Christians Burned to Death in Islamist Attacks in Pakistan

14 believers reportedly killed; more than 100 homes burned in Gojra town, Korian village.
By Brian Sharma
 

GOJRA, Pakistan, August 1 (Compass Direct News) – Islamic extremists today set ablaze more than 50 houses and a church in this town in northeastern Pakistan following an accusation of “blasphemy” of the Quran, leaving at least 14 Christians dead, sources said.
 
The dead include women and children, with several other burn victims unable to reach hospitals for medical care, according to the Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS). The attack came amid a protest by thousands of Muslim Islamists – including members of banned militant groups – that resulted in another six people dying when participants shot at police and officers responded with tear gas and gunfire.
 
The same rumor of desecration of the Quran that led to today’s massive protest and attack in Gojra, 50 kilometers (31 miles) from Faisalabad, also prompted an arson assault on Thursday (July 30) by Islamic extremists on the village of Korian, seven miles from Gojra, that gutted 60 houses.
 
Punjab Minister for Law Rana Sanaullah reportedly said an initial investigation of allegations of the Quran being blasphemed indicated “there has not been any incident of desecration.”
 
Because of the earlier assault in Korian, Pakistani officials were already in the area and had sought reinforcements to help control the 11 a.m. demonstration today in Gojra, but security forces were slow to respond, according to CLAAS.
 
“There were unaccountable people in the mob and they were out of control because only four police constables were trying to stop the mob of thousands of people,” a CLAAS report said.
 
Crowd size and attacks grew, and Islamists managed to block main roads and railways to keep fire brigades from fighting the house fires, according to CLAAS.
 
With authorities also blocking roads to keep more Muslim extremists from entering from neighboring villages, clerics at local mosques broadcast messages that those “who love Muhammad and Islam should gather with them to defend the Islam because it is in danger,” according to CLAAS.
 
In response to the police road closures, Islamists became more aggressive and began burning property using firearms and explosives in nearby hamlets where primarily Christians live, according to CLAAS. 
 
“About 20 houses have been burnt in Chauck No. 424, and valuable things have been stolen from about 100 Christian houses,” according to the CLAAS statement.  
 
Asam Masih, a Christian in Gojra, said that that women and children were severely burned and had no way to get to a hospital, according to CLAAS, which was helping to transport victims for medical care.
 
Islamists set on fire a Catholic church on Sumandri road and destroyed it using firearms and explosives, according to CLAAS.
 
“50 houses are burned and totally destroyed,” the CLAAS statement read. “14 people including children, women and men are expired.”
 
Wedding and Funeral
As Christians have begun defending themselves against the onslaughts, mainstream media have already begun referring to the overwhelmingly Islamist aggression as “Christian and Muslim rioting.”
 
Compass investigated the facts of the trigger incident in the village of Korian, where more than 500 Muslims, responding to calls from a mosque, attacked Christians in Toba Tek Singh district. Local sources said nearly all village Christian families fled. The fires destroyed their homes – collapsing their wooden roofs or melting T-iron roofs – and all belongings within that the attacking Muslims had not first looted.
 
“Our house is burnt and everything is gone, but Muslim neighbors around are not willing to give us a loaf of bread or a sip of water to us,” 80-year-old Baba Sharif Masih told Compass.
 
He and his wife Hanifa Bibi, 73, were the only Christians left in the village in the northeastern province of Punjab. Masih, who is paralyzed, said the attackers let them live when they pleaded that they were unable to run away.
 
Two church buildings were ransacked but not burned, Compass sources said.
 
One Christian resident of Korian identified only as Shabir said the blasphemy accusation grew out of an incident at a wedding on Sunday (July 25). During the ceremony, Christian wedding guests tossed currency notes and coins into the air according to custom, with children catching most of them as they fall. Shabir told Compass a Muslim funeral was taking place at the same time, however, and that mourners told wedding celebrants to stop their music; they apparently declined.
 
The next day, Muslims met with the parents of the bride, Talib and Mukhtar Masih, and told them that their sons had cut pages of the Quran the size of currency notes and had been throwing them in the air the previous night, Shabir said.
 
“Talib said that nothing like this has happened, but that if there was anything, ‘I’ll call my son and he will definitely apologize for it,’” Shabir said. “But then they immediately began beating them and left Talib when he fell unconscious.”
 
Shabir said that afterward when Christian women went to the Muslims and told them that they were wrong to beat Talib Masih, the assailants yelled at them and tried to attack them, but they were able to flee to their homes.
 
On Thursday (July 30), Shabir said, Muslim clerics announced from the village mosque that “if any infidel Christian wanted to save his or her life, then get out of here or they would be killed.”
 
As the Muslim mobs gathered, he said, Christians immediately fled – leaving their meals prepared and fires burning in stoves.
 
“These assailants first looted these houses and then set them on fire and closed the door,” he said. “Since then, not a single Christian is left there except a very old couple.” 
 
Islamist’s Version
Village Muslims declined to open their doors when Compass reporters called on them.
 
But one of three Muslim leaders standing with a crowd of turban-clad Islamists at the entrance to the village, Qari Noor Ahmed, told Compass the story of the alleged cut pages of the Quran at the marriage ceremony.
 
“Because it was night, no one noticed, but in the morning we saw that the pages of the Quran had been cut to currency note size, and they were trampled under people’s feet,” he said.
 
Ahmed said that village authorities later met and called in Talib and Mukhtar Masih. He said that council authorities decided that their son should apologize.
 
“But when his son came in the meeting, he by no means seemed apologetic, rather he was aggressive,” Ahmed said. “This was the root cause, and we told Talib and Mukhtar to tell their children to apologize.”
 
Ahmed said that afterwards they searched for Talib and Mukhtar Masih and their sons but could not find them.
 
“Then Muslims became furious that first they had profaned the Quran, and now they had fled and were not apologizing,” Ahmed said. “Then the villagers attacked their houses. All the Christians who are visiting here are armed, and we are sitting here to avoid any untoward incident. It is better for you to leave now or you may be attacked.”
 
Munawar Masih, a 20-year-old Christian in Korian, said that he was preparing supper around 7 p.m. when he heard the announcement from the mosque that “infidel Christians had profaned the Holy Quran, and let’s teach them exemplary lesson.”
 
He looked outside as his family was about to sit down to dinner and saw a large mob approaching.
 
“We just fled from there to save our lives, and since then we are hiding in Gojra,” he said.
 
Private TV channel reporter Ghulam Muhauddin told Compass that after the Korian houses were set on fire, the Islamic extremists blocked the Faisalabad-Gojra Highway to keep firefighters from arriving.
 
“When the attack was unleashed, several people were injured and even some domestic animals were killed,” he said.
 
Muhauddin said that after negotiations between the District Police Officer and the protestors, Station House Officer (SHO) Jamshed Iqbal Nasir was suspended for not properly handling the incident.
 
Christians Accused
Officials at the Sadar Police Station, in whose precincts the attack took place, were not available for comment, but a deputy called Imam Din said that a First Information Report (FIR) had been filed under Section 295-B, or blasphemy of the Quran, against Talib and Mukhtar Masih.
 
He said that the complainant in the case was Muhammad Ashraf, and that police had possession of the alleged burnt or cut papers of the Quran. Din said that after SHO Nasir was suspended and Ashiq Hussein replaced him, Hussein was willing to file an FIR against those who had ransacked and burned houses of Christians. He said the accused were still at large and that police would arrest them after Christians returned to their homes. 
 
Asked if police were under pressure from Islamists or the government, Din declined to comment.
 
Advocacy group Community Development Initiative (CDI) field officer Napoleon Qayyum said that the group had informed high officials about the Korian attack, including the presidency, and that soon afterward the president issued a notice. Qayyum noted that the Korian and Gojra attacks follow a July 1 attack in Kasur, where swarms of Islamists ransacked and damaged 110 homes.
 
“It is a clear sign that violent attacks against Christians have dramatically increased in recent days,” he said, adding that CDI would provide legal help to victims. CDI works with assistance from the American Centre of Law and Justice.
 
Muhauddin of the private TV channel added that Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif had taken the notice of the attacks and was forming a an investigative team comprising the Faisalabad Regional Police Officer and Faisalabad Commissioner, which will send a report to him.
 
A spokesman from the Pakistani president’s office, former Sen. Farhatullah Babar, told Compass that President Asif Ali Zardari had taken a notice of the attack and had asked the provincial government to investigate. He said the president has condemned the attack and that there was no justification for anyone taking the law into their own hands.
 
Asked why the committee constituted by the provincial government did not have any Christians on it, he responded that it was the discretion of the provincial government to determine the make-up of the panel and that the federal government was concerned only about the report. Asked why an FIR had been filed against Christians and not Muslims for ransacking and vandalizing, he said only that appropriate action would be taken after the inquiry.
 
Member of National Assembly Farahnaz Ispahani, wife of Pakistani Ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani, told Compass that President Zardari had directed Federal Minorities Affairs Minister Shahbaz Bhatti to visit the area and “express sympathy with the victims.”

Episcopal Church takes steps toward recognizing same-sex marriage

The Episcopal Church has moved decisively closer to full acceptance of gay men and lesbians, taking steps toward recognizing same-sex marriage and gay bishops.

Gene Robinson is the Episcopal Church's first -- and so far only -- openly gay bishop.

A key committee voted overwhelmingly Monday to start putting together blessings to be used in same-sex marriages, the church's official newspaper reported.

Separately, the House of Bishops voted by a wide margin to allow gays and lesbians to become bishops, Episcopal Life reported.

Both measures must be approved by the church's General Convention before taking effect, but expert Mark Silk said there is "little reason" to think the changes will not "sail through."

"They basically decided to move forward on all fronts with regularizing the status of gays and lesbians within the church," said Silk, director of the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College in Connecticut

State Attorney General Martha Coakley filed the lawsuit Wednesday in federal court in Boston. It says the federal Defense of Marriage Act interferes with the right of Massachusetts to define marriage as it sees fit.

The 1996 federal law denies federal recognition of gay marriage. Massachusetts was the first state to allow the practice.

The Boston-based Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders has already sued over the federal law. It says it discriminates against gay couples and is unconstitutional because it denies them access to federal benefits that other married couples receive.

In Maine, gay marriage foes said Wednesday they've collected enough signatures to stop a new law from going into effect and to force a statewide vote.

Church, Bible Students Fight Discrimination in Indonesia

Village church goes to court over loss of permit; SETIA students demonstrate for new campus.

 
JAKARTA, July 7 (Compass Direct News) – Christians have stood up for their rights in two key cases the last few weeks in heavily Muslim Indonesia.
 
Members of the Huria Kristen Batak Protestan Church (HKBP) in Cinere village, Depok, West Java appeared in court on June 29 to contest the mayor’s revocation of their building permit in March, while students of the shuttered Arastamar School of Theology (SETIA) demonstrated in Jakarta on June 15, asking officials to honor promises to provide them with a new campus.
 
HKBP church leaders filed suit against the decision in the state court in Bandung, West Java. Two court sessions have been held so far, on June 2 and June 29, with Depok Mayor Nur Mahmudi Ismail represented by Syafrizal, the head of the Depok legal department and who goes by the single name, and political associate Jhon Sinton Nainggolan.
 
Mahmudi issued a decree on March 27 cancelling a building permit that was initially granted to the HKBP church in Cinere on June 13, 1998, allowing it to establish a place of worship.
 
The mayor said he had acted in response to complaints from residents. Contrary to Indonesian law, however, Mahmudi did not consult the church before revoking the permit.
 
Nainggolan, arguing for Mahmudi, claimed the revocation was legal because it was based on a request from local citizens and would encourage religious harmony in Cinere. But Betty Sitompul, manager of the building project, strongly disputed this claim.
 
“Our immediate neighbors have no objection,” she told Compass. “A small minority who don’t think this way have influenced people from outside the immediate neighborhood to make this complaint.”
 
Sitompul added that the church had been meeting in a naval facility located about five kilometers (nearly three miles) from the church building since the permit was revoked, causing great inconvenience for church members, many of whom did not have their own transportation.
 
According to Kasno, who heads the People’s Coalition for National Unity in Depok and is known only by a single name, the mayor had clearly violated procedures set forth in a Joint Ministerial Decree, issued in 1969 and revised in 2006, regulating places of worship.
 
Legal advocate Junimart Girsang, representing the church, confirmed that under the revised decree, conflicts must not be solved unilaterally but through consultation and consensus with the parties involved. He also said it was against normal practice to revoke a building permit.
 
Construction of the church building began in 1998, shortly after the permit was issued, but halted soon afterward due to a lack of funds. When the project recommenced in 2007, members of a Muslim group from Cinere and neighboring villages damaged the boundary hedge and posted protest banners on the walls of the building. Most of the protestors were not local residents, Sitompul said.
 
By that stage the building was almost completed and church members were using it for worship services.  
SETIA Protest
In Jakarta, hundreds of SETIA students demonstrated in front of the presidential palace on June 15, calling on officials to honor promises made in March to provide them with a new campus.  
At least 1,400 staff and students remain in three separate locations in sub-standard facilities, causing great disruption to their studies, according to the students. The original campus in Kampung Pulo, East Jakarta, closed after neighbors attacked students with machetes in July 2008 and remains cordoned off by police.
 
In negotiations with SETIA director Matheus Mangentang in May, Jakarta officials again promised to assist the school in finding a new site, and promised to work with neighbors to secure approval for a building permit.
 
Joko Prabowo, the school’s general secretary, said he believes officials have now reneged on these promises. When school officials recently requested relocation to Cipayung, East Jakarta, the governor’s office rejected their proposal, citing community resistance.
 
Deputy Gov. Prijanto, who has only a single name, had initially suggested Cikarang in West Java as a new location, but SETIA staff rejected this offer, saying the site was outside Jakarta provincial limits and a move would be prohibitively expensive.
 

Egyptian Court Grants Custody of Sons to Coptic Mother

But twins will keep father’s Muslim identity in their records, creating future problems.
By Michael Larson

 
LOS ANGELES, July 1 (Compass Direct News) – A Christian mother in Egypt has won custody of her twin sons from her estranged husband, who had converted to Islam and claimed them according to Islamic legal precepts.
 
The now 15-year-old boys, however, will still be considered Muslims despite their desire to remain Christian.
 
On June 15 the Egyptian Court of Cassation ruled that Kamilia Gaballah could retain custody of her sons Andrew and Mario, even though the father converted to Islam and the boys’ religion also changed as a result.
 
If the court does not allow them to return to Christianity, the family will open up another court case, said their older brother George Medhat Ramses.
 
“Up until now the court said they would have the right to choose their faith,” said Ramses, 21. “But if they don’t, we will start another trial. This is the only way.”
 
The decision overturns a September 2008 ruling by the Alexandria Appeals court that had granted custody of the twins to their father, Medhat Ramses Labib, due solely to his conversion. During this time Gaballah lived in constant fear police would take away her sons.
 
The ruling also affirmed Article 20 of Egypt’s Personal Status Law, which states children should remain with their mother regardless of religion until age 15, over that of the Hanefi School of Islamic jurisprudence, which says that a child must be granted custody to the Muslim father in an inter-religious marriage once he or she becomes 7.
 
But the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) advocacy group noted that while the court ruled a woman cannot be denied custody of her children solely on her Christian faith if her husband converts, children can still be removed from her home if there are “fears for the child’s faith.” An ex-husband or his family could easily exploit this clause, the human rights group said.
 
According to Gaballah, the trial was not a matter of custody rights but was religious in nature from beginning to end.
 
“My opponent is not only my divorcee; my opponent is everyone who hears this story and wants Andrew and Mario to become Muslims,” said Gaballah, according to Copts United advocacy group.
 
Mario and Andrew turned 15 in June. On their 16th birthday, they must apply for Egyptian identity cards, which factor heavily into Egyptian daily life. Barring another court battle, their religion will still be registered as Muslim.
 
Because of this predicament, the court verdict that granted the twins’ mother full custody only solved half of their problems, said Naguib Gobraiel, a lawyer familiar with the case.
 
As registered Muslims, they could face harassment while attempting to practice their Christian faith. And while they could marry Christian women, their future children would be registered as Muslims, following the Islamic dictum that children take the religion of their father.
 
“The court didn’t give them the right of freedom to choose their religion,” Gobraiel told Compass. “We must ask ourselves how the children are permitted to stay with their mother but must follow the religion of another man.”
 
Until then the family is worried that the court will not allow Andrew and Mario to return to their Christian faith and are taking every precaution. Last Wednesday (June 24) they appealed to the Ministry of Internal Affairs to have their birth certificates state their Christian faith. They had been recently changed to retroactively show the boys’ birth status as Islam.
 
A Longstanding Battle
The controversy began in 2007 when a court ordered the twins to take Islamic education within the Egyptian school system due to the conversion of their estranged father from Christianity to Islam.
 
The twins refused to take their Islamic religion exam required to pass the next grade. “I am Christian,” each boy wrote on a make-up test in July. They turned in the exam with all of the answers left blank.
 
Their father converted to Islam and remarried in 2002. He changed the religion of his sons to Islam in 2006 and applied for custody even though he had not lived with the family. According to sharia (Islamic law) custody of minor children and influence over their religious status belongs to the Muslim parent.
 
The case reflects the tension in Egypt between civil and religious law. While Article 47 of Egypt’s civil law gives citizens the right to choose their religion, Article II of the Egyptian constitution enshrines sharia as the source of Egyptian law. The same tension has inhibited recent attempts by other converts to change their official religious status from Islam to Christianity.
 
Rights groups said the court order is good news for Gaballah and the twins, but it does nothing to address discriminatory policies of Egyptian law that attach a child’s faith to a parent who chooses to convert to Islam.
 
“It is regrettable, however, that the highest court of the country chose to treat the symptoms and ignore the root causes of the problem – changing the religious affiliation of Christian children whose parents convert to Islam without the slightest regard for their will or that of their Christian mothers,” said Hossam Baghat, director of the EIPR, in a statement.
 
Gaballah has fought with her ex-husband over alimony support and custody of sons Andrew and Mario in 40 different cases since he left her and converted to Islam so that he could remarry in 1999.

Christians in Mauritania Tense after Murder of Aid Worker

As loss of Chris Leggett is mourned,  Christian workers leave country after another Al-Qaeda threat.
By Edward Ross
 
LOS ANGELES, July 1 (Compass Direct News) – As funeral services were held in Tennessee for Christian aid worker Christopher Leggett yesterday, tensions remained high for Christians in the capital of Mauritania, where he was slain last week.
 
A Christian worker who works in the capital city of Nouakchott told Compass that following the street assassination of Leggett by an al-Qaeda linked group the morning of June 23, the danger level in the city has forced him and his team to temporarily relocate to a European country.
 
“After the crime various believers were arrested, and the community of workers is going through very tense moments because of another threat by al-Qaeda and the lack of security in the country,” said the Christian worker, who requested anonymity. “Our leaders have asked us to leave the country for a while, as the government had sent a security force of 10 policemen to guard our home 24 hours a day. Our mobility was limited, and we left the country under police escort to the airport.”
 
Leggett was shot in a crowded market area in front of the language and computer school he operated in Nouakchott. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the North African unit of the al-Qaeda terrorist network, claimed responsibility for the murder on an Internet site, accusing Leggett of “missionary activities.” A North African al-Qaeda spokesman aired a statement on an Arab TV station saying the group killed Leggett because he was allegedly trying to convert Muslims to Christianity.
 
At least two gunmen approached Leggett in broad daylight, stunning local people unaccustomed to such brazen attacks.
 
“It’s a very crowded area, and it was in the morning in the midst of many people,” the  Christian worker told Compass. “Apparently they wanted to kidnap him, and as they were not able, they then shot him three times in the head and he died. Chris was sharing the gospel with a lot of fervor, and also the fact that the country is going through a political and social crisis could have contributed to this crime.”
 
More than 1,000 mourners, including many from outside the United States, reportedly attended Leggett’s funeral in Cleveland, Tenn., where he grew up. Husband and father of four children ages 15, 13, 12 and 8, Leggett taught at a center specializing in computer science and languages in El Kasr, a lower-class neighborhood in Nouakchott.  Leggett, his wife Jackie and their children had lived in Mauritania for more than six years.
 
Leggett directed an aid agency that provided training in computer skills, sewing and literacy, and he also ran a micro-finance program.
 
At his funeral yesterday at First Baptist Church, his father Jay Leggett said, “Our family’s great hope has been that Chris will not have died in vain, but that through his physical death, thousands will continue to be challenged passionately to join him in demonstrating God’s love.”
 
The family issued a statement of thanks for the care, concern and outpouring of sympathy from people in the United States and other countries, according to the Chattanooga Times Free Press.
 
“Our family was energized during every minute of the five hours of visitation by the prayers of thousands of people from around the world,” the statement said. “It is wonderful to experience the fact that by the grace and power of God, one man touched the lives of thousands of people.”
 
Reading from a written statement, Leggett’s father ended with a tearful recitation of a hymn.
 
“To God be the glory, to God be the glory, great things He has done and great things He will do,” he said. 

Islamists in Somalia Behead Two Sons of Christian Leader

Father refuses to give al Shabaab extremists information about house church pastor.
By Simba Tian

NAIROBI, Kenya, July 1 (Compass Direct News) – Islamic extremists have beheaded two young boys in Somalia because their Christian father refused to divulge information about a church leader, and the killers are searching Kenya’s refugee camps to do the same to the boys’ father.
Before taking his Somali family to a Kenyan refugee camp in April, 55-year-old Musa Mohammed Yusuf himself was the leader of an underground church in Yonday village, 30 kilometers (19 miles) from Kismayo in Somalia. He had received instruction in the Christian faith from Salat Mberwa.
Militants from the Islamic extremist group al Shabaab entered Yonday village on Feb. 20, went to Yusuf’s house and interrogated him on his relationship with Mberwa, leader of a fellowship of 66 Somali Christians who meet at his home at an undisclosed city. Yusuf told them he knew nothing of Mberwa and had no connection with him. The Islamic extremists left but said they would return the next day.
“Immediately when they left, I decided to flee my house for Kismayo, for I knew for sure they were determined to come back,” Yusuf said.
At noon the next day, as his wife was making lunch for their children in Yonday, the al Shabaab militants showed up. Batula Ali Arbow, Yusuf’s wife, recalled that their youngest son, Innocent, told the group that their father had left the house the previous day.
The Islamic extremists ordered her to stop what she was doing and took hold of three of her sons – 11-year-old Abdi Rahaman Musa Yusuf, 12-year-old Hussein Musa Yusuf and Abdulahi Musa Yusuf, 7. Some neighbors came and pleaded with the militants not to harm the three boys. Their pleas landed on deaf ears.
“I watched my three boys dragged away helplessly as my youngest boy was crying,” Arbow said. “I knew they were going to be slaughtered. Just after some few minutes I heard a wailing cry from Abdulahi running towards the house. I could not hold my breath. I only woke up with all my clothes wet. I knew I had fainted due to the shock.”
With the help of neighbors, Arbow said, she buried the bodies of her two children the following day.
In Kismayo, Yusuf received the news that two of his sons had been killed and that the Islamic militants were looking for him, and he left on foot for Mberwa’s home. It took him a month and three days to reach him, and the Christian fellowship there raised travel funds for him to reach a refugee camp in Kenya.
Later that month his family met up with him at the refugee camp.When the family fled Somalia, they were compelled to leave their 80-year-old grandmother behind and her whereabouts are unknown. Since arriving at the Kenyan refugee camp, the family still has no shelter, though fellow Christians are erecting one for them. Yusuf’s family lives each day without shoes, a mattress or shelter.
But Arbow said she has no wish to return.
“I do not want to go back to Somalia – I don’t want to see the graves of my children,” she said amid sobs.
Mberwa said that Arbow is often deep in thought, at times in a disturbingly otherworldly way.
Border Tensions
Western security services see the al Shabaab ranks, reportedly filled with foreign jihadists, as a proxy for the Islamic extremist al-Qaeda group in Somalia. If the plight of Christians in Somalia is horrific – some are slaughtered, others scarred from beatings – the situation of Somali Christians in refugee camps is fast becoming worse than a matter of open discrimination.
“We have nowhere to run to,” Mberwa told Compass. “The al Shabaab are on our heads, while our Muslim brothers are also discriminating against us. Indeed even here in the refugee camp we are not safe. We need a safe haven elsewhere.”
He said that in April three al Shabaab militants were arrested by Kenyan security agents at Ifo refugee camp in Dadaab and taken to Garissa, Kenya’s North Eastern Province headquarters. But local provincial administrators denied any knowledge of such arrests.
“I don’t know” is all Dadaab District Officer Evans Kyule could say when asked about the arrests.
In Naivasha, Kenya, 19 Somali extremists were arrested last month and are scheduled to appear in a Nairobi court tomorrow, according to Kenyan television network.
Al-Shabaab militants have waged a vicious war against the fragile government of Somali President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed. In a show of power in the capital city stronghold of Mogadishu, last week hard-line Islamic insurgents sentenced four young men each to amputation of a hand and a foot as punishment for robbery.
After mosques announced when the amputations would take place, the extremists carried them out by machete in front of about 300 people on Thursday (June 25) at a military camp. It was the first such double amputation in Mogadishu by the rebels, who follow strict sharia (Islamic law) in the parts of south Somalia that they control.
The rebel militants’ strict practices have shocked many Somalis, who are traditionally moderate Muslims, though residents give the insurgents credit for restoring order to regions they control.
Al Shabaab militants are battling Ahmed’s government for control of Mogadishu while fighting government-allied, moderate Islamist militia in the provinces. In the last 18 years of violence in Somalia, a two-and-a-half year Islamist insurgency has killed more than 18,000 civilians, uprooted 1 million people, allowed piracy to flourish offshore, and spread security fears round the region.
Somalia’s government, which controls little more than a few blocks of Mogadishu, has declared a state of emergency and appealed for foreign intervention, including help from Somalia’s neighbors. Kenya recently has stepped up patrols along her common border with Somalia, vowing to respond militarily should militants make any incursions. At the same time, al Shabaab militants have warned that they would invade Kenya should the military patrols persist.
Nearly Losing Another Son
On Oct. 7, 2008, al shabaab militia attacked the 28-year-old son of Mberwa in Sinai village, on the outskirts of Mogadishu. They interrogated Mberwa Abdi about the whereabouts of his father, maintaining that they had information that incriminated him as the leader of a Christian group.
Abdi denied having any knowledge of his father’s faith, and the Islamist extremists took Abdi out of the village and threatened to kill him. Covering his eyes and tying his hands behind him as he knelt down, they began beating his back with a gun. Abdi remained silent. The militants fired at his left side near the shoulder, and when Abdi fell they left him for dead.
On hearing the sound of the gunshot, neighbors ran to the scene and found Abdi still alive. They rushed him to Keysany Hospital in Mogadishu, where he underwent surgery.
Salat Mberwa received information from neighbors that his son had been killed on Nov. 1, 2008 by al Shabaab extremists, and that his body was in Keysany Hospital. Later he heard that his son was in a coma and sent 2,500 Kenyan shillings (US$35) for medical care. He also arranged for his wife and two youngest children to flee, knowing that they were the next target. They reached a refugee camp in Kenya in mid-December of last year.
After a month, Abdi was discharged from the hospital and arrived in the same refugee camp on Jan. 8. Medicins San Frontiers provided medicine for the ailing Abdi. Abdi bears the scars of bullet wounds on his body, and he still looks ill.
Asked why he denied his father’s Christian faith, Abdi said Christians are hunted like wild beasts.
“Everybody is afraid of this militia group and always tries to play things safe,” he said. “There is urgent need to help Christians in Somalia to get out as soon as possible, before they are wiped out.”
Salat Mberwa said he is concerned about the way Christians are being mistreated in the refugee camp.
“The Muslims cannot come to our aid in case one of us gets into a problem,” he said. “They always tell us, ‘You are Christians and we cannot help you. Let your religion help you.’”
While thankful for aid from Christian groups in Nairobi, Mberwa lamented that aid agencies and denominational associations have not employed Christian refugees in the camp, though many are qualified as drivers, electricians, carpenters and educators.

Two Church Buildings Burned Down in Zanzibar, Tanzania

Young radical Muslims suspected in attacks on island off coast of East Africa. 

By Simba Tian

NAIROBI, Kenya, June 30 (Compass Direct News) – Two church buildings were razed Sunday night (June 28) on the Tanzanian island of Zanzibar after worship services.
Suspected radical Muslims set the church buildings on fire on the outskirts of Unguja Township, on the island off the coast of East Africa, in what church leaders called the latest incidents of a rising tide of religious intolerance.
“We don’t want churches on our street,” read a flier dropped at the door of Charles Odilo, who had donated the plot on which the Evangelical Assemblies of God in Tanzania (EAGT) building stood. “Today we are going to burn the church, and if you continue we are going to burn your house  also.”
With Christian movements making inroads in the Muslim-dominated area, the EAGT church and a Pentecostal Evangelical Fellowship in Africa (PEFA) church building a few miles away were burned down as a fierce warning, church leaders said.
The PEFA church building was located in the Kibondeni area eight miles from Unguja, and the EAGT structure was in the Fuoni area six miles from Unguja. Samuel Salehe Malanda, pastor of the 30-member PEFA church, said their building doubled as a nursery school on weekdays.
“In this church building there were six benches and a blackboard,” Malanda said. “The children have no place to do their learning. What are we going to do?”
Construction of the PEFA church building was in the final stage of completion last week, area church leaders said, when Masoud Jecha, assistant sheikh of Kibondeni, visited it and threatened Malanda.
“If you do not stop your construction, we will bring down the building,” Jecha told the pastor.
Malanda said the church reported the arson attack to police, who have purportedly begun an investigation, and the congregation has also sought the help of the chief leader of the rural government. The church’s police report included mention of Muslim extremist suspects bent on stopping the spread of Christianity in Zanzibar.
Church leaders said Odilo, who had donated his plot for the EAGT church building, was living in fear of the Islamic militants burning down his house, as they are known for carrying out their threats.
Pastor Paul Makungu said his EAGT church has 29 adult members and 13 children. He has also filed an arson report with local police, who are investigating suspects including radical Muslims and the chief neighborhood leader.
Bishop Obeid Fabian, chairman of an association of congregations known as the Fraternal Churches, said Christians in Zanzibar have received several threats.
“In this latest incident, the threats were spread through pamphlets,” he said. “At other times, Muslim youths have hurled stones on church rooftops and insulted Christians.”
On May 9 Muslim extremists expelled Zanzibar Pentecostal Church worshippers from their rented property at Ungunja Ukuu, on the outskirts of Zanzibar City.

With no help forthcoming, church members have begun gathering for fellowship in their homes, Fabian said.  
In Zanzibar City on April 17, government officials ordered Christians of the Church of God Zanzibar from their rented government building effective April 19, ostensibly to pave the way for renovations. But two months later, said pastor Lucian Mgayway, no renovation work had begun, and the government has since turned it into a business site.
The church had been worshipping in the building since October 2000.
“The churches affected since attacks began in April are at a critical stage,” said Fabian. “We as church leaders find it very difficult to bring our church members together who are now dispersed with no place of worship. The church needs financial support to get worship places for members as well security. But this seems not forthcoming.”

In predominately Sunni Muslim Zanzibar, churches face other hurdles. There are restrictions on getting land to build churches, open preaching is outlawed and there is limited time on national television to air Christian programs. In government schools, only Islamic Religious knowledge is taught, not Christian Religious Education.
Zanzibar is the informal designation for the island of Unguja in the Indian Ocean. The Zanzibar archipelago united with Tanganyika to form the present day Tanzania in 1964.
Muslim traders from the Persian Gulf had settled in the region early in the 10th century after monsoon winds propelled them through the Gulf of Aden and Somalia. The 1964 merger left island Muslims uneasy about Christianity, seeing it as a means by which mainland Tanzania might dominate them, and tensions have persisted.

Islamic Extremists Kill U.S. Aid Worker in Mauritania

At least two gunmen repeatedly shoot teacher for Christian activities.
By Edward Ross

LOS ANGELES, June 29 (Compass Direct News) – Funeral services will be held tomorrow for a U.S. teacher in Mauritania who was shot dead last week by Islamic extremists for spreading Christianity.
Christopher Leggett, 39, was killed Tuesday morning (June 23) in front of the language and computer school he operated in Nouakchott, the capital city.
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, North African unit of the al-Qaeda terrorist network, claimed responsibility for the murder on an Internet site, accusing Leggett of “missionary activities.” A North African al-Qaeda spokesman aired a statement on an Arab TV station saying the group killed Leggett because he was allegedly trying to convert Muslims to Christianity.
Advocacy organization Middle East Concern reported that Leggett “resisted what appeared to be an attempt to kidnap him and was then shot in the head several times by his two assailants.”
His family issued a statement today saying they forgave the murderers but asked that they be caught and prosecuted.
“In a spirit of love, we express our forgiveness for those who took away the life of our remarkable son,” the family said in the statement, distributed in English, French and Arabic. “Chris had a deep love for Mauritania and its people, a love that we share. Despite this terrible event, we harbor no ill will for the Mauritanian people. On a spiritual level, we forgive those responsible, asking only that justice be applied against those who killed our son.”
Mauritania’s minister of justice reportedly said that Leggett’s death “was a great loss to Mauritania.” Leggett, his wife and four children lived for seven years in Mauritania, where he directed an aid agency that provided training in computer skills, sewing and literacy, and he also ran a micro-finance program, according to the Cleveland Daily Banner.
Mauritania’s National Foundation for the Defence of Democracy (FNDD) called for the killers to be brought to justice.
“This hateful crime, which was committed in broad daylight close to the market in El Ksar, one of the busiest in Nouakchott, once again raises the issue of instability and terrorism, which is often used by the military authorities to justify all sorts of unnatural situations,” the FNDD the statement read.
The Associated Press reported that Mauritania’s Interior Ministry said it was investigating the murder and that security forces were searching for the killers.
The AP reported that Leggett, who grew up in Cleveland, Tenn., taught at a center specializing in computer science and languages in El Kasr, a lower-class neighborhood in Nouakchott. The Rev. Jim Gibson, co-pastor of First Baptist Church of Cleveland, told the news service that Leggett visited the congregation when he traveled back to the United States but worked independently in Mauritania.
The Cleveland Daily Banner reported that Leggett was a 1987 graduate of Cleveland High School, attended Cleveland State Community College and graduated from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in 1990 with a degree in Business Administration. He was a member of First Baptist Church of Cleveland for many years and most recently was a member of Michigan Avenue Baptist Church of Cleveland.
His funeral is scheduled for Tuesday 2009 at the First Baptist Church of Cleveland at 2 p.m.
Memorials to the family can be made at www.clevelandfbc.com, or sent to Jackie B. Leggett at 1112 Glenmore Drive, Cleveland, TN 37312 or through First Baptist Church of Cleveland, 340 Church Street, Cleveland, TN 37311 and designated to the J. Mack Hall Fund. Messages of condolence may be given at www.ralphbuckner.com.
The last known activity of al-Qaeda in Mauritania occurred in December 2007, when gunmen believed to be linked to al-Qaeda’s North Africa branch killed four French tourists picnicking near Aleg, east of Nouakchott.

India’s Refusal of Visas to U.S. Panel Stuns Christians

Commission on religious freedom would have found violence-torn Orissa far from normal.
By Vishal Arora

NEW DELHI, June 29 (Compass Direct News) – The Indian government is silent on why it refused visas to allow members of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) to visit troubled Orissa state, but there are indications that it was ducking protests from Hindu nationalist groups.
The USCIRF team was to leave for India on June 12, but the Indian embassy in Washington did not give them visas in time, the religious panel said in a June 17 statement.
“Our Commission has visited China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and over 20 other countries,” Commission Chair Felice D. Gaer said in the statement. “India, a close ally of the United States, has been unique among democracies in delaying and denying USCIRF’s ability to visit. USCIRF has been requesting visits since 2001.”
The team was to discuss religious freedom with officials of the new government, which began its second five-year term on May 22, as well as with religious leaders, civil society activists and others in the wake of anti-Christian attacks in Kandhamal district of the eastern state of Orissa in December 2007 and August-September 2008.
The U.S. panel also intended to discuss conditions in the western state of Gujarat, where more than 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in a communal riot in 2002. The victims have reportedly not been properly rehabilitated, and many of their attackers remain at large. In 2005 the chief minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), was denied a visa to the United States to attend the World Gujarati Meet because of his alleged involvement in the violence.
In 2002 the USCIRF, a bipartisan federal commission, recommended India be designated a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC) following the 2002 violence in Gujarat. India was removed from the CPC list in 2005.
The Commission released its 2009 annual report on religious freedom across the globe on May 1 but put the India report on hold, planning to prepare it after the intended visit this month.
 “I am profoundly surprised and distressed that it is the government of Dr. Manmohan Singh, in its second and so much secure term, which has denied visas to the USCIRF at the last moment,” said John Dayal, member of India’s National Integration Council.
Dayal, secretary general of the All India Christian Council (AICC), told Compass that such a decision would have been more expected under the previous administration of the BJP-led alliance.
“There would have been an acceptable, albeit very perverse, logic if a National Democratic Alliance, led by the BJP federal government – as existed in New Delhi until 2004 – had refused visas to the USCIRF,” he said, “because they had so much to hide and because that government’s professed ideological moorings were in fascism and theocratic arrogance.”
The United Progressive Alliance (UPA), led by the left-of-center Congress Party, won the general elections in April and May of this year with a comfortable majority in. While the UPA got 262 of the 543 parliamentary seats, the National Democratic Alliance, led by the Hindu nationalist BJP, could bag only 160.
The Rev. Dr. Babu Joseph, spokesperson of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India, said the Indian government’s decision was “very unfortunate.”
“Its visit and objective report would have helped in clearing the air of suspicion about the whole tragic episode in Kandhamal,” he said. “For, since the tragic events, there have been claims and counter-claims about what triggered and sustained the communal flare-up that caused unprecedented damage to life and property of people who were already in disadvantaged conditions.”
What USCIRF Would Have Found
The atmosphere in Orissa’s Kandhamal district has remained tense since a spate of attacks began in December 2007 that killed at least four Christians and burned 730 houses and 95 churches. The attacks were carried out to avenge an alleged attack on a Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council or VHP) leader, Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati.
Violence re-erupted in Kandhamal in August 2008 after the assassination of Saraswati by a Maoist group, though non-Marxist Christians were blamed for it. This time, the violence killed more than 100 people and resulted in the incineration of 4,640 houses, 252 churches and 13 educational institutions.
Had the USCIRF team been able to visit Kandhamal, Christian leaders said, it would have found the situation far from normal even eight months after violence reportedly ended.
According to The Indian Express of May 31, the deployment of five companies of the Central Reserve Police Force, a federal agency, was extended for another month. One company comprises 100 personnel. The federal internal minister had earlier decided to withdraw the force from Kandhamal, but state Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik requested he retain some of the contingent.
The Rev. Ajaya Singh of the Cuttack-Bhubaneswar Catholic Archdiocese said that around 3,000 victims were still living in government-run relief camps, and some 900 families were in village relief camps. Initially about 24,000 victims were housed in government relief camps. These internally displaced people cannot go back to their villages because of continuing threats from “fundamentalists and criminals,” he added.
Most of the people who carried out attacks remain at large, continue to pressure victims to withdraw complaints they filed against the rioters, and are still threatening harm to Christians who refuse to convert to Hinduism, he complained.
Singh told Compass that a legal aid center run by the Christian Legal Association (CLA) from a rented house in Phulbani, district headquarters of Kandhamal, had been ordered to move out after Hindu nationalist groups pressured the owner of the house.
“For the last one month, lawyers have been staying here to help the witnesses to speak the truth,” he said. “The momentum of the cases was picking up, but now the legal center itself is facing problems.”
Singh also said some witnesses were issued death threats on June 17. The witnesses were told not to go to court or else they would be killed.
“However, a complaint has been lodged at the police station and an affidavit submitted before a judge,” he added.
In addition to the 753 cases filed by police in connection with the August-September 2008 violence, the CLA has filed 63 private complaints, and 70 more will be filed in the coming days.
The Orissa United Forum of Churches (OUFC), a new interdenominational grouping, wrote to Chief Minister Patnaik recently, informing him that an administrative officer of the Raikia area had taken victims from the relief camp to their respective villages on June 6, but the local residents did not allow them even to enter their villages.
The OUFC added that there were around 2,000 Christians who were asked to go back to their villages, but that villagers chased them out. They are now living in marketplaces or on the outskirts of those villages in abject conditions.
According to the Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI), extremists on June 2 burned down three homes that were partially destroyed during the August 2008 violence in Sirsapanda area in Kandhamal to prevent victims from returning to their villages.
The Christians were able to identify the attackers, but police advised them against naming them, said the EFI report.
“Christian properties were seized by local villagers, and having the Christians back in the village means giving back the land to their owners,” said the EFI’s Ashish Parida.
A CLA team, which recently visited two camps in Kandhamal, also said that the Christians were consistently ostracized by their neighbors.
Orissa is ruled by a regional party, the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), which was in partnership with the BJP when the violence took place. The BJD broke up with the Hindu right-wing party before the state assembly elections that were held simultaneously with the general elections.
Federal Internal Minister P. Chidambaram was in Kandhamal on Friday (June 26) to assess the law-and-order situation there and admitted police failure.
“What happened on Aug. 23 and thereafter was regrettable and condemnable. Moreover, it was the failure of the police for 30 to 40 days,” he said, according to The Hindu. “Now the situation is returning to normal but we cannot lower our guards.”
Chidambaram also said he wanted displaced Christians to return to their homes, seemingly because it will be difficult for the government to claim that normalcy has returned as long as they remain in relief camps.
“The government will ensure that no one harms you anymore. It is absolutely safe for you to return to your villages,” Chidambaram said at a relief camp in Raikia block, according to The Indian Express. “You have every right to practice your religion, build and pray in churches. You please return to your villages. I want to come back within one month and would like to see you in your homes in your villages.”

Christian leaders said that if the displaced people return home, many more reports of threats, attacks and ostracism are expected.
Why Visas Were Denied
Sources told Compass that both the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) were behind the government’s move to block the USCIRF from entering the country.
Compass persistently tried to contact the spokesperson of the MEA, Vishnu Prakash, without success. The spokesperson of the MHA, Onkar Kedia, was travelling.
According to the June 17 The Times of India, the Indian Embassy in Washington pleaded innocent, saying the visa applications of the USCIRF team had been forwarded to New Delhi, as is the standard practice for all such visits.
Sources in the government in New Delhi denied that the visas were deliberately withheld, saying the time was not “proper” for such a visit, according to the daily.
“We really don’t care about what they [USCIRF] report,” it quoted an official as saying. “But a high-profile visit seen as having government sanctions would have raised hackles in India.”
The visas were denied amid diatribes by Hindu right-wing groups against the proposed visit of the U.S. religious freedom panel. An influential Hindu leader, Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswati, had called for refusal of entry to the USCIRF team. “We will not allow interference in our internal religious affairs by external bodies,” he said in a press conference in Mumbai on June 12, according to the Press Trust of India. “We see USCIRF as an intrusive mechanism of a foreign government which is interfering with the internal affairs of India.”
Jayendra Saraswati is known to be close to Hindu nationalist groups.
The U.S. branch of the Hindu extremist VHP had also criticized the intended visit of the U.S. Commission, calling it “incomprehensible,” reported The Times of India. “The largest functioning democracy in the world with an independent judiciary, a statutorily constituted Human Rights Commission, an independent press and other supporting organizations would appear to be quite capable of taking care of the religious freedoms and human rights of its citizens,” it said.
Later, on June 22, Ashok Singhal, international president of the VHP, said in a statement that the USCIRF was “a self-appointed committee as an expression of the big brother attitude of the USA to enquire into the status of religious freedom in other countries … This commission is concerned only about the Christians in other countries whenever there is a hue and cry by the church that the Christians are persecuted in such countries. They never bother about the status of religious and racial discriminations meted out to other religionists in the Western countries, including the U.S.”
Rev. Joseph of the Catholic Bishops Conference, however, said it was “preposterous” to construe the USCIRF’s visit as interference in India’s internal matters, “as the organization is recognized the world over as a credible watch-dog of human rights and religious freedom.”
“Everyone knows that the government of the day did/could not effectively check the communal frenzy,” he added. “And the failure of the state has to be investigated not by the officials of the same state themselves, but by someone who can objectively view and make independent judgment on it.”
The USCIRF is expected to release the pending India report in the next few weeks.
“The denial of visas seeks to make opaque an otherwise healthy transparency in India’s human rights discourse,” said the AICC’s Dayal. Added Joseph, “Probably India missed a chance to come clean on its track records on human rights and religious freedom"

Iran Scraps Mandatory Death Penalty for ‘Apostates’

Proposed amendment reportedly shot down after international outcry.
Special to Compass Direct News

LOS ANGELES, June 29 (Compass Direct News) – A member of Iran’s Parliament reportedly revealed last week that the country’s Parliamentary Committee has stricken the mandatory death penalty for those who leave Islam from proposals for an amended penal code.
Citing a BBC Persian news service report on Tuesday (June 23), United Kingdom-based Christian Solidarity International (CSW) announced on Friday (June 26) that a member of Iran’s Legal and Judicial Committee of Parliament, Ali Shahrokhi, had told the Iranian state news agency (IRNA) of the decision to eliminate the mandatory death penalty amendment, which had drawn international protests.
The Parliamentary Committee had come under intense international pressure to drop clauses from the Islamic Penal Code Bill that allowed stoning and made death the mandatory punishment for apostates.
The new penal code was originally approved in September 2008 by a preliminary parliamentary vote of 196-7.
In Friday’s statement, CSW said that the bill must now pass through a final parliamentary vote before being sent to Iran’s most influential body, the Guardian Council, which will rule on it.
The council is made up of six conservative theologians appointed by Iran’s Supreme Leader and six jurists nominated by the judiciary and approved by Parliament. This body has the power to veto any bill it deems inconsistent with the constitution and Islamic law.
The Christian and Baha’i communities of Iran are most likely to be affected by this decision. Iran has been criticized for its treatment of Baha’is, Zoroastrians and Christians, who have all suffered under the current regime.
Joseph Grieboski, president of the Institute on Religion and Public Policy, said the timing of the announcement of the decision during protests over contested elections might not be coincidental.
“Were the regime to maintain [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad’s presidency then pass and enforce a restrictive penal code, the international pressure on Iran would be unbearable for the regime,” said Grieboski. “I do not consider it a sign of opening up.  Instead, I see it as a sign of self-preservation.” 
Security Backlash
Huge protests over the election results demonstrated considerable opposition to the Iranian government’s heavy-handed tactics, and although the official churches have taken no official stance, many Christians have supported the opposition, according to sources connected to social networking sites.
In the face of the massive protests, a spokesman for the foreign ministry, Hassan Qashqavi, released a statement condemning Western involvement in Iranian affairs and accusing the BBC and Voice of America networks of spreading “anarchy and vandalism.”
This passing of blame bodes ill for minorities in the country, including Christians, whom the Iranian government sees as pawns of the West; they could expect even harsher treatment in a feared post-election clamp-down.
“Since minorities, especially Baha’is and Christians, are often seen as fronts for the West, we can expect that they will feel the greatest backlash by the regime during the protests, and I would argue an even worse crackdown on them if Ahmadinejad and [Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei come out of this,” said Grieboski. 
An Iranian Christian who requested anonymity told Compass that both Christians and Iranians as a whole were tired of the dictatorial regime and asked for prayers for relief.
“The people are really tired, they have no hope, mentally, financially, spiritually, it is really difficult to live in Iran,” the source said. “You can’t have a private life, you can’t make a decision about what you believe, women can’t even decide what to wear. We just pray for the whole nation.”
The Iranian source was reticent to predict how the government might react to Christians following the elections but said that if there were a reaction, they could be among the first victims.
“So what the reaction of the government will be we can’t be 100 percent sure,” the source said, “but they could have a very radical reaction.”
Iranian Christians Maryam Rostampour, 27, and Marzieh Amirizadeh Esmaeilabad, 30, who were arrested on March 5 for their Christian activities, are still held in the notorious Evin Prison. The facility has drawn criticism for its human rights violations and executions in recent years.
Compass has learned that the women have been placed in solitary confinement.

Threats, Expulsions for Christian Couple in Uganda

Hostilities evident in Muslim area where missionaries were slain.
By Simba Tian

NAIROBI, Kenya, June 26 (Compass Direct News) – When a young Muslim woman in northern Uganda heard about Jesus in February 2005 and began having dreams about the cross of Christ, it marked the beginning of a nightmare.
Between the dreams and otherwise sleepless nights, Aleti Samusa of Yumbe district soon converted to Christianity; her family immediately kicked her out of their home.
Economically devastated and deprived of that which is most valued in the communal culture, Samusa sought refuge in a local church in Lotongo village. There she found the man she would marry later that year, David Edema, who was raised a Christian but who began sharing in the sufferings of a convert from Islam by virtue of becoming one flesh with one.
His bride’s family did not attend the couple’s wedding, Edema told Compass, and it wasn’t long before her relatives threatened to break up their marriage. With Samusa’s family threatening to forcibly take her from Edema, the couple fled Lotongo village to Yumbe town. Their troubles had just begun.
“The Muslims started sending people, saying that I am not wanted in Yumbe town and that I should leave the town,” Edema said.
Most houses in Yumbe are owned by Muslims, he said, and since 2006 the couple has been forced to move from one rented house to another without notice.
“The owner just wakes up one morning and gives us marching orders to vacate the house,” the 29-year-old Edema said. “Nowadays, the situation is getting worse. Muslims are openly saying even in their mosques that they plan to take unknown action against my family.”
One potential danger amounts to a death threat against his wife, now 24.
“The Muslims are saying that they are going to send some Jinns [evil spirits] to my wife because she forsook Islam, and that this spirit will kill her,” he said. 
Asked what steps he has taken in the face of these threats, Edema was resigned.
“It will be pointless to take this matter to court, because the people who are to hear the case are Muslims,” he said. “I feel no justice will be done.”
Area Violence
Edema said he and his wife are hoping that God will open a door for them to move to another town.
“The sooner the better for us,” he said, “for we do not know what the Muslims are planning to do with us.”
Violence in Yumbe district is not without precedent. On March 18, 2004, seven suspected radical Islamists dressed in military fatigues murdered two African Inland Mission missionaries and a Ugandan student in an attack on a college run by local aid group Here is Life. Warren and Donna Pett, both 49 and agriculture experts from the U.S. state of Wisconsin, were teachers at the Evangelical School of Technology. The slain student was Isaac Juruga.
The murder case was dismissed in February by the state attorney, who claimed lack of evidence. A Here is Life official who requested anonymity, however, said not enough weight was given to evidence that included a mobile phone recovered from one of the suspected assailants.
“We feel that justice was not done in the ruling of the killing of the two missionaries,” he said.
In Yumbe, the administrative arm of the government as well as the judiciary is run by Muslims, said Edema, who added that the district is still not a safe place for Christians.
“Sometimes they even confront me that I should stop converting Muslims to Christianity – this is not true,” Edema said. “It is just a way of wanting to pick a quarrel with me.”
Edema, his wife and two children belong to Pilgrim Church. Christians and converts to Christianity are a tiny minority in the area, but about three kilometers from Yumbe town is the Church of Uganda in Eleke, with a congregation of about 100. This church has recently sounded alarms about Muslims making land-grabs of its property.
A church leader who requested anonymity said area Muslims have seized a substantial portion of the church’s land, but when the matter went to court, the case was dismissed due to lack of a title deed.
In addition, in May Muslim youths beat a female church worker who had taken a photo of a mosque that was under construction 100 meters from the church, he said.
“Rowdy Muslim youths removed the film after destroying the lid of the camera,” he said. “The militant youths started beating up the church worker as they dragged her to the police station in Yumbe, where she was interrogated for three hours before being released.”
Peter Manasseh, vicar of the Eleke Church of Uganda, said the church has filed a complaint with  the local governing council, “but we do not expect any fairness to be done because the person handling this case is a Muslim and will be partisan.”
A journalist who works for a Christian radio station, however, decided to look into the case – and was himself beaten. Ronald Oguzu of Voice of Life radio in Arua town went to Yumbe yesterday to investigate, said a senior station official who requested anonymity.
“At the mosque site, the Muslims caught hold of Oguzu, beat him and he had his tooth broken,” the official said. “He was then hospitalized in Yumbe hospital and is still receiving some medication.”
He said a criminal case has been filed, but that chances for justice were not good.
“We know that this case will be thrown out of the window, just like that of the killing of the two missionaries,” he said. “To date no arrests have been made.”

Village Christians in Hiding after Clash in Egypt

Violence erupts on mere suspicion of a prayer meeting.
By Damaris Kremida

ISTANBUL, June 25 (Compass Direct News) – Nearly 1,000 Coptic Christians are hiding in their homes after clashes erupted Sunday (June 21) between them and their village’s majority-Muslim population over the use of a three-story building belonging to the Coptic Church.
When on Sunday at 11 a.m. a group of 25 Christians from Cairo stopped in Ezbet Boshra-East, a village of about 3,000 people three hours south of Cairo by car, few villagers failed to take notice. Planning to visit local Christians and the Rev. Isaac Castor, the group had gathered outside the building owned by the Coptic Church, where the priest lives with his family.
Castor said only six of them had entered the building when Muslim neighbors approached the rest of the group waiting outside and began taunting them. A Muslim woman walked up to one of the visiting women, he said, and slapped her.
Soon village youths gathered and started throwing stones at the visitors and the building, and according to Castor within minutes hundreds of villagers, Muslims against Christians, were fighting each other in the streets of Ezbet Boshra-East. Castor’s car was also vandalized.
“They were all over the streets hitting each other with sticks and their fists,” Castor told Compass from his home by phone. “Some people were on top of buildings throwing stones; it was like a civil war.”
Sectarian tensions have previously flared in the village. Last July, when Castor first moved to Ezbet Boshra-East with his family, Muslims vandalized Christians’ farmlands and poisoned their domestic animals after services took place at the building owned by the church, according to International Christian Concern.
Since last July’s incidents, authorities have stipulated that only two Christians at a time can visit the building, and according to Castor this was the source of the fighting that erupted in front of the building on Sunday. The neighbors thought he was conducting a prayer meeting and not adhering to the rule set by local authorities.
In the violent clash in front of the church-owned building, 17 Christians and eight Muslims were estimated to have been injured. According to various reports, nearly 19 Coptic Christians were arrested and released the following day, along with the injured Muslims.
So far there is no concrete information on how the Christians were treated while in prison. During the arrests of the Christians, police vandalized many of their homes. Egyptian sources told Compass that police often turn the homes of those whom they arrest “upside down.”
Soon after the clashes, electricity and phone services were cut. Electricity was restored after 24 hours, but at press time telephones were still not operating. All communications happen via mobile phones.
Authorities also imposed a 6 p.m. curfew on the entire village, but Castor said Christians were too afraid to come out of their homes and were living off personal food stockpiles. He also said that a number of families had left the village to stay with friends and relatives in nearby towns and villages. Eyewitnesses visiting Ezbet Boshra-East yesterday confirmed that although there were Muslim villagers outside, there were no Christians walking on the streets.
Procedures vs. Tolerance
There is no church building in Ezbet Boshra-East, and so far the Coptic Church has not sought to obtain permission to build one. Nor has it officially applied for permission to use the three-story building as a place of prayer as an official association.
When a reporter from a major Egyptian TV channel asked Castor by telephone whether he had obtained permission for prayer and worship for the building purchased by the church, he responded, “Do I need to have permission if I was called to pray for a sick person?” He admitted in the interview, however, that obtaining permission would help to avoid clashes and that authorities should grant it quickly.
There are other villages around Ezbet Boshra-East, such as Talt three kilometers away, where there are Coptic associations. Also, official churches are established in Ezbet Boshra-West and El Fashn, both 15 kilometers (nine miles) away.
Castor said poor Muslim-Christian relations are reflected in the lack of an area church.
“There is no love or tolerance for each other, and I think this is wrong,” Castor said. “I’m worried about the future. I’m worried about the freedom of religion and the inability to build churches. There is bias. It is unfair and unacceptable that people don’t have the freedom of worship. If the current policies continue, the hate will continue.”
The village-wide violence on Sunday harkened to sectarian violence in Upper Egypt in 2000 in the area of El Kosheh, said Ibrahim Habib, chairman of U.K.-based United Copts.
“This degree of radicalization is a bad sign for the future of Egypt, when there is so much hate for people who are basically peaceful and just want to pray,” said Habib.
Egypt’s constitution provides for freedom of religion and worship under Article 46.
“What’s the value of a statement like this if it is not put into action?” he said of Article 46, adding that when government agencies do not promote freedom of worship but instead “become agents of persecution, they make a mockery of the constitution.”
Habib also expressed dismay that a whole village took umbrage only because they suspected a prayer meeting.
“How can private worship annoy people?” he said. “They are not broadcasting it. This is not fair. I’m really annoyed. They say Islam is tolerant, but is this tolerant? This is not tolerant at all.”
Other Non-Governmental Organizations in Egypt said that they expect reconciliation meetings to take place in Ezbet Boshra-East in the coming weeks.

Is America facing revival or judgment?

By Bill Ellis
Special to ASSIST News Service

Scott Depot, WV

Can America be saved and become strong and prosperous again? One thing is for sure, the problems of our nation and the rest of the world will not be solved by Republicans, Democrats, Independents or any other political philosophy. They are not intelligent or wise enough to know what to do. They all seem to make a mess at everything they try.

We are facing a dearth of qualified leaders and statesmen of high moral character and superior leadership qualities coupled with genuine wisdom. Where are the men and women who can lead us out of our malaise? Maladroit leaders will not get the job done.

Are we about to drown in the cesspool of our national debt? Has our nation recently taken on more debt than we have accumulated since its founding? Is the United States government itself our largest and most poorly managed business? If we have become a debtor nation, is bankruptcy approaching?.

Add to the mix the automobile companies, banks, insurance, industry, oil, building and construction problems, housing, highways, health, law, manufacturing, Wall Street, education, any other business, and then add it all together and it, I have heard and read, will not equal the tremendous cost and waste of our national government headquartered in Washington, D. C. And what about all 50 states and the debt many of them carry?

What we borrow must be paid back. That means we must produce more than we borrowed. In another day of terrible times a man, whose name was Paul, wrote a letter to the good people of Rome. That is all spelled out in chapter one of Romans. If you want to know how we should live in difficult times and how we should react to government, read chapters 12, 13, and 14. You may find encouragement in verse 8 of chapter 13. It simply states: “Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves has fulfilled the law.”

It is courting disaster to borrow more than we can produce and pay for – bad for individuals, businesses and governments. Paul also said, “So then each of us shall give account of himself to God” (Romans 14:12).

Is God using our present financial and moral dilemma and national leaders as the instruments of judgment or revival? I certainly do not know. God has given us many clues as to what He might do. Centuries ago He warned, “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God” (Psalm 9:17).

That warning came from the same God who promised healing and forgiveness. It will mean more to you if you locate and read for yourself this promise made to people who were as sinful and wicked as America is today. Read it and believe it. It is 2 Chronicles 7:14. You will understand it better if you read the entire chapter.

Our nation has a choice to make. The Bible deals explicitly with all the major problems we face and offers answers that will work. Disregard the teaching of that book and the heavy hand of judgment will fall on this nation – a judgment from which it may never recover.

We have made our choices and we will pay the price for our decisions. The only solution is in turning from evil which is now running rampant in our nation and among its leaders. If I dodge this fact of life and history, I would not be a columnist worthy of your attention. I do not know, after all my years of study, of any other way to survive as the nation we have been and were meant to be.

It seems to me that we have a clear choice – revival or judgment.

Copyright 2009

THE EVANGEL GLOBE CHRISTIAN NEWS

Used by Permission

Feature Film Set To Expose Horrific Practice of Stoning

By Michael Ireland
Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News Service

Washington, D.C

In a world of corruption and injustice, a single courageous voice can tell a story that changes everything. This is what lies at the heart of the emotionally-charged movie THE STONING OF SORAYA M.

A fist raised ready for stoning. (Courtesy of MPower Pictures)

Movie release notes say the film, based on an incredible true story, is "(a) powerful tale of a village’s persecution of an innocent woman becomes both a daring act of witness and a compelling parable about how people react when someone in their community is turned into a scapegoat: who will join forces with the plot, who will surrender to the mob, and who will dare to stand up for what’s right."

The release notes say that, "At once a classic fable of good vs. evil, THE STONING OF SORAYA M. is an inspiring tribute to courageous women fighting against violence all around the world."

The film was chosen as the runner-up for the Audience Choice Award at the Toronto 2008 Film Festival, behind SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE.

The village crowd gathers for the stoning (Courtesy MPower Pictures)

THE STONING OF SORAYA M. stars Academy Award® nominee Shohreh Aghdashloo (HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG) as Zahra, a heroic Iranian woman who boldly seeks out Freidoune (Jim Caviezel, THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, DÉJÀ VU), a journalist who is temporarily stranded in her remote village when his car breaks down. She tells him the harrowing tale of her niece, Soraya (Mozhan Marnò, TRAITOR, CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR) and the terrible incidents that transpired in the village, in the hope that he will share it with the outside world.

A plot synopsis says that Soraya endured an abusive marriage to Ali (Navid Negahban), who repaid her loyalty by asking for a divorce so he could marry a fourteen-year-old girl.

Soraya being led away (Courtesy MPower Pictures)

"Soraya refused, fearing that she and her children would be forgotten and starve. Too poor to return Soraya's dowry, as is the custom in Islamic divorce, Ali plotted with the village's mullah (Ali Pourtash) to accuse Soraya of adultery, which carries an unimaginable penalty under Shariah law," says a media release from the movie producers.

The release says that, "Moving through a minefield of deceit, Soraya and Zahra will attempt to prove Soraya’s innocence in a legal system stacked against her. But when all else fails, Zahra will risk everything to use the sole weapon she has left -- the fearless, passionate voice that must share Soraya’s story with the world."

According to the news release, THE STONING OF SORAYA M. is inspired by French-Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam’s acclaimed international best-seller of the same name which first brought global attention to the real Soraya, who in 1986 was stoned to death by her fellow villagers, in the presence of her children.

The film is directed by Cyrus Nowrasteh from a screenplay by Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh and Cyrus Nowrasteh. Release Date is June 26th, 2009.

STONING producer Stephen McEveety has produced some of the world’s most celebrated films, including Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, Braveheart, We Were Soldiers, and others, the release states.

ICON's Passion Of The Christ was the most profitable film of 2004 and one of the most profitable films of all time, it says.

The release explains that McEveety has over 30 years experience as a filmmaker. He launched Mpower Pictures, a film production company in January 2007 with John Shepherd and Todd Burns. With the mission of 'Empowering both the artist and the audience by telling stories that are compelling, bold and uncompromising.'

Director Cyrus Nowrasteh was born in Boulder, Colorado of Iranian parents, and lived in Iran as a young boy, the release says.

A graduate of the USC cinema program, he has worked in the motion picture and television business for over 20 years, including working as an award-winning writer on a number of TV series, documentaries and feature films, most notably on the acclaimed and controversial ABC docudrama, "The Path to 9/11," which aired on September 10th and 11th, 2006, to an audience of 28 million viewers.

The release says Nowrasteh "became the focal point of a partisan political attack," which cast him in the public arena appearing on CNN, FOX news, talk radio, and in print in the Wall Street Journal and other publications. It adds that the DVD release of that film has been suppressed to this day.

The movie is 116 minutes in length, in Farsi and English, Rated R for a disturbing sequence of cruel and brutal violence, and brief strong language. Based on the book "The Stoning of Soraya M." by Freidoune Sahebjam.

TRAILER LINK: http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810039981/trailer
OFFICIAL WEBSITE: http://www.thestoning.com/

To book Cyrus Nowrasteh or Steve McKeevty for interviews contact: Shalini Trehan at Shalini@Mpowerpictures.com  or (310) 487-9740.

Copyright 2009

THE EVANGEL GLOBE CHRISTIAN NEWS

Used by Permission

Family of Kidnapped Colombian Pastor Flee Home

Alarmed by threatening strangers, wife and children of William Reyes leave Maicao.
By David Miller

INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana, June 24 (Compass Direct News) – The wife and children of pastor William Reyes, who was kidnapped last September in Colombia and is still missing, have moved from their home to another city due to threatening strangers presumably linked to his kidnappers.
Compass learned that Idia Miranda Reyes, her son William, 19, and daughters Luz Nelly, 17, and Estefania, 9, suddenly left their home in Maicao in the department (state) of La Guajira two months ago and moved to an undisclosed location in the country.
The Rev. William Reyes disappeared on Sept. 25, 2008, en route to Maicao from the neighboring city of Valledupar. Since March 2008, the pastor of Light and Truth Inter-American Church and active member of the Fraternity of Evangelical Pastors of Maicao, had been receiving extortion threats from illegal armed groups operating in the La Guajira peninsula.
Family members have not heard from Pastor Reyes since, nor have his abductors contacted the family to demand ransom.
Two incidents earlier this year alerted his wife that she and her children were in danger from the kidnappers. On Jan. 15, an unidentified man appeared at the Inter-American Church in Maicao and asked for Idia Miranda Reyes. When he was told she was not there, the man asked for her address and cell phone number, which church workers refused to give him.
Before he left, the man said testily, “It is in [her] best interest to get in touch with me, than for me to have to find her.”
Six days later, Luz Nelly Reyes was approached by a stranger on the street (the family believes it was the same man), who told her that if she wanted to see her father again, she should come with him. The girl declined the invitation. When he attempted to grab her by the arm, Luz Nelly fled.
“I have not reported this to police, because I’m afraid,” her mother told Compass after the incident. “They could do something to me.”
Through sobs she added, “We never conceived of this happening to us. I just wish they would tell us if they have him or not.”
Idia Miranda Reyes waited to leave Maicao until Luz Nelly completed her senior year in high school; the 17-year-old graduated on March 28. According to sources, the Inter-American church is contributing a modest living allowance to the Reyes family.
Reyes is not alone in her fears; Colombia suffers the highest incidence of kidnapping in the Western Hemisphere and a homicide rate 11 times greater than in the United States.
Due to general lawlessness, Colombians often face harassment from the same criminals who kidnap or murder loved ones. Violent crime is so common in the country that half of the felonies are not reported to police, and only one in nine makes the newspapers.
Another Maicao kidnapping in February underscores the problem. Armed men abducted a woman from a church just a few blocks from the Light and Truth church – while worship was in progress. The pastor of that church later refused to disclose the victim’s identity or discuss the circumstances of her disappearance, citing concerns for the safety of his congregation.
Evangelical Christians are not always passive victims of crime, however. Justapaz, a Mennonite Church-affiliated organization based in Bogotá, and The Commission for Restoration, Life and Peace of the Evangelical Council of Churches of Colombia (CEDECOL) have organized an international prayer and action campaign in response to the Reyes family crisis.
The campaign mobilized concerned citizens to petition the office of Attorney General Dr. Mario Iguarán, asking that authorities conduct a thorough investigation into Pastor Reyes’ disappearance and report their findings to Commission Coordinator Ricardo Esquivia and Jenny Neme, director of Justapaz.
“Despite hundreds of letters from church members in the United States, Canada and across Europe, and repeated attempts to get a response from the Colombian Attorney General´s Office, we have yet to receive any information from them regarding progress in the case,” said Michael Joseph, who coordinates the Reyes case on behalf of CEDECOL and Justapaz. “We’re doing our best to make sure Pastor Reyes’ case is not forgotten.”
The Reyes family joins other “internal refugees” who live as exiles in their own country. Unchecked political and social violence have forced innocent victims – many of them widows and children – to abruptly abandon homes and careers. They must take up life in crowded, far-off cities in order to protect themselves and their children from further attack.
According to estimates, Colombia now has 3 million internal refugees, the second largest population of displaced persons in the world after Sudan.

Copyright 2009

THE EVANGEL GLOBE CHRISTIAN NEWS

Used by Permission

Tortured Pakistani Christian Languishing on False Charges

Police maneuver to keep incapacitated son of preacher in jail – and out of hospital.
By Brian Sharma

LAHORE, Pakistan, June 23 (Compass Direct News) – A 37-year-old Christian is languishing in a Sialkot jail after police broke his backbone because his father was preaching Christ, according to a local advocacy group.
Arshad Masih had been in a hospital – chained to his bed on false robbery charges – after police torture that began Dec. 28, 2008 left him incapacitated. He was discharged from Allama Iqbal Memorial Hospital in Sialkot on Saturday (June 20) and returned to jail despite efforts by the Community Development Initiative (CDI), a support group that is providing Masih legal assistance.
CDI Research Officer Napoleon Qayyum said that hospital personnel treated Masih callously, but that conditions there were better than in the jail in Sialkot. At least in the hospital, Qayyum said, Masih’s gray-haired father was able to carry him on his shoulders when he needed to go to the bathroom.
Hospital staff members released Masih even though they knew he would not receive the medical care he needs in jail and could face further abuse, the CDI researcher said.
“We told the hospital administration and doctors that Masih would be released from jail within a few days, so he should not be discharged from the hospital as he would not be taken care of in jail, but they paid no heed to our request,” Qayyum said.
He said Sialkot police gave assurances that Masih would be released from jail if he arrived there from the hospital by 10 p.m. A police van left early Saturday morning from Sialkot to bring Masih from the hospital in Lahore to Sialkot jail, but it did not reach the hospital until 6 p.m. even though it is only 100 kilometers (62 miles) from Sialkot to Lahore.
Qayyum said officers also invented delays on the return trip.
“Despite our requests to the police van staff, they reached the jail at 10:30 p.m.,” Qayyum said. “The Sialkot police used the delays to demoralize us by creating problems so that we do not file a petition for torturing.”
The CDI official said the group’s first priority is to “take him out of Sialkot so that police may not further create problems for him.”
Murder Threat
Hajipura police detained Masih on Dec. 28 on orders from the Sadar police station in Gujranwala, where Masih’s father, Iqbal Masih, had been preaching Christ.
The elder Masih, an itinerant preacher who has traveled to remote areas to proclaim Christ for three decades, told Compass that objections to his ministry led to false accusations of robbery against his son. Area Muslims resented his preaching and his visits to a Christian family in Gujranwala, he said, and told him to stop visiting the family.
“They told me that I was preaching a false religion and should stop doing it, and that I should succumb to their pressure,” the elder Masih told Compass.
Area Muslims had complained to Gujranwala police of the elder Masih’s efforts, and officers there first sought to arrest him in a case filed against “unidentified people,” he said. Later, he said, Gujranwala police told Hajipura police to charge his son in some robbery cases, as Arshad Masih lived in the Hajipura precincts.
When police arrested Arshad Masih on Dec. 28, they tortured him for several days, the younger Masih said.
“They hung me upside down all night, beat me and used all inhumane torture methods, leaving me permanently paralyzed,” he said.
Police falsely named him in a robbery case, according to CDI. All others named in the case were released after paying bribes, advocacy group officials said. Police officers also asked Masih’s father for a bribe of 50,000 rupees [US$620], the elder Masih said.
“They asked me as well for 50,000 rupees, but I refused to pay on the grounds that it was illegal and additionally I hadn’t that much money,” Iqbal Masih said.
The complainant in the robbery case eventually testified that Arshad Masih hadn’t been among the robbers, and he was granted bail. Before court orders reached the jail, however, Sialkot police informed Sadar police officers in Gujranwala, who arrived at the jail and had Masih remanded to them for a robbery case filed against “unidentified people.”
“Because of that, Masih could not be freed for one moment,” CDI’s Qayyum said.
Gujranwala police also threatened to kill Masih in a staged police encounter if he told the court that he had been tortured, according to CDI. They also warned him that he should not act as if he were in any pain in court.
The court, however, found him unable to stand and sent him to Allama Iqbal Memorial Hospital in Sialkot for medical examination. Gujaranwala police therefore had to leave him. But police did not tell Masih or CDI staff which police station was keeping Masih in its custody at the hospital.
With the help of the American Center for Law and Justice, CDI filed a case in the Gujranwala Sessions court for Masih’s bail and also provided some assistance for his medical treatment.
On June 16, the Sadar police station investigating officer told the court that police under his command were not detaining Masih, but that the Sialkot police were. Because the Gujranwala police were not detaining him, he argued, bail orders issued on March 23 for Masih’s release pertained to Sialkot and therefore Masih’s police custody in the hospital was illegal.
“The police have been keeping us in the dark so that we could never pursue the case in the right direction,” said CDI’s Qayyum. “How can a brutally tortured patient even heal their wounds in such mental agony when his hand is always tied in chains, and two policemen are maintaining a 24-hour watch over him?”
The researcher said he maintained hope that the judicial system would provide Masih relief from his agony, which has taken its toll on his family as well. Masih has three children that he has pulled from school due to lack of money.
His wife is illiterate and cannot make a living, CDI officials said, adding that Masih’s four married sisters are the main sources of his financial support.

Copyright 2009 THE EVANGEL GLOBE CHRISTIAN NEWS

Used by Permission

UK-Based Christian Human Rights Group Concerned For Religious Minorities In Iran

By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries

New Malden, UK

Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), a UK-based Christian human rights group says that it is concerned for the safety and well-being of non-Muslim religious minorities in Iran as violent protests over recent Presidential elections continue.

Alexa Papadouris, CSW’s Advocacy Director, said: “Recent comments by the Iranian Government and Ayatollah Khamenei apportioning blame on foreign elements for the mass demonstrations is a worrying development. The linking of national unrest with international interference has, in the past, been associated with increased targeting of non-Muslim religious minorities, deemed by the regime to be sympathizers with a Western agenda.”

CSW is concerned that the situation for non-Muslim religious minorities, particularly for Baha’is and certain Christian denominations, which worsened under Ahmadinejad’s previous term of presidency, will continue to deteriorate amidst the current political chaos. As the world’s attention is drawn to the unfolding events in Iran, CSW appeals that the situation for religious minorities is not forgotten.”

CSW is a human rights organization which specializes in religious freedom, works on behalf of those persecuted for their Christian beliefs and promotes religious liberty for all. Its website can be found at http://www.csw.org.uk/

Copyright 2009 THE EVANGEL GLOBE CHRISTIAN NEWS

Used by Permission

Church Showered with Stones in Northern Israel

With attacks mounting, parishioners fear hostilities could escalate.
By Ksenia Svetlova

MIGDAL HA-EMEQ, Israel, June 22 (Compass Direct News) – When the congregation at St. Nicolay church in this northern Israeli town gathered on that quiet Friday morning of May 29, they never expected to be showered with stones.
The Russian Orthodox worshipers, including many women, children and the elderly, had filled the small building to overflow with several outside when they were stunned by the rain of stones. Some were injured and received medical care.
“The church was crawling with people – the worshipers stood not only inside the church, but also outside, as the building is very small, when suddenly a few young men started throwing stones at the direction of our courtyard,” Oleg Usenkov, press secretary of the church told Compass. “Young children were crying, everyone was very frightened.”
The church had also been attacked earlier that week, during a wedding ceremony. Stones and  rotten eggs were thrown from the street, hitting guests as they arrived.
The same night, the Rev. Roman Radwan, priest of St. Nicolay church, filed a complaint at the police station. An officer issued a document to confirm that he had filed an official complaint and sent him home, promising that measures would be taken. But within 24 hours, the attackers again appeared at the church’s doorway and no police were present to deter them – although the police station is located a few dozen meters from the church.
The identity of the assailants is unknown – a police officer said the complaint “lacked the exact description of the attackers” – but eye-witnesses claimed they were ultra-orthodox yeshiva students who frequently cursed the church on their way to the school or synagogue.
“They often assault us verbally, curse and yell at us, although we tried to explain that this is a place of worship, a holy place,” said a frustrated Usenkov, adding that the police inaction amounts to nonfeasance.
Another member of the congregation identified only as Nina, born in Moscow and now living in Nazeret Ilit, said that she didn’t understand where all the hatred is coming from.
“They are heading to the yeshiva or going back home after praying at the synagogue – are they inspired to attack us during their prayers?” she said. “I hope not. We are all Israeli citizens, we pay taxes, serve in the army and are entitled to freedom of choice when it comes to religion.”
She and other members of the congregation fear hostilities could escalate quickly if measures are not taken soon. Already the small building, which barely accommodates the worshipers, is surrounded by a stone fence by order of Migdal ha-Emeq officials following a series of arson attempts and other attacks.
Members of the congregation, a few hundred Christians from Migdal ha-Emeq, Afula, Haifa, Nazareth and other Israeli cities still remember how their building was vandalized in June 2006. Under cover of darkness, unidentified men broke in and broke icons and modest decorations, smashed windows and stole crosses.
The identity of those responsible remains unknown.
Established in 2005, the church building was constructed to meet the needs of Christians who do not belong to the Arab Christian minority, mostly Russians who came to Israel from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s. Besides the Christians, these immigrants included other non-Jews, as well as atheistic Jews and Jewish converts to Christianity.
No official data on religious make-up of the immigrants are available, especially since many fear deportation or persecution for talking openly about their faith, but Usenkov – a Russian Jew who converted to Christianity after immigrating to Israel in the 1990s – said he believes there are at least 300,000 Christians of Russian or Russian-Jewish origin who live in Israel today.
According to Israeli law, non-Jewish relatives of a Jew are also entitled to citizenship, but Jews who have converted to other faiths are denied it.
 
Most of the Russian and Russian-Jewish Christians in Israel belong to the Russian Orthodox Church and find it difficult to adjust to Greek or Arabic services common in the Greek Orthodox churches of Israel. Since St. Nicolay’s church opened its doors, hundreds of worshipers from across Israel have visited it.
“Many people fear they might pass away without seeing a priest, or they dream of a Christian wedding service,” said Radwan, an Israeli-Arab whose family once owned the land on which the St. Nicolay church is located. “Here we can answer their needs. We do not want to harm anyone and wish that no one would harm us.”
END

Copyright 2009 THE EVANGEL GLOBE CHRISTIAN NEWS

Used by Permission

Compass Direct News

Beijing Church Website Forcibly Shut Down by Government

By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries

ChinaAid says that it has recently learned that the Websites Surveillance Section of Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau forcibly shut down the website of Shouwang Christian Church of Beijing at 10:45 a.m. on April 13, 2009.

The only explanation the church has received from the related agent is that government authorities concluded that the website was the “website of an illegal Christian organization,” and demanded that the agent shut it down.

Shouwang Christian Church members say that government authorities have never concluded that their house church is an illegal organization.

“Though Shouwang Christian Church pre-paid for a year of service, the website was shut down without prior notice or an official written explanation,” said a spokesperson for ChinaAid. “The website was registered by an individual, and was used mainly by the house church members to communicate with each other regarding daily activities and information about the church.

“Shouwang Christian Church plans to continue to press government officials for an official explanation regarding the reason that their website was shut down. The church requests that Christians around the world pray for their rights to be upheld and that their website will be restored.”

To read a letter from Shouwang Christian Church of Beijing to Christians around the world go to: http://www.chinaaid.org/downloads/sb_chinaaid/LetterfromShouwangChristianChurchofBeijingtoC.pdf

For more information, go to www.chinaaid.org

Used by Permission ASSIST Ministries