Christians will require them to forfeit the U.N. trust funds deposited in their name, along with their ongoing orphan benefits from the Jordanian army.

For the past three years, Qandah’s life has been consumed by intense interaction between her lawyers, the courts, her spiritual advisers and a number of civic consultants in a fulltime struggle to retain custody of her children.

But now she hopes to find employment or possibly start up a small shop that would generate sufficient income for her family. As soon as the children’s new guardian is appointed by the court, she will again receive a small monthly stipend for their combined orphan benefits.

Qandah and her children live in northern Jordan in the city of Husn, where they attend the Husn Baptist Church and the children are enrolled in the local Roman Catholic school.


*** New photographs of Qandah and her children taken on May 1 are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct for pricing and transmittal.

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***********************************Evangelical Christian Denied Burial in MexicoRecent laws permit indigenous communities to invoke ‘use and custom’ rules.by Elisabeth Isais

MEXICO CITY, June 15 (Compass) -- Alberto Iturbe was only 38 years old when he died on May 25. The grieving family began the task of arranging for his burial, but everywhere they turned, permission was denied them on the basis that they were evangelical Christians, not traditional Catholics. Even their pastor, an official of the Evangelical Pastoral Alliance of Puebla city, was unable to work out a solution.Finally, the family had no choice but to cremate Iturbe. The law in Mexico requires burial within 24 hours, and by that time, he had already been dead 36 hours with no embalmment.

The Iturbes live in the city of Puebla, capital of Puebla state, in a peripheral colony known as The Resurrection where many inhabitants still speak an indigenous language, Nahuatl. Seeking permission for the burial, the family first went to the assistant to the municipal president, where they were turned down. Next they went to the Catholic priest for his authorization, but he refused. Finally, in desperation they asked for help from the local district attorney, receiving another negative response.

Mexican law placed burials under the secular government in 1859; previously they had been controlled by the Catholic Church. But new laws have been passed recently permitting indigenous communities to invoke “use and custom” over the regular civil laws, as in The Resurrection colony case.

The Iturbe family belongs to the Rivers of Living Water Church, whose pastor, David Brito Sanchez, is treasurer of the Evangelical Pastoral Alliance of Puebla. He asked help from another pastor, Jose Moreno Rodriguez, who is in charge of relationships between evangelical churches and the state government for the alliance. Both men tried to solve the problem, but so far, the authorities have been unable to come up with a solution, recommending only that evangelicals press for a change in the new law.

Indignant evangelical leaders in Puebla are asking whether Mexico can permit such a situation so close to the national capital. Madero University professor Marjorie Hord Mendez commented, “It seems unthinkable that such things happen in the 21st century. This is a flagrant violation of human rights.”

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Christian Students File Suit Against Nigerian University Expulsion for campus evangelism claimed as religious persecution.by Obed Minchakpu

JOS, Nigeria, June 7 (Compass) -- Three students expelled for sharing the gospel in November last year say their fundamental rights as Christians were violated by the authorities of the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University (ATBU) in the town of Bauchi in northern Nigeria.

Abraham Adamu Misal, Habakkuk Solomon, and Miss Hannatu Haruna Alkali filed suit No: FHC/J/CS/118/2004 before the Federal High Court of Justice in Jos against ATBU. The three were students of the university in the departments of Electrical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, and Biology Education, respectively, until November last year when they were expelled for doing campus evangelism among Muslim students. The case between the three Christian students and the authorities of ATBU first came up before the court on May 12.

Emmanuel Danboyi, lawyer to the Christian students, filed a 32-point statement of claims saying the expulsion was a gross violation of the students’ fundamental rights as Christians, which also amounted to religious persecution.

According to Danboyi, the university’s disciplinary committee which investigated the case was biased because it had 10 Muslims and only one Christian on the committee. He said this contributed to the committee wrongly accusing the Christian students of blasphemy against the prophet of Islam, Mohammed, and creating a situation in which the Christian students were expelled from the university and a death sentence passed on them by the Muslims in the institution.

“The Muslim members of the disciplinary committee who constituted a majority were biased and unfair in their investigation in that they acted as accusers, prosecutors and judges in the matter in which members openly showed interest,” the lawyer to the Christian students told the court.

After Alkali, Misal, and Solomon were expelled, Muslim students attacked Christian students at the university and murdered a Christian student leader on December 8, 2004. ATBU was closed. In January, Muslim militants pronounced a death sentence on the expelled students, and the families of Alkali and Misal were attacked on January 26. (See Compass Direct, “Muslim Militants Target Expelled Christian Students,” February 3, 2005.) ATBU re-opened on February 28 under tight security and without meeting the demands of Christian leaders who sought to reinstate the expelled Christians.

Danboyi asked the court to declare, “The recommendation of the disciplinary committee contained in its report signed by Prof. U.O. Aliyu is null, void and of no effect whatsoever, in that it was made in gross violation of the plaintiffs’ constitutional right to a fair hearing.”


The Christian students are also asking the court to set aside their expulsion from the university.

Authorities of the university through their lawyer, Mahmood Sanda (Esq.), asked the court to dismiss the claims of the Christian students as the suit was not filed within the period permitted by law. However, Danboyi proved before the court that the case was filed within the time frame permitted by the law. Justice Charles Efanga Archibong, judge of the Jos Federal High Court, submitted his statement that the court will proceed to hear the case.

The court began its hearing of the suit on Monday, June 6, with Alkali testifying. The hearing continues on July 6.

***Photographs of expelled students Hannatu Haruna Alkali, Abraham Adamu Misal, and Habakkuk Solomon are available electronically. Please contact Compass Direct for pricing and transmittal.

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***********************************Christian Lecturer in Nigeria Disappears After Death ThreatMuslim dress code stirs unrest in Kaduna and Kano states.by Obed Minchakpu

ZARIA, Nigeria, June 8 (Compass) -- Andrew Akume, a Christian lecturer at Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) in Zaria city, Kaduna state, northern Nigeria, has disappeared since the issuance of a death sentence against him. A militant Muslim group at ABU passed the sentence on him claiming he blasphemed Mohammed, the prophet of Islam.

The death sentence for Akume, the university’s dean of the faculty of law, is contained in two fatwas (Islamic decrees) issued in the months of May and June by the “Concerned Muslims Movement” of ABU. In a circular entitled “Fatwa: The Resolutions,” distributed on the university campus, Akume was accused of “assault on Muslim sisters and blasphemy against Allah and Islam.” Akume asked a Muslim female student not to wear the hijab (head covering) because it hid the identity of the student from lecturers and students. According to Akume, the student disregarded the Council for Legal Education’s dress code for law students by wearing the Islamic dress.

The second fatwa issued said, “Our earlier fatwa holds, and it is a time bomb which will explode in a few days’ time.” The circular, which contained no dates or names, accused Akume of blaspheming the Prophet Mohammed and of making the faculty of law at the university a “hell for Muslims.”

Shortly before his disappearance, Akume submitted a petition to the authorities of ABU denying the accusations made against him by the militant Muslim group. According to


the Christian lecturer, he harbors no ill-feelings against Muslim students and he never assaulted any of them.

“I was only trying to live up to my responsibility as the dean of the faculty of law by enforcing the dress code for law students prescribed by the Council of Legal Education in Nigeria and approved by Nigerian universities’ law faculties. The dress code instructed that only approved dresses be used by law students. Veils and religious dresses were not approved for these students,” Akume stated in his petition.

The Rev. Eugene Ogu, chairman of the Pentecostal arm of the Christian Association of Nigeria in Rivers state, Nigeria, told Compass today that the death sentence is capable of aggravating the already tense religious atmosphere in Nigeria.

“A situation whereby government and security agencies turn blind eyes and ears to the persecution of Christians in northern Nigeria is not acceptable to the Christian leadership in this country,” Ogu told Compass.

Christians Forced to Wear Islamic DressMeanwhile in Kano state, Christians are being held to Islamic law in the way they dress. On May 16 at a Muslim forum in the city of Kano, Governor Malam Ibrahim Shekarau ordered that all Christians in the state must dress in accordance with Islamic tenets. The order was sent to Christian churches and institutions in the state.

Shekarau said, “All Christians in Kano are henceforth prohibited from dressing the way they like. Their dressing must reflect the culture and religion of Islam.”

According to the governor, the implementation of the dress code will start in schools across the state immediately then be extended to everyone. Such dresses approved for women by the government, he said, include head coverings and long flowing robes that cover from head to toe. Some of the schools have already enforced the Islamic dress code.

The Rt. Rev. Zakka Nyam, the Anglican Bishop of Kano, has accused the state government of persecuting Christians. In an interview with Compass in Kano city on June 3, Nyam said Christians in the state have been denied land to build churches, made to imbibe Islamic culture, and at various times have been killed and their churches destroyed.

“Let me cite an example of the kind of problems we have faced here in Kano. We have been forced by the government not to build our church at Fagge, 23 years after its foundation was laid. The government of Kano state has said it would not permit the building of the church,” Nyam said.

“Religious discrimination still takes prominence here in Kano. We are being persecuted and deprived of places of worship in Kano state, despite the fact that we, Christians, have been living in peace with the Muslims,” Nyam explained.


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***********************************Persecution Memo Sent to Nigeria’s Reform ConferenceChristian leaders express concern about Islamic institutions.by Obed Minchakpu

ABUJA, Nigeria, June 14 (Compass) -- Christian leaders in northern Nigeria submitted a memorandum to the nation’s National Political Reform Conference on Thursday, June 9, cataloguing cases of persecution and discrimination against Christians.

The National Political Reform Conference is expected to draft a revised constitution which will then be presented to Nigeria’s president, Olusegun Obasanjo. The conference, which began on February 21 and goes until June 21, gathered 400 delegates from across the country to Abuja, the country’s federal capital city.

Archbishop Peter Jatau and Elder Saidu Dogo, chairman and secretary respectively of the northern Nigeria chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), expressed concern in the memorandum that while the Nigerian constitution professes a secular status for the nation, state governments in northern Nigeria are Islamic institutions whose main task is to promote and propagate Islam using public funds.

Twelve northern Nigerian states are presently implementing the Islamic legal system (sharia). Since the introduction of sharia in the past five years, tens of thousands of lives are reported to have been lost in religious conflicts in northern Nigeria alone.

Jatau and Dogo say in the memorandum that discriminatory religious policies have led to the denial of land for the building of churches, denial of media coverage for Christian propagation and activities, and denial of Christian religious instruction in schools.

A copy of the memorandum given to Compass by Dogo says, “CAN is sad to say that most states in the North have denied Christians land to build places of worship. In some of these states [including Kano state], land has not been given or allocated to our members to build churches in the past 35 years. The denial of such land to build places of worship is a way of causing religious disharmony in the country and most especially in the northern states.

“Christians in the north have not been given equal opportunity in the state-owned, national media organizations to propagate or evangelize our faith. Even sponsored Christian programs are denied coverage in both state and national electronic media in states like Kano, Sokoto, Zamfara, and Katsina, among others,” the Christian leaders added.

“As important as moral instruction is, CAN has observed that Christian students in most northern states are being denied teachers of Christian Religious Knowledge [in


comparison to] the massive employment of Islamic teachers. This discrepancy is heightening tension in this part of the country,” the memorandum stated.

The Christian leaders added, “Our mission schools have been taken over by the government without compensation. We demand that states which took over these schools should return them.”

In their memorandum to the country’s national Political Reform Conference, the northern Christian leaders are demanding that all provisions for religious laws in the Nigerian constitution be removed, that persecution of Christians in the country be stopped, and that all Nigerians be given equal opportunity in the country.

President Olusegun Obasanjo stated in a nationwide radio and television broadcast on February 14 that he believes the Political Reform Conference provides, “… one major chance that we all have to be part of history, to put all our cards on the table, to discuss as one family, engage in exchange of ideas, vigorous debate and innovative involvement in shaping the future of our nation.”

The reform conference has seven major issues on its agenda for discussion. These include the constitution, political parties, elections, judiciary, civil society, structure of government, and consensus building.

*** Photographs of Elder Saidu Dogo are available electronically. Please contact Compass Direct for pricing and transmittal.

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***********************************Nigeria Joins Islamic Development Bank Membership raises religious tension in the country.by Obed Minchakpu

ABUJA, Nigeria, June 23 (Compass) -- Nigeria has formally joined the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) in spite of protests by Christian leaders, who see the move as the continuation of the Islamization of the country by Muslims, increasing the already tense religious atmosphere in Nigeria.

The IDB is run in accordance with the principles of sharia, the Islamic law. The bank was established in 1973 in Saudi Arabia, and has its headquarters in Jeddah.

Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s finance minister, announced the membership of Nigeria as the 55th member of the Islamic bank on Wednesday, June 15. Okonjo-Iweala stated that the Nigerian government has paid the sum of $3.4 million to the bank as its initial membership subscription.


To become a member in the IDB, a prospective member country should be a member of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), pay its contribution to the capital of the bank and be willing to accept such terms and conditions as may be decided upon by the IDB Board of Governors. The OIC is an international organization of countries pooling resources to speak with one voice to safeguard the interests of their people and of all Muslims in the world. Nigeria joined the OIC in 1986.

Okonjo-Iweala said at a press conference in Abuja, the nation’s capital, that the Nigerian government had wanted to join the bank in 1999, but religious controversy derailed the decision, forcing the government to delay the processing of the country’s bank membership.

Christian and Muslim legislators in the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of Nigeria’s National Assembly, adamantly opposed each other on Wednesday, May 25, while debating Nigeria’s decision to become a member of the bank.

Sixteen Muslim members of the House of Representatives brought a motion before the House demanding Nigeria’s membership in the Islamic bank. The motion was countered by the Christian members of the House who saw the demand as a desire to continue the Islamization of the country.

Datti Baba Ahmed, a Muslim legislator in the House and spokesperson for the sixteen Muslim legislators, claimed that Nigeria’s membership of the Islamic bank will attract loans of about $200 million to the country annually.

However, Halims Agoda, a Christian legislator, countered that Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution, under section 10, forbids the government from adopting any religion as a state religion. He said Nigeria’s membership in the Islamic Development Bank will indicate that the country is an Islamic state.

Agoda’s position was supported by Depo Oyedokin and Wale Okediran, both Christian legislators, who said in view of the prevailing religious atmosphere in the country, Nigeria should not become a member of the bank.

The debate on the issue was inconclusive and tensions remained high among the legislators as both sides fought for their convictions. The leadership of the House then hurriedly adjourned the debate on the issue. While Nigerians were waiting anxiously to see what the outcome would be, the government announced the membership.

Okonjo-Iweala said despite the outcry by Christians against membership in the Islamic bank, the government decided to take the membership because, “The IDB is a multilateral development financing institution which promotes economic and social development of member states.”

She explained that the Islamic bank performs similar functions to the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the African Development Bank.


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***********************************Saudi Arabia Releases Five Christian PrisonersEast Africans return to their Riyadh jobs.by Barbara G. Baker

ISTANBUL, June 20 (Compass) -- Five East Africans arrested and detained for a month for leading a private Christian worship service in Riyadh have been released and allowed to return to their jobs in the Saudi Arabian capital.

Three weeks after their May 30 release, the three Ethiopians and two Eritreans have been given no indication that they will lose their jobs or be subjected to deportation as a result of their detention.

“It’s a miracle. It’s not normal here for them to be released like this and allowed to go back to their jobs,” a friend of the men told Compass yesterday. “They didn’t have to notify their sponsors or anything, and they are all back at work.”

Saudi Arabia routinely deports foreign Christians caught meeting in their homes for worship, requiring their employers to terminate their work and residence visas. As a direct result of being arrested, jailed, fired from their jobs and evicted from the country, most of these Christians lose all their retirement benefits as well.

The men were interrogated extensively, initially while blindfolded the first seven days. But they said they were not physically mistreated. After their first week of detention, they were housed in what one source called “a good place, not like those where most prisoners are kept.”

From Riyadh, a consul official at the Ethiopian Embassy told Compass today that his embassy had heard nothing at all about the arrest and detention of these five men from the Saudi Arabian authorities.

“They are released?” Mr. Yitbarek said. “I didn’t get any news about this until now.”

However, he confirmed that after the prisoners’ relatives informed the embassy about the arrests, his staff had visited several detention centers in an effort to locate the prisoners. “But when we sent our colleagues to find them, they weren’t there,” the consul said.

The five men were leaders of a small house church raided by the muttawa (Islamic religious police) during a worship service on April 29. The 35 men, women and children present were told that their gathering was “forbidden” in the Saudi kingdom, where non-Muslim public worship is banned.


The group of East Africans had met privately for prayer and worship in Riyadh for at least four years, local sources said.

More than two years ago, Deputy Interior Minister Prince Ahmad was quoted in the April 9, 2003, issue of Arab News, declaring that non-Muslims residing in the Saudi kingdom are allowed to practice their religious beliefs “at home and in private.”

But within the past two months, at least three groups of expatriate Christians meeting privately for worship in Riyadh have been raided and their leaders put under arrest for several days or weeks. Some of those imprisoned have been fired from their jobs and others reportedly deported.

In response to recent press reports that Saudi Arabia was arresting and torturing Pakistani, Indian and East African Christians for holding “organized religious gatherings,” a Saudi official spoke anonymously to the Saudi Press Agency on June 8.

In an Associated Press article titled “Saudis Deny Persecuting Christians,” the official was quoted as saying these allegations were incompatible “with the principles and values of the kingdom, and above all, our tolerant Islamic belief, which guarantees the rights of Muslims and residents of different religions and ethnicities alike.”

Under the rule of strict Islamic law, Saudi Arabia prohibits the public practice of any religion other than Islam within its borders. Last year, it was placed on the U.S. State Department’s list of “countries of particular concern” for its severe violations of religious freedom.

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***********************************Turkish Protestants Seek Legal StatusGovernment encourages “association” route for new churches.by Barbara G. Baker

ISTANBUL, June 7 (Compass) -- On Istanbul’s official municipality site map, the Besiktas Protestant Church is marked in green, signifying a building used for religious purposes.

So for all practical purposes, it is clear that the administration of Turkey’s largest city considers the building a church.

In fact, that is exactly how the three-level structure has been used ever since it was purchased five years ago to serve a congregation now numbering 35. In addition to a sanctuary on the top floor, the building houses several offices, meeting rooms, a library and a small nursery, together with a kitchen and dining area on one level.


At least 25 other Turkish Protestant congregations meet throughout the city in rented or purchased facilities, many also marked in green on the site map.

“Even the Koca Mustafa Pasha church, which meets in a basement, is shown,” one of the Besiktas church leaders noted. “But the map is a usage map, rather than a municipal zoning plan.”

And there lies the rub, local Protestants say.

“The issue is not the right to worship,” Izmir pastor Zekai Tanyar told Compass. “The courts have upheld that right. But calling [a building] a place of worship is different.”

For decades, the Turkish penal code prohibited the use of “apartment flats, shops and free-standing buildings” as places of worship, either by Muslims or non-Muslim religious minorities. Although Turkey’s 70 million people are overwhelmingly Muslim, the country’s tiny religious mosaic includes an ethnic minority of less than 100,000 Armenian, Syrian and Greek Orthodox Christians, together with 25,000 Jewish citizens.

But in the drive to obtain membership in the European Union (EU), the Turkish government has included cosmetic legal reforms giving a vague nod to the concept of opening new churches and other non-Muslim places of worship.

According to Tanyar, chairman of the legal committee for the Alliance of Protestant Churches (APC) in Turkey, the problem is establishing an official, legal identity.

“Where the whole thing falls down is whether you can be considered a legal entity, to have your own bank accounts, to pay pastors, to have official status and own the building as a religious group,” Tanyar noted. Local police authorities have even forced some congregations to remove modest signs identifying their building as a church.

Currently a total of 55 Protestant churches are publicly identified as places of worship in the major cities of Turkey, although all are not affiliated with the APC. However, none of these facilities have been able to acquire formal, legal status as church buildings.

Although Istanbul’s Altintepe Protestant Church, which won unique foundation status in a December 2000 court ruling confirmed in two Supreme Court appeals, shares this same problem, in practical terms it operates as a legal entity.

Two Protestant churches who subsequently applied for church foundation status were denied by the government, which advised them to instead request association status. Ankara’s Kurtulus Church was granted full association status in March. “Now we can do all kinds of activities,” Pastor Ihsan Ozbek said.

So a growing number of Turkish congregations are exploring the bureaucratic application process to become an association, which then authorizes them to start setting up a church.


“This is not a complete answer,” APC lawyer Orhan Kemal Cengiz told Compass, noting that associations could not be labeled churches as such. “They are instead associations to form churches.” But right now, he said, “This is the only way to become a legal church.”

Since no unified “state attitude” has yet been spelled out on this sensitive process, Cengiz admitted, the path of necessary approvals seems to vary according to the attitude of both local and high-level government officials.

“Some officials want to create more obstacles for these churches, some want to find a middle way, and others want full-fledged religious freedom,” he said.

Over the past two decades, an estimated 3,000 Turkish Muslims have converted to Christianity. Under the laws of the secular state, Turkish citizens are allowed to record this legal change of their religion on their official identity cards, although only a few hundred have done so.

Over the past four years, city construction and zoning regulations have been cited as one legal obstacle preventing newly formed congregations of Turkish Christians from worshipping in buildings they may have rented or purchased.

In Diyarbakir a year ago in May, a criminal court dropped all charges filed against a Protestant pastor for opening an “illegal” church. The Diyarbakir Protestant Church then faced strong opposition by a local committee of the Turkish Ministry of Culture, insisting the church property was not properly zoned for the place of worship they had built.

Another obstacle raised was the alleged requirement that every place of worship be situated on a plot at least 2,500 square meters in area. In Diyarbakir and most other cities of Turkey, only the local Grand Mosque meets this requirement. Nevertheless, after Ankara officials weighed in on the local objections, a final municipality approval is expected for the church building later this week.

Still another legal loophole is a federal statute requiring owners of one floor or apartment within a residential building to obtain written permission from the other owners of the building if they want to use it as a public place, such as for church services.

Two years ago, an Istanbul court cited this regulation in a blanket rejection of lawsuits for legal status filed by eight separate congregations in the city. Photocopies of the decision were sent to each church, despite the fact that several of the groups were worshipping in free-standing buildings, to which the regulation does not apply. The churches’ separate appeals of the decision are all still pending.

In some cases, local authorities have refused to even consider registering a new church. In the Black Sea city of Samsun, Pastor Orhan Bicakcilar of Agape House was told that his building and property was too small and that nearby neighbors would be disturbed by their worship.


“Our building is in fact 660 square meters,” Bicakcilar said, making it one of the largest Protestant structures in use in Turkey. “But it seems the authorities want to view it as a house church.”

In the Avcilar district of Istanbul, a small congregation led by Australian Ian McLure won a formal acquittal two years ago on charges of holding illegal meetings in their rented building. But then they were promptly threatened with prosecution for not complying with zoning laws dictating where religious buildings could be established.

So the Avcilar congregation moved out of its premises and has since applied to buy land close to an existing mosque and an Alawite worship center. “The land is available and suitable,” McLure said, “so there is no justification for us to be refused.”

According to a September 2003 communiqué from the Interior Ministry outlining the procedure for opening new places of worship, it is theoretically possible for local municipalities to re-zone the property of buildings already functioning as churches. But so far no town planners are known to have implemented such a re-zoning.

“Churches can’t be legally harassed very easily after they’ve formed associations,” Pastor Carlos Madrigal of the Altintepe Protestant Church observed, “but it’s still possible.

“Nevertheless, the state has shown the churches the way, and we need to follow it. If we do not do so, it would be like not giving Caesar his due. In the long run, we will be able to set up churches. And according to the European Constitution, free expression of religion will become an established fact of life in Turkey.”

But some Protestant groups have opted for “house churches,” with 40 or more groups meeting in small numbers in private homes for prayer, Bible study and worship rather than pursuing any formalized official status.

“I would hate to see the church fall under the conditions mosques are in here now, under government control,” one expatriate Christian admitted. “If this is the price of formalizing the relationship with the state, I’m not interested.”

While such a stance might not be patently illegal, lawyer Cengiz believes such house churches could make it more difficult for congregations trying to legalize themselves.

Several Turkish Protestant churches currently meet in chapel buildings on foreign consulate or European church properties, thus remaining outside the formal reach of Turkish law.

With a place of worship secured for the Istanbul Presbyterian Church in the Anglican All Saints’ Church in Moda, Pastor Turgay Ucal admitted he has stopped pushing for legal status. “We can afford to be patient for some years yet, while our congregation grows in numbers and maturity,” he explained. Perhaps then, he said, Turkish society would be ready to accept their legal presence.


“The issue of the legalization of Protestant churches is under constant and close scrutiny,” a source from a European embassy in Ankara confirmed to Compass last week. “It will continue to be one of the topics on the agenda of the EU.”____________________Researched in Istanbul by Rajiv Lee.

(Return to Index)

***********************************Turkish Conference ‘Researches’ Missionary ActivityGovernment co-sponsors academic symposium.by Rajiv Lee

ISTANBUL, June 7 (Compass) -- In step with months of intense media focus on missionary activities in Turkey, the government’s Religious Affairs Directorate coordinated a symposium this spring in conjunction with a local university to present academic research on the controversial topic.

Entitled “Missionary Activity in the Turkish World,” the March 15-17 seminar hosted by Canakkale’s March 18 University attracted a variety of professors, academics and local researchers.

Presentations at the conference included reports on Christian missionary activities within Turkey as well as among Turks in Kyrgyzstan, Bulgaria, France and Germany.

After seeing an announcement posted on a local website about the symposium, two Turkish Christians from the Yeni Dogus (New Birth) Church in Izmir decided to attend. Since one of them had a beard, he was reportedly mistaken to be a hoca (Islamic teacher), and the conference personnel were very helpful, even showing him how to charge up his computer.

“He was not recognized until the woman who gave her report on the Izmir church came up to make her presentation,” one source said. Although the two church members were allowed to stay, they were asked to stop making an audio recording of the sessions.

According to one of the Izmir visitors, female academic Melek Calisir had come to their church some months earlier, claiming to be a university student preparing for a class. She had conducted her survey in the church, visited the café associated with the church and talked to the people there.

“A few churches like ours and the Istanbul Presbyterian Church were presented objectively, because we had welcomed the people who came to do research,” the attendee said. “But other reports were less positive.”


He said about 40 professors and academics gave reports at the symposium, naming the individuals involved in missionary activities, especially those in eastern Turkey.

It was clear that conference organizers viewed missionary activity at least in part as a security issue, with several professors from the police academy giving presentations. Their lecture titles included “Missionary Activity from the Viewpoint of European Human Rights Court Decisions,” “Effect of the Implementation of European Union Reforms on Religious and Cultural Activities” and “The General State of Missionary Activity in Turkey: Strategic and Tactical Methods and Applications.”

Not a word was published in the Turkish press about the Canakkale symposium. “The aim was apparently not to open it to the public, but just to academic circles,” one of the Yeni Dogus visitors said, although it was announced that a book and transcript of the sessions would be made available later through the university.

When a discussion ensued after a report on the Syrian Orthodox Christians in Turkey, the visitor recalled that the moderator declared, “If they are such good citizens, and have not betrayed the state in any way, why don’t they just become Muslims?”

(Return to Index)

***********************************Report: Missionaries ‘Cover Turkey Like a Spider’s Web’Christians are accused of promoting ethnic divisions.by Barbara G. Baker

ISTANBUL, June 22 (Compass) -- Intelligence agencies within the Turkish state have concluded in a new report that Christian missionary activities inside the country have a second motive, parallel to their spread of Christian propaganda.

According to a June 11 article in Cumhuriyet newspaper, the state believes that foreign missionaries are also promoting ethnic divisions, particularly among the Kurds.

Declaring that missionaries “cover Turkey like a spider’s web,” the report accuses them of focusing on sensitive regions of the country and using the cover of “faith tourism” to target lower-income citizens, youth, children and women.

As part of a recently disclosed intelligence report entitled “Reactionary Elements and Risks,” the state’s assessment of missionary activity was coupled with a separate analysis of Islamist terrorist groups and their known leaders active within Turkey.

Currently, foreign missionaries were said to be increasing their pace in the Black Sea and eastern Anatolia regions of Turkey, Cumhuriyet noted. In search of potential converts, the report said, missionaries were targeting the ethnic Kurdish and Laz communities, as well as adherents of the Alawite sect.


According to the report, the majority of foreign missionaries come from South Korea, the United States, England, New Zealand, Australia, Germany, Sweden and Romania.

They were said to represent Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox groups of Christians, as well as Jehovah’s Witnesses and Baha’is.

In addition, the report stated that in recent years, Turkish and foreign citizens were cooperating to form non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the Turkish Southeast, where it was noted that church members make up “an important portion” of the staff of these NGOs.

Addressed in the report were concerns about Bible courses being formed under the guise of “investigative” studies, as well as individuals going door to door distributing religious books, brochures and magazines. Occasional seminars and meetings were also being organized, the report said.

Istanbul was identified as Turkey’s missionary headquarters, although places of worship were known to be established in Ankara, Izmir, Eskisehir, Antalya, Hatay, Mersin and Kusadasi, the report said.

In the intelligence report, Jehovah’s Witnesses were said to be presenting themselves as the true and only pure Christians, while Baha’is reportedly focused on developing relationships with state officials, journalists, progressive businessmen and people in the performing and fine arts.

(Return to Index)

***********************************Europe Reacts to Turkey’s Missionary Phobia Protestants call government rhetoric “active disinformation.”by Barbara G. Baker

ISTANBUL, June 22 (Compass) -- For the past six months, both Islamist and nationalist circles in Turkey have launched strident broadsides against what even state officials are calling “dangerous” Christian activities.

In the context of a conservative backlash against the secular but overwhelmingly Muslim Turkey’s push to join the “historically Christian” European Union (EU), the campaign is not surprising.

For decades, charges that Christian missionaries have a political agenda have been a staple of the Turkish media, often fueled by self-serving political circles. But until now, the government itself has rarely given these claims such open backing.


Yet ever since the EU’s decision last December to begin membership accession talks with Turkey, religious freedom has been on Europe’s short list of major issues for Turkey to resolve, both on paper and in practice.

During a dinner meeting last week in Ankara with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, EU ambassadors voiced direct criticism of comments made before the Turkish Parliament by State Minister Mehmet Aydin, whose portfolio includes the state-run Religious Affairs Directorate.

“The goal of missionary activity is to break up the historical, religious, national and cultural unity of the people of Turkey,” Aydin had said on March 27. Accusing Christian missionaries in Turkey of “ulterior political motives,” he claimed their activities “have a historical background,” and that “a significant part of missionary activity is done in secret.”

According to Cumhuriyet newspaper, during their June 15 meeting with Erdogan, the EU ambassadors labeled Aydin’s comments “exaggerated and divisive.” Belgian Ambassador Jan Mattysen openly questioned Ankara’s repeated insistence that Turkey’s religious minorities experienced “no difficulties,” Radikal newspaper noted.

Back on March 22, Interior Minister Abdulkadir Aksu had weighed in on the controversy, accusing missionaries of taking advantage of sectarian and cultural differences inside Turkey -- as well as natural disasters like earthquakes and floods -- to evangelize among low-income families.

Answering a deputy’s query in parliament, Aksu said that over the past seven years, 338 Muslim Turks had changed their religious identity to Christianity, with six converting to Judaism.

Fabricated Statistics

The interior minister’s statistics clearly refuted wild claims in the Turkish media, topped by an unsubstantiated article in the Aksiyon weekly of March 28, alleging that 35,000 “house churches” were meeting clandestinely across Turkey.

On a somewhat smaller scale, pages of fabricated charts published by Ilker Cinar, a self-proclaimed ex-missionary from Tarsus, claimed there are 1,800 house churches led by 1,883 foreign missionaries in Turkey, with congregations totaling nearly 60,000.

But in reality, there are only 95 known Protestant congregations, 40 of them meeting in homes. The remainder worship in rented or purchased facilities registered with local authorities as places of worship. Their combined congregations total no more than 3,000, according to the Protestant research group SILAS based in Istanbul.


“There’s a reaction against Christianity by Islamists and nationalist groups,” observed Ihsan Ozbek, chairman of the Alliance of Protestant Churches (APC). “The missionary issue is being used by them to spoil the relationship between Turkey and the EU.”

To these sectors of society, joining the “Christian club” of the EU means risking the loss of their cultural and religious identity.

Back in February, the Turkish Daily News had reported that a sermon prepared by the Religious Affairs Directorate would be read in all the nation’s mosques on March 11, portraying Christian missionaries as the “new Crusaders.” Reportedly this came “as a reaction to missionary activities in Turkey and EU demands for religious expression.”

But in an apparent backdown, the directorate’s website indicates that a different sermon was preached in its place.

According to Yeni Safak columnist Ahmet Tasgetiren, the inclusion of missionary activities as a threat to Turkey’s national security is rooted in “the Islam that lies in the deep conscience of the people of this country.”

But Hurriyet newspaper columnist Ozdemir Ince, writing on May 2, linked it rather to a common government thesis that Protestant missionaries helped “in the creation of the imaginary [Armenian] genocide” perpetrated 90 years ago by the Ottoman Empire.

Escalating Prejudice

Whatever the root causes, religious tolerance has suffered in the wake of the ongoing media hype and government comments.

“In January there were small incidents of attacks and beatings of Protestants,” Ozbek told Compass, “but this has escalated,” as demonstrated by recent Molotov cocktail attacks against churches in Ankara, Gaziantep and Izmit. “It’s political, because these groups see the EU as the enemy.”

Now, Ozbek admitted, “There’s an extreme prejudice against Christianity. If we showed the ‘Jesus’ film now, we could easily be beaten up,” he said, even though the Christian documentary on the life of Christ is legally distributed in Turkey.

Last month, the government agency controlling radio and television programs ordered Shema Radio, a Christian radio station in Ankara, to pull its May 18 Bible-reading program.

“We were told to replace it with a documentary on Mersin which they provided,” station manager Soner Tufan said. “If we hadn’t, they would have fined us $40,000.”

The censored Bible text was the first three chapters of the book of Daniel, from the Old Testament.


“We wrote them a reply, saying that if we were committing a crime, then the whole Bible should be outlawed!” Tufan said. “But they didn’t accept our arguments.” Shema Radio has opened a court case over the issue, to prevent similar censorship in the future.

In addition, seven libel cases have been opened to date by various Turkish Protestant church leaders against prime-time programs on three TV channels which aired slanderous accusations against local Christians. The slurs ranged from spying for foreign intelligence agencies and paying people to change their religion to trying to divide and destroy the nation by alienating Turks from their communities, families and culture.

On June 11, Cumhuriyet newspaper devoted nearly a full page to a new state intelligence report titled “Reactionary Elements and Risks.” According to the article, the first half of the report examined religious terrorist groups, and the second section focused on missionary activities. (See accompanying article in Compass Direct, “Report: Missionaries ‘Cover Turkey Like a Spider’s Web,’” June 22, 2005.)

Secularists Disagree

Even secularists have taken up the cause, with public complaints from Rahsan Ecevit, the outspoken wife of leftist ex-prime minister Bulent Ecevit, that “Turkish citizens, sometimes by persuasion and sometimes for their own material benefit, are becoming Christians.

“We cannot ignore this activity,” Ecevit warned on January 2. “At the time we say that we are entering the EU, we’re losing our religion.”

But other secularists deride the anti-missionary tirade. With Turkey’s non-Muslim population less than two out of a thousand, Cumhuriyet columnist Oral Calislar noted, it was hard to see how it could be considered a political threat.

“Think of Germany,” Calislar wrote on January 9. “Almost three million Muslims from Turkey have settled there, setting up hundreds of mosques and propagating their faith. Most of their imams are sent and paid by the Turkish state.” So in Turkey, Calislar declared, “Just as Muslims consider it a right to propagate their faith, so Christians, Jews and atheists have the same right.”

Turkey’s Mazlum-Der human rights organization has also criticized the overt campaign against missionary activities, declaring back in mid-January that this “supposed threat” was being used to restrict freedoms of expression and religious practice in the name of national security.

“People who campaign against missionary activities make non-Muslims a target,” argued Mazlum-Der director Ayhan Bilgen. “These people also fabricate fears, to legitimize the restriction of religious freedom.


“In Turkey, where secularism has been interpreted unilaterally … some believe it is their right to intervene in religions as they like,” Bilgen told Turkish Daily News on January 14. “The freedom of expression should be guaranteed by the law and its implementation.”

On paper, Turkey’s new reform package of laws put into effect on June 1 makes it crystal clear that it is legal to express and promote one’s religious beliefs and meet for worship accordingly.

“Missionary activity not a crime, but a right” declared a front-page banner headline in Radikal on June 12. According to the details of Articles 115 and 215 of the new penal code, the daily stated, it is actually a crime punishable with three years in prison to “prevent or obstruct anyone from expressing or changing their religious, political, social or philosophical views or from meeting for religious worship.”

But unless the ruling Justice and Development Party changes its rhetoric, one Turkish Protestant pastor told Compass, it will be guilty of spreading “active disinformation.”“The government should be pro-actively educating the police, the judiciary and the press about freedom of religion,” declared Zekai Tanyar, chairman of the APC’s legal committee. “It should stand up openly against media attacks, instead of deliberately turning a blind eye to them.”____________________Researched by Rajiv Lee in Istanbul.

(Return to Index)

***********************************Turkish Court to Assess Injured Christian’s RecoveryOfficial medical reports due next week on Yakup Cindilli.by Barbara G. Baker

ISTANBUL, June 30 (Compass) -- A criminal court in northwestern Turkey will assess new medical reports next week on the condition of Turkish Christian Yakup Cindilli, still recovering from severe injuries inflicted by ultra-nationalists accusing him of “missionary propaganda.”

A former Muslim who converted to Christianity, Cindilli was subjected to a severe beating in October 2003 which left him hospitalized in a coma for six weeks. When he regained consciousness and was sent home to recover, he could not walk unassisted and sometimes failed to recognize his closest relatives.

The Orhangazi Criminal Court has set July 8 for a trial hearing to evaluate Cindilli’s current physical, mental and psychological condition. The presiding judge had ordered the trial against his attackers postponed for 15 months, in order to determine to what extent the victim would actually recover from his injuries.


His three attackers were initially jailed on charges of battery and assault. They include the Orhangazi chairman of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), released after a month, and two younger assailants released on bail after three months.

According to local newspapers, Cindilli’s assailants had accused the Turkish Christian of passing out New Testaments and doing “missionary propaganda” in his hometown. Neither accusation is a criminal offense under Turkish civil law.

At next week’s hearing, official medical examiners are to submit written forensic reports of their recent round of tests conducted on Cindilli for court consideration.

When the injured Christian last appeared in the courtroom on March 25, 2004, his right arm was still partially paralyzed and he walked slowly with a shuffling limp. On the emotional level, he appeared in relative control of himself, although sometimes mentally confused.

At that time, the young man’s religiously conservative Muslim family had flatly rejected all offers from his Christian friends to help provide legal counsel on his case or arrange for needed physical and psychological therapy.

But since January of this year, Cindilli’s family has allowed members of the Bursa Protestant Church to take their son for a doctor’s complete medical examination and regular physical therapy. Coupled with regular weightlifting and walking exercises, the therapy has improved the range of movement and coordination in his right arm and considerably lessened his limp.

“His right arm is still slightly affected,” Pastor Ismail Kulakcioglu told Compass today, “because he cannot completely lift it up. He is not entirely back to normal psychologically, but he can speak clearly, and give his own opinions.”

Now, one of Cindilli’s Christian friends observed, “Yakup’s health is restored so much that he can communicate quite well, and he can also do light physical work.”

“After more than 40 days in a coma,” the Bursa pastor commented, “it’s a miracle that Yakup is alive today.”

To date, Cindilli has had no legal representation in the court, apart from a public prosecutor assigned to handle the case. An older sister has spoken on his behalf before the judge during the previous five court hearings, the last two of which he was able to attend.

Defense lawyers for the MHP attackers put several local individuals on the witness stand, attempting to establish evidence that Cindilli had provoked the incident himself by distributing New Testaments and talking about his Christian faith in the community.


Cindilli’s family reportedly wants his court case to conclude at the July 8 hearing, without trying to obtain compensation from his attackers for his long-term disabilities. But that decision now remains with Cindilli, who has recovered sufficiently to speak for himself next week, when he appears before the court.

“We pray for justice for him,” the pastor said, “but we cannot make any decisions for him on legal matters, whether to open a case for compensation against his attackers. He must decide for himself.”

Now 34, Cindilli has been able to attend worship and prayer services at the Bursa Protestant Church occasionally over the past six months. On two occasions, the congregation met together with him for extended prayer for his complete healing and return to a normal life in society.

Although he has done some janitorial work for the church in recent months, he is still not able to take a full-time job or live on his own, the pastor said.

Despite pressures from his family to renounce his faith, “Yakup is very committed to stay faithful to Jesus, in spite of what happened,” a member of the Bursa church noted.

***New photographs of Yakup Cindilli taken in May are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct for pricing and transmittal.

(Return to Index)

***********************************Vietnamese Church Leaders Submit Testimony in Washington, D.C.Religious persecution highlighted during Prime Minister’s historic U.S. visit. Special to Compass Direct

LOS ANGELES, June 21 (Compass) -- Three Vietnamese house church leaders submitted written testimony to the International Relations Committee of the House of Representatives in Washington, D.C., on Monday, June 20, the first working day of Vietnam Prime Minister Phan Van Khai’s historic visit to the United States. The church leaders are the Rev. Tran Mai, general director of the Inter-Evangelistic Movement of Vietnam, Evangelist Truong Tri Hien of the Vietnam Mennonite Church, and the Rev. Pham Dinh Nhan of the United Gospel Outreach church.

Congressman Chris Smith, who said he convened the committee hearings to “speak truth to power,” read their names along with those of several religious leaders in Vietnam who had submitted written testimony. The last Vietnamese religious leader who submitted written testimony to a U.S. government agency, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, was Father Nguyen Van Ly. After his written testimony was read into the Commission record on February 13, 2001, Vietnamese officials sentenced him to 15 years in prison for slandering Vietnam. He was released in February this year as part of a government amnesty for the Lunar New Year, but not before he had


completely changed his views. His close friends believe his mind was altered through drugs.

Nhan and Mai serve as top leaders of their respective house church organizations in Vietnam, while Hien, a close protégé of the Rev. Nguyen Hong Quang, had to flee Vietnam following the arrest of Quang just over a year ago. He has U.N. refugee status and is awaiting asylum in the United States. Nhan and Mai also serve as chairman and vice chairman respectively of an association of house churches called the Vietnam Evangelical Fellowship.

In a compelling 14-page document, Hien, who has legal training, described 77 separate actions against the Mennonite church and headquarters in District 2 of Ho Chi Minh City from June 8, 2004, to May 31, 2005. The arrest of Quang and five other church workers took place between March and June, 2004. Many of the actions against the church came after Vietnam proclaimed new, and supposedly more liberal, laws on religion in the last few months (see Compass Direct, “U.S. and Vietnam Reach Agreement on Religious Rights, May 11, 2005.)

Hien analyzed the actions and found they could be classified under five methods commonly employed by the communist regime against religion. First, the regime simply uses force to break up meetings. Second, authorities use administrative paperwork such as identity (ID) cards, motorbike registrations and licenses to harass, and at times, confiscate property. For example, they will confiscate an ID card without giving the person a receipt and a week later, fine the same person for not having an ID card. Third, authorities incite the Christians’ neighbors to hate them and to take “spontaneous” action against them. Fourth, the authorities try to destroy the morale of believers. For example, they have raided the church and home of Mrs. Quang and her three small children in the middle of the night, for several nights in a row, and have written up frequent charges against believers and made them wait many hours for their interrogations. Finally, the government employs the state monopoly of the media to launch scurrilous and sustained character attacks against religious leaders it deems “bad.”

In the document, Hien requests that the two Vietnam Mennonite Church leaders remaining in prison be immediately released. The Rev. Nguyen Hong Quang is serving a three-year sentence and Evangelist Pham Ngoc Thach is serving a two-year sentence; both sentences were upheld at an appeal court hearing on April 12 (See Compass Direct, “Vietnamese Court Denies Mennonite Pastors’ Appeal,” April 13, 2005.)

He also asked that the Mennonites be treated according to the new legislation on religion (which local officials have said does not apply to them) and be allowed to register their activities. Two special appeals to the prime minister on this matter have gone unanswered. In connection with this, he asked that the prime minister’s office set up a special task force to handle quiet appeals coming from religious groups which cannot get redress in any other way. Hien also asked that the government create a plan and method to deal with the many officials who routinely violate the religious freedom of Vietnamese citizens and abuse them because of religion.


Mai submitted his testimony directly from Vietnam. He gave current stories of religious persecution from Hai Phong harbor to the Mekong Delta. He quoted Hmong, Kor and Hre ethic minority leaders recounting incidents of beatings, pepper spray, forced labor, confiscation of property -- including land and houses -- and imprisonment, all of which have occurred since the “liberalization” of laws and regulations on religion. He named victims and perpetrators.

Mai concluded, “The Ordinance on Religion and the Instructions signed by the Prime Minister [is] ‘old wine in new skins.’ The new legislation still retains the essence of oppressing religion. The government has officially announced that ‘The government will only recognize a few religious denominations.’ So what does this mean for those who will not be recognized? It means plainly that these organizations will be outside the law. Today they may meet for worship, tomorrow not. Today they are released, tomorrow they may not be. How is it different for these organizations than being a fish on a chopping block? How is this different than being a fish in a pond that can be caught and killed at any time?” He warned that Western countries should not be gullible and should be very careful not to be taken in by Vietnam’s “illogical and immoral religion policies.”

In the committee hearings, Helen Ngo of the Vietnam Committee for Religious Freedom read a section from Nhan’s testimony of how oppression and restrictions had affected his pastor father, his mother and his own family.

Congressman Smith warned Vietnam that the U.S. would be looking closely to see what happened to those who stand up to speak the truth. “This will be a test for both the U.S. and Vietnam,” stated a Vietnam observer.

(Return to Index)

**********************************************************************COMPASS DIRECT

Global News from the Frontlines

Jeff Sellers, Managing EditorGail Wahlquist, Associate Editor Nancy Von Schimmelmann, Editorial Assistant

Bureau Chiefs:Barbara Baker, Middle EastSarah Page, Asia

For subscription information, contact:Compass DirectP.O. Box 27250


Santa Ana, CA 92799www.compassdirect.org


http://www.compassdirect.org/

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