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COMPASS DIRECT NEWSNews from the Frontlines of Persecution

October 2007(Released November 1, 2007)

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

Copyright 2007 Compass Direct News

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

ARGENTINA

Mayor Closes Ministry Center ***Pastor says closure of nearly completed building is part of harsh harassment campaign.

BANGLADESH

Anti-Christian Rumor Helps Fuel AttacksConvinced that villagers are being paid to convert, Buddhists and Muslims lash out.

CHINA

Christian Attorneys Tortured, Arrested One defender of human rights receives electric shocks; officials whisk away another.

EGYPT

Islamists Join Case against Convert to Christianity ***Former Muslim sues Egypt for right to become Christian.

GAZA

Bible Society Bookstore Manager Murdered *** Rami Ayyad’s body found outside Christian bookstore in Palestinian territory.

INDIA

Briefs: Recent Incidents of Persecution

Compass Direct News for October 2007 1

‘Anti-Conversion’ Law in Force in 4th State Rights groups to challenge constitutionality of Himachal Pradesh legislation.

Briefs: Recent Incidents of Persecution

IRAQ

Bishop Negotiates for Kidnapped Priests ***Islamists threaten Christians in Mosul.

Ransom Deadline Looms for Kidnapped PriestsChristians uncertain whether clergymen are alive.

Two Kidnapped Clergymen Released Two other Christians abducted; Orthodox priest’s son shot to death.

ISRAEL

Arson Attack Damages Church in Jerusalem *** Attack marks second arson against Christian building on same lot.

LAOS

Government Sweep Cripples Village Church Many Christians, including leaders, still in prison following indiscriminate round-up.

NIGERIA

Ten Christians Killed in Muslim Rampage in Kano *** Homes, churches destroyed as 500 people are displaced; government slow to respond.

Islamic Court Endorses Abduction of Girls *** A Muslim mother’s dying wish: that Christian father lose custody of daughters.

Muslim Threat to Attack Church Raises Tensions *** Militants drop letters on premises of 3,000-member congregation in Borno state.

Two Christians Murdered in Kaduna *** Sword, wooden club attacks follow calls for violent jihad by Muslim leaders.

Muslim Officials Dismiss Christians from Posts *** School librarian, others forced to leave after requesting land for chapel.

PAKISTAN

Muslims Apologize for Attack on Church ***


Kashmir militant instigated call for jihad from mosque minaret.

Pro-Sharia Rebels Threaten ChristiansMilitants clash with army over Islamic law.

SUDAN

Suicide Bomber Kills Youths in Church Officials call it accidental, but general says attack meant to intimidate Christians.

TURKEY

Widow of Slain Worker: ‘A Cross for Me Every Day’ ***Semse Aydin prays for ‘the ultimate revenge.’

New Judge Prolongs Converts’ Trial ***President calls for change in controversial free speech law.

Threats, Violence against Christians on Upswing ***President: ‘There are no attacks targeting Christians in Turkey.’

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

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**********************************************************************Mayor in Argentina Closes Ministry Center

Pastor says closure of nearly completed building is part of harsh harassment campaign.by David Miller

COCHABAMBA, Bolivia, October 23 (Compass Direct News) – A pastor in Argentina has received threatening letters and had posters of his face displayed in Quilmes after the city’s mayor closed down the congregation’s newly constructed ministry center last March.

The Rev. Raul David Caballero said the closure for alleged building code violations is part of a harassment campaign mounted against him for exposing corruption in the administration of Sergio Villordo. The pastor of the 1,200-member Church of the Encounter is also editor-in-chief of Perspectiva Sur, which has published articles critical of Villordo.

Church of the Encounter has appealed the closure decision, but few expect a prompt resolution as Villordo controls the municipal court.


Villordo ordered the three-story structure sealed off from public use on March 23 “for an indefinite period” because it posed a threat to “public security, hygiene and health.”

Rev. Caballero said the move was part of a harassment campaign mounted against him for publicly exposing corruption in the Villordo administration. According to the veteran Plymouth Brethren minister, the mayor regards him and his influential congregation as chief adversaries to his way of ruling Quilmes.

“Several times posters of my face have appeared in the streets, saying bad things about me,” Caballero told Compass. “I have received threatening letters. They’ve thrown stones at my office building and spray-painted the front walls. I’m being sued for half a million pesos [US$158,646] for inflicting ‘spiritual and moral damage and pain.’”

Caballero’s involvement in Quilmes’ public affairs grew out of his job as editor-in-chief of Perspectiva Sur, the largest newspaper in the city of 500,000 on the southern edge of Buenos Aires. He started the publication as a one-page newsletter in 1981, hoping it would help support his young family after he left a well-paying position as manager of a construction company to become the volunteer youth minister at Church of the Encounter.

When Caballero succeeded his father as senior pastor a year later, church attendance was running about 120. Caballero decided to continue living off income from Perspectiva so that Church of the Encounter could invest resources in evangelism and community service. The church began to grow steadily.

The church had never experienced a conflict of interest related to his newspaper work, Caballero said, until the crisis developed with Quilmes’ current mayor.

“We were good friends with Mr. Villordo during the elections, when we were running his campaign ads,” Caballero said. “He would come by and say what great work we were doing.”

Problems started after Villordo entered office in 2003. The new mayor insisted that Perspectiva Sur publish his photo and political commentary on its front pages on a nearly daily basis. “We refused because most if it was not newsworthy,” Caballero said. “Besides, we are dedicated to free and independent speech.”

Tensions heightened when civic groups such as Quilmes United and The Public School Defense Forum began denouncing cases of neglect, corruption and misdeeds in the Villordo administration, often in the pages of Perspectiva. Caballero had also forged close alliances with these organizations, further alienating the mayor.

Villordo retaliated against Caballero’s civic activism, the pastor said, by closing down the nearly completed ministry complex. Church of the Encounter planned to use the facility, located one-half block from the gymnasium-cum-community center where it meets for


Sunday worship, to celebrate weddings, hold mid-week prayer services and conduct outreach to the city’s youth.

The church’s elementary school also planned to use the extra space to expand its curriculum to the high school level. Those plans are now on hold.

“Construction (on the building) went ahead 80 percent within full view of the public, without any municipal inspector raising any questions about a problem with the work,” Caballero pointed out, “until the earthquake struck.”

Church of the Encounter has appealed the closure decision in court, but Caballero said a prompt resolution is unlikely. In his capacity as judge over municipal infractions, he said, the mayor determines which cases are resolved and when.

Argentine AnomalyClashes between political leaders and Christian ministers occur rarely in Argentina, according to Dr. Ruben Proietti, president of the Christian Alliance of Evangelical Churches of the Republic of Argentina (ACIERA).

“Today in Argentina, thank God, problems of discrimination and religious abuse are uncommon,” Proietti told Compass in a telephone interview from his office in Buenos Aires. “We have always reached a solution . . . through the appropriate mechanisms. However, Caballero’s case is different.”

Proietti does not believe the problems in Quilmes constitute religious persecution. The ACIERA president has declined appeals from Caballero to intervene on his behalf, urging him instead to work through the city’s local Pastors Council to try to resolve the conflict.

The two church leaders have worked closely in the past to end religious discrimination that non-Roman Catholic Christians endure. In the late 1990s, Proietti recruited Caballero to head a national commission that drafted legislation on religious equality for the Argentine Congress.

The commission’s “religious incorporation” bill sought to extend the constitutional status and legal rights reserved for Catholic churches to the 12,000 Protestant congregations in Argentina. (See Compass Direct News, “Protestants in Argentina Seek Equality with Catholics,” May 19, 2000.)

The legislation never reached the floor of Congress, however, and Caballero left the commission when his two-year term expired. Had the religious incorporation law passed, ironically, it could have shielded Church of the Encounter from the aggressive government interference it is facing.

Caballero, though, is not looking back. He said he thinks the present struggle will produce positive results.


“All this is an investment in experience, in maturity, in penetration of our society,” he told Compass. “The believers dare to speak about the Lord and put their faith in action like never before. This whole thing is going to result in tremendous growth for the church, I know.”

END

*** Photos of Raul David Cabellero and the unfinished ministry center are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.

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***********************************Anti-Christian Rumor in Bangladesh Helps Fuel AttacksConvinced that villagers are being paid to convert, Buddhists and Muslims lash out.by Aenon Shalom

DHAKA, Bangladesh, October 16 (Compass Direct News) – As Christianity spreads in this Muslim-majority country, an increasingly frequent refrain is heard in various quarters: “People become Christians after getting huge amounts of money as a reward for conversion.”

The rumor is something more than mean; it has served as the rationale for violence against Christians not just from Muslims, but from Buddhists who make up less than 1 percent of the population.

Subash Mondol, a supervisor of the Christian Life Bangladesh (CLB) “Jesus Film” team in Khagrachori district, told Compass that in early September tribal villagers decided to kidnap a CLB worker after hearing a rumor that he had received money for converting. Not finding any money on 23-year-old Cinku Marma, who converted from Buddhism 14 months ago, they instead assaulted him on September 6 as he was en route to a village to show the film.

Marma and team leader Milton Boiragi were trudging up a hill laden with equipment for showing the film that evening when Boiragi pulled further ahead to relieve himself. As Marma was moving alone, two tribal people ambushed him and held him at gunpoint. Perceiving danger from a distance, Boiragi fled.

The attackers threatened Marma, saying, “Your skull will be riddled with fusillades of bullets if you shout,” Mondol said. Four other tribal people joined them as they took Marma deeper into the jungle.

“If we kidnap you, shall we get in touch with your boss?” asked the attackers. When Marma replied that he didn’t know, they told him, “You became Christian and you got a huge amount of money for the conversion. Where is that money?”


“I became Christian willingly, and I did not get any money,” said Marma.

One of them replied, “We will kill you like Jesus if you do not give us money.”

Mondol said Marma reiterated that he received nothing for becoming a Christian, and that it was impossible to give them money he did not have. The tribal Buddhists began slashing at him.

An attempt to slice his throat with a large knife used for cutting through jungle foliage instead cut off part of one ear lobe, as Marma jumped back, Mondol said. They stabbed Marma just above an eyebrow, wounding his forehead. He tried to fend off another slash with his hand, which was severely lacerated.

Another attacker, Mondol said, hit him on the head with log, knocking him unconscious. Thinking he was dead, the attackers threw him in a brook that ran through the hills. He spent the night in the water, unconscious.

Regaining consciousness the next morning, he hiked up to a nearby house, where one of the residents informed Boiragi, who took Marma to a nearby hospital. Because of the severity of Marma’s wounds, Mondol said, he was later transferred to the district’s main hospital.

As Marma’s parents walked long distances through the hills to visit their son in the hospital, Mondol said, tribal Buddhists frequently asked them, “Where is your son, and where is the money that your son got after becoming Christian?”

Convinced that he had received a huge amount of money from Christian leaders to convert, Mondol said, villagers angry with him for leaving Buddhism had schemed with an unidentified criminal to target him for extortion. Unable to persuade him to pay them, Mondol said, they had decided to ambush him.

Marma had baptized 22 tribal people in the area. Community anger over his evangelistic activities has spilled over to his parents, who have been told that their son became a Christian for money. Their repeated denials of that charge, Mondol said, have fallen on deaf ears.

“He would not have been attacked if he had not been Christian,” said Mondol. “They attacked him to get money, as there is a common rumor that people become Christian for money.”

Muslim MisinformationIn Nilphamari district, where 42 former Muslims from 26 families were baptized as Christians in June, educated Muslim Tabligh Jamat missionaries from outside the country are helping to spread the conversion-for-pay rumor, said Abul Hossain, a recent convert in Nilphamari district.


The missionaries are going door-to-door in Nilphamari on a misinformation campaign, Hossain said.

“They tell people, ‘Christians will use you and afterward they will throw you in the dustbin – they dangle many temptations before Muslims to become Christian, and later they will destroy the country,’” Hossain said.

Other comments typical of the Muslim missionaries, according to Hossain: “They will destroy this country as they destroyed Afghanistan. They also destroyed Iraq and hanged Saddam extra-judicially.”

Following the baptisms on June 12, Muslim villagers armed with bricks and wooden clubs savagely beat 10 Christian converts in Nilphamari district on June 26 and threatened to burn down their homes. Within days, authorities at the mosque in Durbachari banned Christians from using the village tube-well, the area’s only source of potable water.

The village Muslims have issued death threats against Hossain and Barek Ali, who were appointed as leaders of the new converts.

Rich and PoorArea Muslims automatically assume evangelists offer money to lure villagers away from Islam. This was the charge against Nilphamari district evangelist Sanjoy Roy, whom a local government official recently summoned.

“Sanjoy Roy is proselytizing local Muslims by offering money and other financial incentives, and in doing so he is attacking the sentiments of Muslims,” the district official told Compass.

Roy, who denied offering any financial incentives, told Compass that the district official asked him “whether I bring dollars from a foreign country to convert Muslims to Christianity.”

The official, whose name is being withheld to forestall adverse consequences, imposed restriction on Roy’s activities – allowing him to work as a pastor but ordering him not to evangelize. He also forced Roy to sign a statement that he would not go outside the locality and the district without permission, the evangelist said.

Roy asked the official why he had taken a written statement from him. “The commissioner answered that, ‘Everyday I have to listen to many things from the high-ups.’” The official did not elaborate.

The official denied to Compass that he had imposed any restrictions on Roy’s evangelical activities. The pastor, however, told Compass that the official told him, “Whatever you have done, jail is open for you as reward. We will file a sedition case against you for your activities. You will be left in the jail to rot.”


The bitter irony of being accused of receiving money for converting is not lost on the Christians in Nilphamari district, who are lacking in income and basic necessities since the villagers ostracized them in June.

Most of the Christians are farmers who sell fruits and vegetables on the street, but the local people no longer buy them.

“If we got money from the evangelists or missionaries, we would not live in such miserable conditions,” said Hossain, the new convert in Nilphamari.

In Bangladesh, where half of the population of 144 million earns less than a dollar a day, villagers have no economic incentive to leave Islam.

“We do not have money to make a small room to worship God,” Roy said. “Paradoxically, people spread rumors that we convert people by giving money.”

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***********************************Christian Attorneys Tortured, Arrested in ChinaOne defender of human rights receives electric shocks; officials whisk away another.by Jeff M. Sellers

LOS ANGELES, October 4 (Compass Direct News) – China’s crackdown on religious freedom advocates ahead of the Beijing Olympics extended to two Christian human rights attorneys the past two weekends.

Attorney Li Heping released a statement saying a group of men ordered him to stop practicing law, beat him and struck him with electric batons for nearly five hours on Saturday night (September 29). The previous Saturday (September 22), Christian human rights attorney Gao Zhisheng and his family were reportedly arrested a day after he sent an open letter to the U.S. Congress listing human rights abuses.

Gao has been under house arrest since his December 2006 conviction for “inciting subversion,” serving a sentence of three years with five years probation for his human rights defense work. China’s The Epoch Times on September 18 cited an undisclosed source saying that Chinese authorities were planning to remove Gao from Beijing ahead of the 2008 Olympics there. Since his arrest, his whereabouts are unknown.

Li, who defended victims of religious persecution and other human rights abuses out of his office in Beijing’s Chaoyang district, said the unidentified men covered his head with a cloth bag and pushed him into a car without a license plate at his workplace parking lot. They took him to a basement in a Beijing suburb.


“There, several people took turns to beat me brutally, slap my face, hit me on the head with water bottles, and kick me,” he said. “The most unbearable form of their torture was hitting me with high-voltage electric batons.”

At 1 a.m. on Sunday (September 30), the men dropped him off in a small wooded area near Xiatangshan. When he returned home, he found materials for a human rights case, cell phone cards and portable hard disks missing. His notebook computer drives had been wiped clean.

While the men were unidentified in Li’s statement, Bob Fu of the China Aid Association (CAA) released a statement saying Li told him one of the attackers said they belonged to the Beijing State Security Bureau.

“Asked about their identities by Li, one of the interrogators said they are members of Beijing State Security Bureau,” according to Fu’s release. “They yelled to him with a standard Beijing accent: ‘All your family should get the hell out of Beijing. Sell your house and car and get out of Beijing!’”

Fu had invited Li, along with six other human rights lawyers and activists from China, to meet with U.S. officials in Washington, D.C. in October 2005.

At the end of Li’s statement, the attorney reiterated his longing for the rule of law and peaceful progress in China.

“I told them at the site of [the] beating that I wouldn’t hate them,” he said. “I wish the light of rule of law would shine on China and all my Chinese compatriots, including those who beat me.”

In recent months Chinese authorities have cracked down on churches and rights advocates they fear will speak out during next year’s Olympics. In attorney Gao’s open letter to the U.S. Congress last month, he included first-hand information, documentation and evidence of human rights violations and expressed deep concern about the upcoming Beijing games.

House Arrest for House Church LeadersThe CAA also reported yesterday that two Beijing house church activists have been held under house arrest since Monday (October 1), the Chinese National Day.

Pastor Hua Huiqi and Liu Fenggang, who were released in July and February after serving six-month and three-year prison terms respectively, are not allowed to go out of their homes. Their houses have been surrounded by two dozen police.

“Some PSB [Public Security Bureau] officers were even staged on top of Pastor Hua’s roof in order to prevent anyone from coming in or going out,” Fu said in a statement. “Early this morning, October 3, eight PSB officers broke Hua and his wife’s bedroom windows, and then cut off the electricity to their house.”


The officers told Pastor Hua that his 77-year-old mother, Shuang Shuying, has been serving a two-year sentence as a hostage for Hua’s human rights defense.

“She was beaten severely recently without medical care and is now dying in her prison cell,” according to Fu’s statement.

“The brutal act of state terrorism against attorney Li and the two pastors sent a chilling signal to all the peaceful rights defenders in China,” Fu said. “This definitely represents a new low for the environment of human rights and the reality of the rule of law in the city hosting the 2008 Olympics. If China can’t tolerate a moderate lawyer like Mr. Li, who should have any confidence in the Chinese leaders’ other international commitments?”

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***********************************Egyptian Islamists Join Case against Convert to ChristianityGazaFormer Muslim sues Egypt for right to become Christian.by Peter Lamprecht

ISTANBUL, October 10 (Compass Direct News) – Conservative Islamic lawyers came out in support of the Egyptian government last week at the opening court hearing of a Muslim convert to Christianity.

In a move that has caused national uproar, former Muslim Mohammed Ahmed Hegazy is suing Egypt to change the religion listed on his identification papers to Christianity.

Islamist lawyers associated with radical cleric Youssef al-Badry attended the October 2 hearing in Cairo and legally joined the case on the government’s side, Hegazy told Compass.

Hegazy’s lawyers confirmed that Magdy al-Anany and at least three other fundamentalist Muslim attorneys filed to support the government.

Al-Badry was one of several clerics who called for Hegazy’s death in Egypt’s national media, following the announcement of the case in early August. The radical Islamist also filed charges of inciting sectarian strife against Hegazy’s original lawyer, Mamdouh Nakhla.

Under public criticism and death threats, Nakhla withdrew from Hegazy’s case days after it became public. Fanatics began harassing Hegazy and his pregnant wife, also a former Muslim, with angry telephone calls, forcing the couple into hiding.

“It’s quite sensitive,” Hegazy’s new lawyer, Rawda Ahmad, told Compass through a translator. “It would be the first time that someone who converted to Christianity would be able to change his ID card.”


Though Egyptian law does not forbid conversion from Islam to Christianity, it provides no legal means to make the change. Converts to Christianity usually hide their identity to avoid torture and forced recantation at the hands of family members and security police.

“I’m full of heartache that in my own country, society has been radicalized to such an extent that I can’t have the right to convert,” Hegazy told Compass this week.

Hegazy and his wife Zeinab hope that their first child, due in January, will be born with Christian papers. Forced to hold an Islamic wedding ceremony because of their legal status as Muslims, Hegazy and his wife know that a Christian ID card would allow their child to take Christian religion classes in school, marry in a church and openly attend services without fear of harassment.

For the moment, threats from Muslim fanatics have forced the couple to stay in hiding, with Hegazy not even able to attend his own hearing last week.

The convert told Compass that he and his wife were healthy but frustrated with having to stay indoors.

“It’s like we are in prison and have no way out,” the Christian said.

Hegazy said that he did not believe police were aware of his location. He told Compass that officials had detained a number of converts in the past two months, interrogating them about his whereabouts.

Egyptian media have criticized Hegazy in recent months, claiming that his conversion was motivated by money, blackmail, and foreign forces hoping to destabilize Egypt.

“The pro-government media is ferociously standing against Hegazy,” a representative for the Arab Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) said today. “This has definitely had a negative affect on his case, causing it to take a more politicized turn.”

By contrast, last week’s hearing received no coverage in the Egyptian press.

The administrative court hearing in Cairo’s al-Doqi district was brief. Judge Muhammad Husseini adjourned the case until November 13, giving Hegazy’s new lawyers time to legally take over from their predecessor.

Ahmad and Gamal Eid of ANHRI must either obtain official permission from Hegazy to represent his case or file a new complaint, an ANHRI spokesperson said.

In April, judge Husseini rejected the case of 45 Christian converts to Islam who wished to return to Christianity. Their appeal is pending.


Since 2004 several dozen Coptic converts to Islam have won the right to return to Christianity, but Hegazy is the first Muslim-born Egyptian to attempt the legal change.

Taught to Hate ChristiansNow 24, Hegazy said he first made the decision to become a Christian when he was 16.

“My father was not a practicing Muslim, but he hated Christians and Jews as he believed Islam taught us to do so,” Hegazy said in a website statement. “As a child I was taught not to love or respect Christians, but rather treat them harshly because God hates them.”

As a teenager Hegazy enrolled in an institute to train as an Islamic preacher but said he did not like what he learned about Islam’s teaching on women and various subjects.

It was only at the age of 16, when he transferred to a class that had seven Christian students, that he began to think seriously about Christianity.

“It was the first time that I lived close to Christians, and their lives were like lights for me,” Hegazy said. One day he borrowed a Christian book from one of his classmates and read about the conversion of Saul. The story created a desire in him to know more about Christianity.

Hegazy said that he quickly became convinced of the truth of Christianity and wanted to convert.

“Christ appeared to me several times as I kept on reading the Bible,” the convert said. “My father was very angry [when] he found out that I was going to church and reading Christian material.”

State security police soon arrested the young man and tortured him for three days. Despite using a Coptic Orthodox priest to convince Hegazy to recant, the young convert said that police were unable to persuade him to revert to Islam. He eventually returned home, his father under the illusion that he was once again Muslim.

Hegazy said he continued to be active in his faith, writing and publishing some of his own poetry. Police again arrested the convert in 2002 and held him for 10 weeks at a “concentration camp,” where he said he met other converts.

Potential RepercussionsThe convert is aware that much is riding on his case.

“I put my trust in God, and I feel I need to persevere,” Hegazy said. “This is my duty to myself, my family, all Muslims who converted to Christianity, and all Christians.”

But while his case may win rights for converts in Egypt, it also has the potential to backfire on Christians.


In order to make his conversion legitimate in the eyes of the state, the Christian may have to produce church documents in court. The repercussions could be dangerous for those involved in his conversion.

“I can only say that I have documents to show that my wife and I were baptized, and I can produce them if necessary in court,” the convert said. He refrained from naming the church that baptized him and provided the documents.

Though no official statistics are available, Copts are estimated to make up between 8 and 15 percent of Egypt’s population. The number of converts to Christianity is unknown.

END

*** A photograph of Mohammed Ahmed Hegazy is available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.

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***********************************Bible Society Bookstore Manager Murdered in GazaRami Ayyad’s body found outside Christian bookstore in Palestinian territory.by Deann Alford

AUSTIN, Texas, October 8 (Compass Direct News) – Police found Christian leader Rami Ayyad murdered early yesterday morning near the Christian bookstore that he managed in the Palestinian territory of Gaza. He had been shot in the head and had multiple stab wounds.

Unknown individuals abducted Ayyad, 30, as he closed The Teacher’s Bookshop at 4:30 p.m. Saturday (October 6). The bookshop is operated by the Palestinian Bible Society, which Muslim extremists have repeatedly threatened.

The Bible Society shop was bombed in April after previous threats, destroying most of the first floor. In February 2006, unidentified militants exploded two small pipe bombs in front of the bookshop, destroying its steel and glass doors.

Hamas-affiliated police found Ayyad’s body, according to news reports. Authorities with Hamas, which rules Gaza, have reportedly vowed to investigate and punish the perpetrators.

A Palestinian Bible Society release stated that on Saturday Ayyad had noticed a car without license plates following him. At 6 p.m., Ayyad told his family by telephone that a group of people had taken him and that he would return home late that evening.


Ayyad called later with a similar message, and a Gaza Bible Society worker reported the incident to police. At 6:25 a.m. yesterday, Ayyad’s body was found near the bookshop with gunshot and stab wounds, the release said. Ayyad is survived by two children and his pregnant wife, Pauline.

In addition to his work at the bookshop’s front desk, Ayyad served as a youth leader at Gaza Baptist Church. He also directed the church’s summer camp.

“Everybody liked Rami,” a Gaza Christian worker told Compass. “He was just a good-natured guy. He was the most tender-hearted guy, like a teddy bear.”

Tension has mounted among Gaza’s Christians this year following recurring warfare between rival political factions and threats and attacks on Christians and Christian institutions.

“There’s very little security left for Christians in Gaza,” the worker said. “They’re in a state of shock. They can’t believe this happened. There are signs that say this is not going to get better.”

The Palestinian Christian community has co-existed “somewhat peacefully” as a minority group for centuries with Muslims in the area, he said.

“This is definitely something new for Palestinian Christians for a young man to be murdered like this,” he said.

Christians in Gaza number around 3,000 in a population of 1.5 million, with most belonging to the Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches.

During Gaza’s summer war between rival Fatah and Hamas factions, a projectile crashed through a window in Ayyad’s home. Shrapnel narrowly missed his wife and struck him in the back.

“There was more danger in the hospital than there was at home,” the Christian worker told Compass, so Ayyad left without receiving medical attention. “I don’t think he ever had surgery to remove it.”

David Maria Jaeger, a priest with Israel Franciscan in the Holy Land, told Asia News that Ayyad was an “intrepid Christian, a glory for the entire community of believers in Christ who live in His homeland.” “The fact that he belonged to the Protestant community underlines that what unites us outstrips what divides us,” Fr. Jaeger told Asia News. “And its not the first time in the region that the Protestant evangelicals enlighten us and teach us to have faith in Christ, free from conditioning, free from fear and a presumptuous ‘prudence,’ which all too often burden so many of us Christians.”


END

*** Photos of Rami Ayyad and the Palestinian Bible Society bookstore are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.

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***********************************India Briefs: Recent Incidents of Persecutionby Vishal Arora and Nirmala Carvalho

Karnataka, October 2 (Compass Direct News) – Hindu extremists from the Bajrang Dal on September 30 attacked and injured Christians during a worship service in Kodlipet in Somwarpet taluk, Kodagu district, Karnataka. Dr. Sajan K. George of the Global Council of Indian Christians said that the extremists, armed with iron rods and pipes, barged into the Indian Pentecostal Church shouting curses and slapped and punched pastor Freddy P. Cherian and pastor Benny George. They knocked Cherian’s father down with a blow to the head with an iron rod, continuing to beat him with rods as he lay bleeding, George told Compass. Cherian underwent treatment for a fractured right arm at Baptist Hospital in Bangalore and received 18 stitches on his head, George said. Christians filed a First Information Report against the extremists, and a police inspector told Compass that two of them had been arrested. The GCIC has written to the governor of Karnataka demanding an inquiry into 60 attacks on Christians in the last 18 months. – NC

Madhya Pradesh – Hindu villagers beat a pastor and filed a complaint against him, his wife and four other Christians, accusing them of conversion by “allurement” on September 29 in Dhar district of Madhya Pradesh state. Police arrested pastor Subhash Chouhan of the Indian Evangelical Team, his wife, their underage children and the four others under the state anti-conversion law and several other sections of the Indian Penal Code. The Christians, from a church in Sarai village in Nalsa area of Dhar district, were remanded to judicial custody and released on bail two days later, October 1. “The attack took place when the Christians were in the house of a local villager, who was healed from a disease after Pastor Chouhan prayed for him,” a local source told Compass. “This villager had also invited his relatives to meet with his Christian friends, and they were all watching a film based on Jesus’ life.” The source added that those watching the film had invited the Christians and had no objections. “The police did not file a complaint against the attackers, but promptly arrested the Christians on a frivolous complaint.” The source said the complainants were not present in the house and therefore had no legal standing to accuse the Christians of conversion by allurement. Police are investigating the case. – VA

Punjab – A drunk man and his family went to his neighbor’s house, where a Christian meeting was underway, and shot at one of the believers on September 27 in Lobaniawali area in Punjab state’s Muktsar district. A bullet partially struck the chin of Rasal Singh. “The armed man, a Sikh, abused the Christians saying his family did not like to hear the


word ‘Halleluiah,’ and shot in the air and then at the Christians,” a representative of the Christian Legal Association told Compass. The Christians were not using a loudspeaker for the prayer meeting. Singh was admitted to a hospital and released after a few days. Police arrested Mahtar Singh, who fired the pistol, while other family members were still in hiding at press time. – VA

Chhattisgarh – Hindu extremists from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh on September 23 disrupted Christian worship at Sanjay Nagar, Kanker district, Chhattisgarh. Arun Pannalal, general secretary of the Chhattisgarh Christian Forum, said that about 20 Hindu extremists accompanied by around 25 local residents surrounded the church as independent pastor Pradyuman Meshram was preaching, began shouting anti-Christian slogans and demanded that the worship stop. Dr. Sajan K. George of the Global Council of Indian Christians told Compass, “The extremists barged into the prayer hall, walked up to Meshram and slapped and punched him. As he fell to the ground, the extremists began kicking him while continuously cursing him, alleging he was involved in conversion activities.” Extremists also damaged congregants’ motorbikes parked outside. Police detained the extremists, but a huge crowd gathered at the police station to accuse Meshram of forcible conversion, George said. Only by late evening did police register a First Information Report filed by Meshram. At press time, however, no arrests have been made. – NC

Orissa – A court in the western state of Orissa on September 22 sentenced four people to life imprisonment for killing a Catholic priest with arrows in Mayurbhanj district eight years ago. Those sentenced included Dara Singh, who in September 2003 had been sentenced to death for killing Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two young sons by burning them alive on January 22, 1999 in Orissa state’s Manoharpur area, reported The Hindustan Times. The Khurda sessions court also sentenced to life Jadunath Mahanto, Chema Ho and Rajkishore Majanto for killing Fr. Arul Doss on September 1, 1999 in Mayurbhanj’s Jamubani village. The four had been convicted by the court on September 11, while 17 other accused were acquitted for a lack of evidence. Singh told the media that he would challenge the court’s verdict in the state high court. In the Staines murder case, Singh had appealed to the Orissa High Court against the death sentence. The court set aside capital punishment, reducing it to a life sentence. An appeal of the High Court verdict by Singh and the government investigation agency is pending in the Supreme Court. – VA

Karnataka – A 38-year-old Christian woman and her guest were attacked by Hindu neighbors in her house on September 20 in Banaswadi area of Bangalore, capital of Karnataka state. The unidentified neighbors objected to the conversion to Christianity of Hoovu Jayanti, who till recently sold flowers in a Hindu temple, said Dr. Sajan K. George of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC). Jayanti attends an independent house church in the area. The Hindu family attacked Jayanti as a Christian woman identified only as Uma was visiting her along with her daughter. Uma had been visiting Jayanti for the last few months to encourage her, as she was despondent over health problems in her family. Both Jayanti and Uma received minor injuries. “GCIC is helping the Christian women to get justice in the case,” George said. – VA


Maharashtra – A local Hindu extremist threatened a Christian woman with rape and murder on September 18 near an ordnance factory in Jawahar Nagar area in Maharashtra state’s Bhandara district. Rajkapur Motghare went to the house of Manda Bawane of the Believers Church at 8:45 p.m. and threatened her, accusing her of a traffic accident that occurred while he was drunk and sustained minor injuries, Bishop M.A. Lalachan of the Believers Church told Compass. Motghare, who along with two other families has been opposing Christians in the area for the last year, had earlier shouted while riding drunk on his motorbike that the woman had brought the church into the area and therefore was responsible for the conflicts. After falling off of his scooter drunk, Motghare was brought home by local people but suddenly got up and went to Bawane’s house with his son, Lalachan said. Church authorities reported the incident to the Jawahar Nagar police station, which helped Christians and the Hindus objecting to their activities to reach an agreement on September 20. Local Christians, however, feel the Hindu families’ hostile attitude remains. – VA

Uttar Pradesh – Hindu extremists from the Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad on September 16 burned down the house church of pastor Virendra Singh in Barauli village (under Madiaon police station), Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. Dr. Sajan K. George of the Global Council of Indian Christians said that a group of men led by Narendra Singh and Giri Baba reached the pastor’s thatched hut and threatened him and his wife Bhavna, and then set the hut on fire. The structure was reduced to rubble in a matter of a few minutes, reported the Times of India. “Virendra and Bhavna Singh ran for their lives but were caught and beaten up by some people accompanied by some villagers,” Madiaon police station in-charge R.K. Misra reportedly said. Virendra Singh denied that he or his wife were involved in any “forcible conversions.” The district convenor of the Bajrang Dal, Praveen Rai, had accused the couple of offering money and jobs to poor villagers. Virendra Singh filed a First Information Report at Madiaon police station, and Misra reportedly said that three persons had been arrested. – NC

Andhra Pradesh – Hindu extremists from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council) and its youth wing, Bajrang Dal, on September 9 disrupted the Sunday worship of Bethel Gospel Church at Anand Nagar, Amberpet, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh. Dr. Sajan K. George of the Global Council of Indian Christians said that some 300 believers had assembled for worship when a mob of around 30 Hindu extremists barged into the church shouting the Hindu devotional chant, “Jai Ram [Hail to Lord Ram]” and “Jai Hanuman [Hail to Lord Hanuman],” walked up to the dais and slapped pastor Kanukolanu Sudhakar. Sudhakar told Compass, “The extremists slapped me and then began abusing the believers in filthy, blasphemous curses; one of them grabbed the microphone from my hand and struck me on the head, causing my head to bleed.” The extremists destroyed furniture and damaged musical instruments and the sound system. Sudhakar filed a complaint at the Amberpet station. On September 10, police arrested eleven of the extremists and released them on bail the same day. – NC


Kerala – At least 15 extremists of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) attacked six Christians on September 4 near Parasuram temple in Tiruvallam area of Thiruvanandapuram, capital of Kerala state. With sharp weapons, the extremists assaulted Christians identified only as Jose, George, Santhosh, Bijoy, Jaykrish and Hari, who received serious injuries, said Paul Ciniraj of the Kerala-based Salem Voice Ministries. On September 6, police managed to arrest two RSS extremists identified only as Sreekumar and Lalu for the attack. Sreekumar is in charge of training the local RSS cadre, and Lalu is the leader of the Edayar area unit of the organization. A court remanded them to judicial custody on charges of attempted murder. Rights groups say Hindu extremists in the state have been trying to create religious tensions to help politically advance Hindu nationalistic parties. – VA

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***********************************‘Anti-Conversion’ Law in Force in 4th State in IndiaRights groups to challenge constitutionality of Himachal Pradesh legislation.by Vishal Arora

NEW DELHI, October 8 (Compass Direct News) – The Congress Party government in Himachal Pradesh state has brought into force its “anti-conversion” law six months after the governor gave assent to the controversial bill regulating religious conversions.

The move brings the number of states with anti-conversion laws in India to four: Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Himachal Pradesh, although in Chhattisgarh the governor is seeking the opinion of the Attorney General of India (AGI) concerning the legislation.

The AGI recently objected to provisions of a similar amendment bill in Madhya Pradesh.

Anti-conversion legislation has also been approved in Arunachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat but is yet to be implemented.

In Himachal Pradesh, State Home Secretary Prabodh Saxena told Compass that the rules under the Himachal Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act 2006 were published on August 29 in the official government journal, bringing the law into force.

Lansinglu Rongmei of the Christian Legal Association said her organization, along with other rights groups, was prepared to challenge the constitutional validity of the anti-conversion law in Himachal Pradesh.

Section 4(1) of the Act requires any person wishing to convert to another religion to give a prior notice of at least 30 days to district authorities, while exempting those “converting back” to their “own religion,” which would be largely Hinduism.


“This is in violation of the right to equality before law promised in Article 14 of the Constitution,” Rongmei said.

Failing to give such notice can result in a fine of 1,000 rupees (US$23).

Section 3 of the Act prohibits conversion “by the use of force or by inducement or by any other fraudulent means” and states that a person who is converted by unfair means shall not be considered converted.

“Section 3 has been included to pave the way for extremists to indulge in ‘re-conversion’ programs with impunity,” Rongmei said.

According to Section 5, an offence under Section 3 is punishable with imprisonment up to two years and/or a fine up to 25,000 rupees (US$570). In case of conversion of a minor, woman, Dalit or tribal (aboriginal), the imprisonment can extend to three years and the fine up to 50,000 rupees (US$1,140).

“The terms ‘force,’ ‘inducement’ and ‘fraudulent means’ have not been defined properly, and the vagueness can allow anti-Christian forces to file false complaints against Christian workers with ease,” Rongmei warned.

She said that not a single person had been convicted of forcible or fraudulent conversion by any court in the country in the last 40 years, though numerous Christian workers have been prosecuted on those charges.

Last year, two members of the National Commission for Minorities, Harcharan Singh Josh and Lama Chosphel Zotpa, acknowledged that Hindu extremists frequently invoke the anti-conversion law in Madhya Pradesh as a means of inciting mobs against Christians or having them arrested without evidence. They noted this after their visit to the state between June 13 and 18.

Christians also say that when the mere passing of such a law adds to societal tensions, conditions only deteriorate when it is enforced.

On May 23, a group of about 20 people led by a local member of the Hindu extremist organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh forcibly shaved the heads of two Christian workers to mark their “reconversion” to Hinduism after attacking them in Dhalpur area in Himachal Pradesh state’s Kullu district.

Bernard Christopher and Ravinder Kumar Gautam, both Christian workers of the Transfiguration Missionary Society, moved out of Kullu district fearing for their lives after the incident. They had been working in Kullu since January 25.

Following the attack, the assailants forced the Christians to drink Ganga jal (water from the River Ganges, which is considered holy) and asked a barber to shave their heads, a mark of “re-conversion.”


Himachal Pradesh Home Secretary Saxena, asked if any case had been registered under the new law, said he did not think so.

“No case under the law has come to my notice at least,” he said.

Gov. Vishnu Sadashiv Kokje, appointed by the former state government led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, gave his assent to the anti-conversion bill on February 20 – a day before a delegation of Christians led by the All India Christian Council was planning to meet the governor in Shimla, the state capital, to urge him not to sign the bill.

The home ministry of the Congress Party government introduced the bill, led by Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, and the assembly House passed it on December 30, 2006.

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***********************************India Briefs: Recent Incidents of Persecutionby Vishal Arora and Nirmala Carvalho

Andhra Pradesh, October 18 (Compass Direct News) – Hindu extremists on October 12 attacked a group of eight Christians who were distributing gospel tracts in Tiriyani village, Medak district, Andhra Pradesh. Lion Francis, regional coordinator of the Global Council of Indian Christians, told Compass that 15 to 20 extremists approached the Dalit Christian youths and grabbed the tracts from some of them. “The extremists began loudly abusing the believers and cursing the Christian faith,” Francis said. “They tore up the tracts in their hands and flung them on the road and stomped upon them, and they slapped and repeatedly hit them.” Pastor Koiswara Naik and Sushanla Naik later took the eight Christians to a private medical facility for treatment, Francis said. – NC

Bihar – At least 20 Hindu extremists from the Bajrang Dal, youth wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council), on October 11 stormed a Christian gathering, vandalized the hall and beat five Christians in Chhapra area of Bihar state’s Saran district, including pastor Raghu Pathi of the local Bethel Assembly of God Church. The attackers on October 8 had warned Pastor Pathi, organizer of the October 3-11 function, against carrying it out, said Dr. Sajan K. George of the Global Council of Indian Christians. The attackers vandalized furniture, a sound system and VCD players. The loss was estimated to be 40,000 Indian rupees (US$1,010). Organizers continued to hold the meeting after the attack with police protection. The Chhapra police station registered a complaint against the attackers. After the attack, a leader of the local unit of the Bajrang Dal, Asho Tiger, issued a statement threatening Christians with further attacks if they conducted such meetings again. Pastor Sanjay Samuel, state coordinator of the Assembly of God Church, urged the administration to bring the culprits to justice. – VA

Karnataka – About 15 people led by extremists of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council), tried to pressure a Christian worker to “reconvert” to Hinduism and


dragged him to the police station, where he was detained on charges of “forced conversion” on October 11 in Karnataka state’s Mysore district. The incident took place at 9:30 a.m. when 42-year-old pastor Ganesh Murthy was distributing Christian literature in Kollegal area in Rampur, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Mysore, Dr. Sajan K. George of the Global Council of Indian Christians told Compass. Using abusive language, the attackers pushed Pastor Murthy, an independent worker, several times and made an attempt to convert him to Hinduism, promising they would take care of his family financially, George said. When the pastor refused to give in, they took him to the police station and filed a complaint against him. Pastor Murthy was subsequently released but is still under investigation. – VA

Madhya Pradesh – Three Hindu teachers of a Christian school in Madhya Pradesh state’s Harda district on October 11 beat the school director and filed a complaint against him charging that school management was converting pupils. “Teachers Krishnan Kumar, C.M. Chitra and Savitri of the Holy Faith School in the headquarters of Harda district filed a complaint against school manager Samuel Matthew, accusing him of conversions,” constable Jagdish Sharma of the Harda police station told Compass. Sharma added that Matthew lodged a counter-complaint saying the teachers beat him. The constable said police were investigating the complaints and that no one had been arrested. A representative of the Christian Legal Association told Compass that the teachers were new appointees under a probation period. They had promised the administration that they would produce original certificates as part of their application process but failed to do so. Consequently, the school dismissed the teachers and, to take revenge, they beat the director and filed a false complaint against him. – VA

Chhattisgarh – A mob believed to be Hindu extremists associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) launched attacks on two Christian schools for declining to observe a holiday on an October 10 Hindu festival in Raipur, capital of Chhattisgarh state. The state government led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party declared October 10 as a state holiday to observe a Hindu festival, Pitramokha Amavasya, but the Holy Cross School and St. Xavier’s School stayed open as the half-yearly exams were approaching, reported national daily The Indian Express. The mob vandalized two buses of St. Xavier’s School in Shankar Nagar area while they were on their way to the school, said the daily. “The agitated mob was armed with rods and was shouting slogans against Christian missionaries,” the daily quoted city Superintendent of Police Shashi Mohan Singh as saying. “They accused the school authorities of deliberately trying to hurt religious sentiments.” Later, the crowd proceeded to the Holy Cross School and ordered management to close down immediately. When the management refused, the extremists ransacked the principal’s office, added the daily. Raipur police lodged a complaint against unidentified attackers, but no arrests had been made at press time. – VA

Karnataka – More than 100 extremists launched an attack on Christian workers on October 7 in Mayasandra village in Turuvekere Taluka of Karnataka state’s Tumkur district. The attack took place as 31-year-old pastor P.M. Simon from the Vishwa Vani Christian radio ministry was conducting Sunday worship in a house, said Dr. Sajan K. George of the Global Council of Indian Christians. The extremists beat Pastor Simon and


the local coordinator of the radio ministry, who requested anonymity, from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., all the while accusing them of forcibly converting Hindu villagers, added George. Pastor Simon, who received serious injuries, was admitted to the Adi Chunchunagiri Hospital on the Bangalore-Mangalore highway. The police registered a complaint against the attackers but no arrests had been made at press time. – VA

Chhattisgarh – Pastor Shynu Patel and a Christian identified only as Shagundas have been jailed on false charges of intent to insult Hindu religion and forced conversion, according to Dr. Sajan K. George of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC). Patel, 27, had convened a three-day prayer and fasting meeting at the house of Shagundas in Murlar village, Kanker district, Chhattisgarh. On the final day, October 5, as the eight-member congregation was worshipping, a mob of around 35 extremists allegedly belonging to Jan Sevak (People’s Service) barged into Shagundas’ home, dragged him and Patel to the village panchayat (local village council) and made false allegations of forcible conversion, George said. The extremists shoved both men into a tractor and drove off to the Keskal police station. Pastor Sam Mathew, GCIC regional coordinator told Compass the extremists produced false witnesses to testify that Patel tried to lure him with an offer of 1,000 rupees every month to tell people about Jesus. “The false witness also alleged that Shynu made derogatory remarks about the Hindu deities,” Mathew said. Police arrested Patel and Shagundas after the extremists filed charges of injuring or defiling place of worship with intent to insult the religion of any class, lawyer Aslam Khan told Compass. At press time, they were being held in Jagdalpur District Central jail. – NC

Maharashtra – Hindu extremists thrashed independent pastors Amol Patole and Philip Lokhande on October 4 in Devgaon village, Ahmednagar, Maharashtra. Dr. Sajan K. George of the Global Council of Indian Christians said that Patole and Lokhande went to a believer’s house in Devgaon village, where two local Christian leaders were present. The pastors had begun a prayer meeting when 15 to 20 Hindu extremists stormed into the house shouting curses and accusing the Christians of forcible conversions,” George told Compass. The extremists bolted the door and dragged the Christians out of the room one at a time, hitting them repeatedly on their back and stomach. Some of the extremists slashed the tires of the pastors’ vehicles parked outside the house. Police arrived at the house and released the Christians locked within, then took them in for questioning, said George. The officers released them at about half past midnight on October 5, and they underwent medical treatment at a private medical facility. The pastors have not filed a complaint against the attackers. “They have forgiven the extremists,” George told Compass. – NC

Karnataka – A group of about 20 Hindu extremists beat two Christian workers conducting a prayer meeting on October 4 in Mangalwadi village in Holenaresipura area of Karnataka state’s Hassan district. The extremists barged into the Jnanamuni Memorial Church at 8:30 p.m., disrupted the prayer meeting and attacked the Christian workers, identified only as Sudhir and Isaac from India Village Ministries, and accused them of forcible conversions, said Dr. Sajan K. George of the Global Council of Indian Christians. The victims were rushed to the Saligram Government Hospital, where they


were administered first-aid. The following day, on October 5, the Christian workers went to the Holenaresipura rural police station, but the police refused to register their complaint, said George. “When the victims sent their attorney to the police station, a policeman threatened him, saying his father was a powerful politician and he could get the Christians into jail,” he added. Sudhir and Isaac are first-generation Christians. – VA

Uttar Pradesh – Hindu extremists from the Bajrang Dal on October 2 disrupted a Christian prayer meeting in Nagara, near Jhansi in Uttar Pradesh. Sajan K. George of the Global Council of Indian Christians said that at around 5 p.m. independent pastor V. Paul, 30, of Masi Mandali (Jesus Abode) Church was conducting a special prayer service with eight members when the extremists barged into the house church shouting anti-Christian slogans, dragged the pastor out, shoved him into a jeep and took him to Nagara police station. “En route to the police station the extremists abused him in filthy language and made false allegations of forceful conversion against Paul,” George said. “Paul was detained and questioned at the police station for nearly 48 hours, after which the pastor was released after an amicable solution was reached between supporters of Paul and the police.” – NC

Madhya Pradesh – About 20 Hindu extremists disrupted a Christian meeting and roughed up a pastor belonging to the Marthoma Church on October 2 in the Amlai city of Madhya Pradesh state’s Shahdol district. Carrying sticks, the extremists, seemingly from the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, Bajrang Dal (youth wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad or World Hindu Council), and Shiv Sena, a group that originated in Maharashtra state, intruded into the church and started shouting anti-Christian slogans. Dr. Sajan K. George of the Global Council of Indian Christians told Compass that the attackers approached the pastor of the church, the Rev. Joji Oomen, and held his cassock, accusing him of indulging in forcible conversions. The pastor explained that the meeting was held merely to discuss the social work of the church, but the extremists persisted with their allegations. People at a nearby church informed the area superintendent of police, who rushed to the spot. Officers, however, made no arrests. “The pastor was later advised by the police not to hold any big meeting and inform to the police before conducting even a small meeting,” George said. – VA

Orissa – Hindu extremists from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (National Volunteer Corps or RSS), beat two Christians in two separate incidents and got one of them arrested under Orissa state’s anti-conversion law on October 2 in Kendrapara district. In the first incident, at least 12 RSS extremists attacked an independent pastor, Pradip Hialo, while he was distributing Christian tracts at about 3:30 p.m. at the main bus stand of Kendrapara. Dr. Sajan K. George of the Global Council of Indian Christians told Compass they also accused the pastor of forcible conversions and insulted Jesus with vulgarities. After beating Pastor Hialo, they took him to the police station and filed charges under the state anti-conversion law. He was released on bail later the same day. In the second incident, the same attackers telephoned pastor Raghab Digal of the Orissa Follow-Up organization and tricked him into meeting them, beating him upon his arrival. Among other head injuries, Digal received a deep cut near his eyebrows. Police registered a complaint against the attackers, and an investigation was underway. – VA


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***********************************Iraqi Bishop Negotiates for Kidnapped PriestsIslamists threaten Christians in Mosul.by Peter Lamprecht

ISTANBUL, October 15 (Compass Direct News) – An Iraqi bishop said today that he is negotiating for the release of two Christian clergymen kidnapped in Mosul this weekend.

Syrian Catholic Archbishop Basile Georges Casmoussa said that he had spoken by telephone with the priests’ captors at 4 p.m. local time.

“Until now, we do not have any sign of the liberation of the two priests,” Casmoussa said. “We continue to pray and hope.”

A source close to the archbishop said that the kidnappers had demanded an enormous ransom, widely reported as $1 million.

Casmoussa denied media reports today that Father Pius Affas, 68, and Father Mazen Ishoa, newly ordained and in his 30s, had been released.

Unknown men abducted the Syrian Catholic priests in Mosul’s Hay al-Thawra neighborhood on Saturday afternoon (October 13). The clergymen had gone to the area following the death of an elderly parishioner.

“We are very afraid because [the kidnappers] are criminals, and sometimes they take money and kill the priest also,” a church source said.

One year ago, the decapitated body of Syrian Orthodox priest Boulos Iskander was found in a northern suburb of Mosul after his family had paid a $40,000 ransom for his release.

A Syrian Catholic priest told Compass today that Fr. Affas’ Mosul parish had received written threats from Muslim extremists prior to the kidnapping.

An Islamist group called Jihad and Tawhid had left threat letters at Fr. Affas’ St. Thomas church about two months ago, warning the congregation to leave.

“If you do not leave this church we will attack,” the letter stated, according to the clergyman. The priest said that the threat had frightened away the church’s volunteer guards.

Gentle SpiritFr. Affas, originally from Mosul, grew up with Archbishop Casmoussa, and the two attended seminary together.


“He is well known in Mosul, very active and the head of many young movements,” Casmoussa said.

Ordained in 1962, Fr. Affas spent 30 years as editor-in-chief of Arabic-language Christian magazine Christian Thoughts. Upon their ordination, Casmoussa said that he and Fr. Affas founded Priests of Christ the King, a community for clergymen.

“Now he’s the rector for Mosul’s Biblical Center for lay people,” Casmoussa said. “We were planning to open the center to students this coming Friday.”

Fr. Ishoa hails from the predominantly Syrian Catholic village of Qaraqosh, 20 miles southeast of Mosul.

The clergyman was ordained on September 1 after graduating from St. Peter’s Seminary in Ankawa with a Bachelor in Theological Studies, Casmoussa said. He said that the young priest has been involved in serving physically handicapped people.

According to Father Bashar Warda, dean of the seminary, Fr. Ishoa is known for his gentle spirit and for his poetry.

Pope Benedict XVI yesterday launched an appeal for the release of the two priests during a Sunday blessing at the Vatican.

Ongoing violence in Mosul, the biblical city of Nineveh, has caused many from the city’s historical Christian community to flee. One Syrian Catholic priest told Compass that between 15 and 20 families leave the city each week.

Amid violence that has affected all of Iraq’s people groups, Christians and other religious minorities have been specifically targeted.

Now heading up efforts for the two priests’ release, Casmoussa himself was kidnapped in January 2005 and released a day later. The clergyman denied reports that his church paid ransom money for his release.

Previous ViolenceAnother 11 priests have been kidnapped or killed in Iraq since July 2006.

Seven clergymen abducted in separate incidents in Baghdad were freed after a ransom was paid for their release. But in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, militants killed two priests and a Protestant church elder during the past year.

On October 13, the same day as Fr. Ishoa and Fr. Affas’ abduction, church leaders in Erbil opened a medical center to commemorate a Chaldean priest gunned down in June.


Assailants in Mosul shot Ragheed Ganni and three church deacons on June 3 in front of one of the deacon’s wives. Iraqi Christian website ankawa.com reported that the attackers murdered Ganni only after he refused to convert to Islam.

Armenian Christians in Baghdad have confirmed reports that two elderly Armenian brothers were brutally murdered in their Baghdad home two weeks ago.

Unknown attackers used wire to strangle Ebrahim Sahak Sarkis, 70, and Owanis Sarkis, 64, in their al-Habibiya district home on September 30, according to ankawa.com. Armenian sources in Baghdad confirmed the October 9 report that the men’s limbs had been cut off and their bodies maimed.

Motives for the attack remain unclear.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has estimated that at least 2 million Iraqis have fled the country since 2003 and another 2 million are internally displaced.

Christians made up 3 percent of Iraq’s population before the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003, but hundreds of thousands have since fled their homes amid the anarchic violence throughout much of the country.

Syrian Catholics belong to an eastern rite church in communion with Rome.

END

*** Photographs of Father Mazen Ishoa and Father Pius Affas are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.

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***********************************Ransom Deadline Looms for Kidnapped Iraqi PriestsChristians uncertain whether clergymen are alive.by Peter Lamprecht

ISTANBUL, October 19 (Compass Direct News) – Kidnappers have given Iraqi church leaders only 24 more hours to raise ransom money for the release of two priests, a church leader said today.

Syrian Catholic Archbishop Basile Georges Casmoussa said that an independent source had confirmed the two priests, kidnapped last week, were alive.

“Someone phoned somewhere and he affirmed to us that they are alive,” said the Mosul archbishop, unable to go into further detail for security reasons. Casmoussa said he had not spoken to the priests directly.


Father Pius Affas, 68, and Father Mazen Ishoa, in his 30s, were abducted by unknown assailants on October 13 in Mosul. The Syrian Catholic priests had traveled to the city’s Hay al-Thawra neighborhood following the death of an elderly parishioner.

A source close to the archbishop said the kidnappers had demanded a $1 million ransom.

“They gave us a 72-hour period to prepare the sum,” Casmoussa said today from Qaraqosh, a predominantly Syrian Catholic village 20 miles southeast of Mosul. “That period ends tomorrow.”

The archbishop reiterated that the deadline did not mean the priests would be killed if the ransom were not immediately delivered.

According to one Mosul priest, church leaders remain uncertain whether Fr. Affas and Fr. Ishoa are still alive.

“We want to first hear their voices and speak to them before paying money,” the priest said. “Several times [kidnappers] have taken money and then killed the kidnapped [people].”

The clergyman said that Fr. Affas and Fr. Ishoa’s captors had demanded church officials pay the huge sum before releasing the two priests.

One year ago, the decapitated body of Syrian Orthodox priest Boulos Iskander was found in a northern suburb of Mosul after his family had paid a $40,000 ransom for his release.

A Mosul priest told Compass this week that Fr. Affas’ Mosul parish had received written threats from Muslim extremists prior to the kidnapping.

An Islamist group called Jihad and Tawhid had left threat letters at Fr. Affas’ St. Thomas church about two months ago, warning the congregation to leave.

Christians Targeted“I think they just want to kill them because the church can’t pay that kind of money,” said one Iraqi journalist monitoring the plight of Christians in his country. “If they wanted money, they would bring the price down to $100,000 or $200,000.”

Ordained in 1962, Fr. Affas spent 30 years as editor-in-chief of Arabic-language Christian magazine Christian Thoughts. A native of Mosul, the elderly priest now heads up Mosul’s Biblical Center for lay people.

Fr. Ishoa had been ordained only 43 days when he was kidnapped last week. The Qaraqosh native graduated from St. Peter’s Seminary in Ankawa this past summer with a degree in Theological Studies.

He was known for his gentle spirit and poetry, according to the seminary’s dean.


Amid violence that has affected all of Iraq’s people groups, Christians and other religious minorities have been specifically targeted.

“This is not just a problem of two priests, it’s a problem for all the Christians [in Iraq]” Father Nageeb Mikhail said in a telephone interview from Mosul. “So ask Christians to pray for all the Iraqi Christians and also the minorities like Yezidis and others.”

Fr. Mikhail, a Dominican and a member of Nineveh’s council of bishops, said that at least 60 percent of Mosul’s Christians had left the city.

“They are afraid, and we are unable to celebrate mass in many of the churches,” the priest said.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has estimated that at least 2 million Iraqis have fled the country since 2003 and another 2 million are internally displaced.

Christians made up 3 percent of Iraq’s population before the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003, but hundreds of thousands are estimated to have since fled their homes amid the anarchic violence throughout much of the country.


END

*** Photographs of Father Pius Affas and Father Mazen Ishoa are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.

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***********************************Two Kidnapped Clergymen in Iraq Released Two other Christians abducted; Orthodox priest’s son shot to death.by Peter Lamprecht

ISTANBUL, October 22 (Compass Direct News) – Two Iraqi priests kidnapped more than a week ago said they returned to their Mosul parish in good health yesterday morning and immediately celebrated mass.

Captors freed Father Pius Affas and Father Mazen Ishoa at an undisclosed location in Mosul at 11 a.m., Fr. Affas told Compass today. The release came a day after two other Christians were abducted and an Orthodox priest’s son was shot to death.

“They were very good to us,” the Syrian Catholic priest said in broken English by telephone from Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad.


Fr. Affas said that he and Fr. Ishoa had not sustained any injuries while in captivity and repeatedly thanked all those who had prayed for their release.

Kidnappers have tortured several of the seven Iraqi priests kidnapped in Baghdad during the past year.

The priests said they were healthy enough to celebrate mass for their congregation at St. Thomas’ church on the day of their release. But another Mosul clergyman told Compass that he was uncertain whether the captors had actually treated the priests well.

“It’s normal for [Fr. Affas and Fr. Ishoa] not to explain everything on the telephone, because their kidnappers have probably told them not to talk about [torture],” said the clergyman, who requested anonymity. He said that the priests’ telephones were likely tapped and their movements monitored.

“We won’t know the exact details until we meet them [in person],” the priest said.

Fr. Affas did not comment on whether the church had paid a $1 million ransom initially demanded by the kidnappers. The priests’ captors had given Syrian Catholic Archbishop Basile Georges Casmoussa until Saturday (October 20) to raise the money.

Church negotiators had been especially worried for the priests’ welfare after they were unable to contact the kidnappers on Friday and Saturday, Catholic news agency Asia News reported.

Unknown men kidnapped Fr. Affas, 68, and Fr. Ishoa, in his 30s, on October 13 in Mosul’s Hay al-Thawra neighborhood. The priests had traveled to the area following the death of an elderly parishioner.

Head priest at St. Thomas parish, Fr. Affas is also director of Mosul’s Biblical Center for lay people and former editor-in-chief of Arabic-language magazine Christian Thoughts.

A Mosul priest told Compass that prior to his capture, Fr. Affas had received letters threatening to attack his congregation if they did not leave the city. Christians in Iraq continue to report attacks targeting their community amid the greater violence between Sunni and Shiite militias and U.S. forces.

A Vatican spokesperson registered the Pope’s happiness over news of the release and said he hoped similar kidnappings would not continue in the future. Pope Benedict XVI had appealed for the liberation of the two clergymen during a papal address in Rome last week.

More KidnappingsTwo Christians from a village outside of Mosul were kidnapped on Saturday afternoon (October 20) in Mosul city, according to a Christian source.


The captors demanded a large ransom from the family, who requested that the names of the Christians not be published for security reasons.

Separately, the son of a Syrian Orthodox priest was shot to death Saturday morning (October 20) in the town of Basheeqa, 15 miles northeast of Mosul, according to Iraqi Christian website Ankawa.com. The website reported that he had just returned from the city of Dohuk and had stepped out of his car when he was killed by a single bullet.

The identity of the murderer and the motive for the attack remain unclear, according to the article.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has estimated that at least 2 million Iraqis have fled the country since 2003, and another 2 million are internally displaced.

Christians made up 3 percent of Iraq’s population before the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003, but hundreds of thousands are estimated to have since fled their homes amid the anarchic violence throughout much of the country.

Some of the worst violence against Christians has occurred in Baghdad and Mosul.


END

*** Photographs of Father Pius Affas and Father Mazen Ishoa are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.

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***********************************Arson attack damages Israeli church in JerusalemAttack marks second arson against Christian building on same lot.by Alfred Muller

JERUSALEM, October 26 (Compass Direct News) – Rapid police and fire department response to a blaze in a Western Jerusalem Baptist church averted extensive damage from an act police suspect is arson.

In 1982 ultra right-wing Jewish arsonists set a fire that razed a church that had stood on the same property.

The arson attack on Narkis Street Baptist Church at approximately 10:45 p.m. October 23 destroyed 60 chairs and caused smoke and water damage. The arsonist or arsonists forced entrance through a side door and used flammable material to kindle flames at three places in the sanctuary.


Pastor Charles Kopp of the English-speaking international Narkis Street Congregation said that the alertness of the building’s caretaker prompted a speedy fire department and police response. “They kept [the fire] from going big, destroying the piano or the pulpit or platform,” Kopp told Compass.

The German woman living in an adjoining church-owned building phoned Kopp at around 11 p.m. after loud voices woke her. When Kopp arrived, he saw water on the floor and burned chairs. She was unhurt, he said.

Throughout the week four congregations meet for services in the building. Kopp’s congregation, which gathers Saturday mornings, is attended by local Christians and visited by tourists from around the world. A Russian Messianic Jewish congregation, a Hebrew-speaking Messianic congregation and an English-speaking American Baptist congregation also meet in the building.

Because the alarm system was switched off, the church’s insurance company may not cover the damages. “People come here at all hours of the day and night, and they don’t know how to arm or disarm the alarm system,” Kopp said. “We fell into the disuse of the alarm system.” New security measures are now being discussed, including the use of video cameras and re-arming the alarm system. Volunteers have cleaned the floors, walls, windows and lamps, Kopp said. Professionals, however, must clean the electronic equipment and ceiling, which is covered by acoustic material. “We don’t know what kind of expenses will be involved,” he said. The Baptist Village near Petah Tikva lent chairs for this weekend’s services. The previous church built on this property was destroyed by fire 25 years ago during the Feast of Tabernacles. Kopp says that individuals affiliated with the extreme right-wing Kach movement set the 1982 blaze. Following that act of arson, the English-speaking congregation met for years in a tent. The new US$1.2 million sanctuary is built of strong stone. No threats have been made against Kopp’s congregation. Victor Blum, however, pastor of the Russian Messianic-Jewish congregation that meets Friday nights, says for several years the anti-missionary organization Yad L’Achim has warned Israelis to stay away from him and his congregation. “They are spreading leaflets in Hebrew and Russian stating that we are members of a very dangerous sect, the Messianic Jews [who are] converting the Jewish people to Christianity,” Blum said.

Blum says the leaflets show pictures of his wife and himself, in addition to children and eight women in the congregation. The leaflets were glued around the Baptist House several years ago. Later the leaflets were distributed in mailboxes around Jerusalem.

About five years ago a 14-year-old boy from the congregation was delivering invitations for free Yeshua videos when a ski-masked man stabbed him.


Blum said he changed his phone numbers after unknown individuals phoned threats in the early hours. He pressed no charges because those making the threats were never identified.

Blum says he has received expressions of support from Israelis after this latest arson attack. One message of support was from a Jewish man in his 70s who made a special trip to say he was sorry about what had happened.

Kopp says that another church offered its building for this weekend’s services. Also a rabbi of a Reform Jewish congregation offered its synagogue for Christian meetings. It appeared unnecessary to accept these offers. Police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby says so far there are no suspects. “There is a special investigation team that investigates the event,” Ben-Ruby said. “We take it very, very seriously.” END

*** Photographs of Pastor Charles Kopp and the Narkis Street Baptist Church are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.

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***********************************Government Sweep in Laos Cripples Village Church Many Christians, including leaders, still in prison following indiscriminate round-up.by Jeff M. Sellers

LOS ANGELES, October 11 (Compass Direct News) – Following a brutal government sweep of suspected insurgents in July, a village church in Laos that once had nearly 2,000 members has shrunk to only a few dozen daring to attend. Most of its leaders are still either in prison or under house arrest.

Christian sources said only about 20 to 30 members of the previously 1,900-member Laos Evangelical Church in Ban Sai Jarern village, Bokeo province in northwestern Laos, are still meeting after authorities three months ago arrested 200 Hmong Christians falsely accused of being separatist rebels. Many of those arrested, including women and children, are still in prison, Christian sources said, although estimates of the number detained were unavailable.

At the church, most of those still meeting are women and children.

“The men are either still in hiding for fear of being arrested, or are still imprisoned or under house arrest, and many are still fearful to come out of their homes to worship in


church,” a Christian source said. “There is only a small number who dared to come to church on Sunday.”

The remnant church dares to gather only to pray, the source said. “No other activities are being held except prayer meetings. While the church is technically open, without opposition from the authorities, it is still not in its normal state, with its leaders either imprisoned, under house arrest or in hiding, and the members who remain in the village are fearful of coming to church.”

The government crackdown, in which soldiers and police killed at least 13 Christians, was unprecedented in the area, which had been free of both separatist activity and government interference in churches. But last year, sources said, authorities pursued Hmong who had fled religious or political persecution in Vietnam and had taken refuge in Ban Sai Jarern.

The village Christians are largely Hmong, including about 20 refugee families from Vietnam, sources said. Vietnamese and Lao communist authorities have long been hostile to the Hmong for having fought alongside U.S. soldiers in the Vietnam War. Authorities often view them as supporters of separatist leader Gen. Vang Pao.

This hostility is doubled for Christian Hmong, area sources said, as the government considers Protestant Christianity an imperialist foreign religion backed by political interests in the West, particularly the United States. Hence government forces have indiscriminately detained or killed Hmong Christians whom they mistakenly associated with separatists, since previous generations aided U.S. forces in the Vietnam War.

Ban Sai Jarern church members reported that no one from their congregation has had any contact or communication whatsoever with separatist rebels.

“The Lao government must be more careful and respectful in the way they deal with Hmongs, Christians or not,” the Christian source said. “Such brutality will always be wrong in the sight of God.”

Leaders ImprisonedBan Sai Jarern is still closely monitored, sources said, with seven policemen stationed just outside the village.

The officers do not let anyone entering or leaving the hamlet escape their sights for more than one night, sources said; if they go missing, police search for and arrest them.

A few families who fled to the surrounding forests in the July siege have gotten word out that they are lacking food and are in severe need of relief assistance. The monitoring of movements and the closing off of the village to outsiders, sources said, has made providing relief supplies to the refugees difficult.

Christian sources said several other families, in fear of Lao authorities searching for them, have escaped to border countries.


They said assistant pastor Chaicheng Lee and three other lay leaders – Chaijuer Han, Neng Han and Song Yeah Lao – are still being held in a Bokeo prison, and Song Yeah Lao was reportedly very ill. Their wives and children, who were arrested at the time of crackdown, have been released and are at home, but their movements are highly restricted.

Another lay leader, Jong Tor Song, who was arrested and imprisoned together with Pastor Lee and others, has been sent back to Vietnam with his 14-year-old daughter. In Vietnam, he had been sentenced to a seven years in prison. His wife and other children were scheduled to be deported to Vietnam around October 1, though it could not be confirmed if that schedule held.

Zaihue Yang, an army doctor from Huay Sai village who was arrested on July 3, remains imprisoned. He has been separated from other prisoners or has been isolated, possibly in chains.

Sources reported that Jue Por Wang, head of the Ban Fay church, and Wang Lee Wang, head of the Ban Sawan church, both of whom were arrested on July 12, have been released.

On August 7 Compass noted that Neng Moua (not Mua as previously reported), a Vietnamese Christian Hmong who slipped back to his native Fay village after hiding in the mountains, was shot dead by a friend suspecting that he was a member of the separatist rebels. Sources report that after his death, his family, including his wife and mother, tried to escape Laos by crossing the Mekong River to reach Thailand.

On August 21, when the boat they had rented was still just a few feet away from the Laos shore, police spotted them and shouted at the boatman to stop.The boatman panicked and jumped into the river, and the boat capsized in the ensuring panic.

Witnesses reported that some passengers drowned, but Moua’s wife and mother survived and were arrested by the Laos police. Authorities deported them to Vietnam.

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***********************************Ten Christians Killed in Muslim Rampage in Kano, NigeriaHomes, churches destroyed as 500 people are displaced; government slow to respond.by Obed Minchakpu

TUDUN WADA DANKADAI, Nigeria, October 5 (Compass Direct News) – A Muslim rampage last week in this town in the northern state of Kano resulted in the killing of 10 Christians and the destruction of nine churches, according to eyewitnesses.


Another 61 people were injured and more than 500 displaced in the September 28 disturbance, touched off when Muslim students of Government College-Tudun Wada Dankadai, a public high school, claimed that a Christian student had drawn a cartoon of Islam’s prophet, Muhammad, on the wall of the school’s mosque.

Christian students said no one saw the alleged cartoon and that no one in the tiny minority group of Christians would have dared such a feat, especially during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. Of the student population of 1,500 at the high school, only 14 are Christians. Seven of them live on campus.

Iliya Adamu, an 18-year-old student at the school, told Compass that he had been preparing to go to class when a group of Muslim students stormed into his dorm and began to beat him.

“I was surprised that they were beating me without telling what I did,” Adamu said. “I asked to know what was happening, and they claimed that one Christian student had gone to their mosque to draw a cartoon of Muhammad. In spite of my denying the act, they kept beating me.”

Adamu said he saw them beating a Christian classmate, Sule La’azaru. Sensing that he would be killed, he ran to the principal’s office to take refuge. Soon the remaining Christian students escaped and joined him in the principal’s office.

Sensing danger, Muslim teachers locked the Christian students in the principal’s office. They were kept there for about 30 minutes before the school principal, Alhaji Garba Wajume, arrived at the chaotic scene.

Disregarding the appeal of their Muslim teachers to calm down, Muslim students began throwing stones at the Christian students through the window of the principal’s office, wounding the head of student Ayuba Wada.

“I was inside the office of our principal, with the others, when suddenly the Muslim students began throwing stones at us,” Wada said. “It was through this way that my head was broken. I was bleeding, and no help came as the situation became more riotous.”

Trapped in the Principal’s OfficeThe Muslim students eventually broke into the office, but the timely arrival of the principal saved Wada’s life.

Apart from his head wound, Wada also suffered cuts on his legs. He was taken to Hayin Yawa Clinic, where he was treated and smuggled to Doguwa village. Two of his colleagues also were taken to the clinic and subsequently escaped the carnage. The Christian students remaining in the principal’s managed to escape from the Muslim mob unaided.


Christian student Shehu Bawa told Compass that when he arrived at the school that morning, he noticed there were no students on the assembly grounds as there normally would be.

“I then went to my class, however, after about 10 minutes I heard shouts of ‘Allahu Akbar [God is Great]’ all over the school,” he said. “The Muslim students were now attacking every Christian student on sight. Four of us ran into the office of the vice principal, but when it was finally broken into by the Muslim students, we ran out and escaped.”

The Christian students denied that any of them could have drawn a cartoon of Muhammad. “How can we take such a risk when we know that we are a minority and cannot stand [against] them?” Bawa told Compass. “This is a lie created to have a reason to attack us.”

Adamu added that no one saw the alleged cartoon.

“We suspect that either one of the Muslim student in the school did this to create an excuse for us to be attacked, or that a Muslim fanatic from the town might have done this to spark off a fight among Muslims and Christians,” he said. “How could we have done this when Muslim students are always around the mosque day and night because of the Ramadan?”

Having attacked Christian students in the school, Muslim students poured into the streets of Tudun Wada, joined in the mayhem by other Muslims. Burned down churches, vandalized Christian property and unrestrained killings marked the next four hours.

The churches burned included St. Mary’s Catholic Church, St. George’s Anglican Church, Evangelical Church of West Africa (ECWA), Assemblies of God Church, First Baptist Church, and a Pentecostal church, the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Church.

Other churches destroyed by the Muslim militants were an African independent church, the Cherubim and Seraphim Church, and two other Pentecostal churches, The Chosen Bible Church and Deeper Life Bible Church.

Among the 10 Christians murdered were Augustine Odoh and his younger brother Cosmos Odoh, both members of St. Mary’s Catholic Church. Another Catholic, Joseph Eze, was also killed. At press time, the corpses of the three Catholics were lying at the City Hospital in Kano city.

Seven other Christians killed were buried in a common grave by officials of the government of Kano state on Wednesday (October 3), as government workers did not allow relatives or church leaders to identify the corpses.

Those injured were being treated at the Assumpta Clinic, Nomansland in Sabon Gari area of Kano city.


Musa Ahmadu Haruna, priest of St. George’s Anglican Church, Tudun Wada Dankadai, whose church was burned, told Compass that he believes no Christian student in the school could have drawn an image of Muhammad.

“None of these students is capable of drawing a cartoon on a mosque,” he said. “That is a frame-up to find a reason to attack us.”

Town in FlamesRabiu Danbawa, pastor of area ECWA church, said that when he heard of an outbreak of violence against Christians, he decided to move closer to the town center to see what was happening.

“I stood as they set fire on our churches one by one,” he said.

Danbawa said he helped evacuate a member of his church, Juliana Lawal, on his motorcycle before returning for his own family. By the time he approached his home, the storming Muslims had already set fire to the structure, part of the church building already in flames.

Danbawa said he stood about 500 meters from the church as it burned.

“There was nothing I could do,” he said. “I did not know the fate of my wife and my children. I prayed asked for their protection, even as I did not know whether they were killed in the fire in the church or not. However, a few days later, I found my wife and children safe.”

Danbawa said he went to the police station, only to find the police dispersing the many Christians who had run there to escape the attack.

“We were told to leave, as our safety could not be guaranteed,” he said, in tears. “Women and children all scampered to the bush, only to be attacked by the Muslims who had already hid themselves in the bush awaiting their Christian prey.”

Many Christians, Danbawa said, were killed in the surrounding foliage as they tried escaping. Other Christian victims corroborated this statement.

Danbawa and his family are now refugees in Dogon Kawo village alongside other Christian victims. Other Christians are also taking refuge in Kalgo village. None of them have food or shelter, he said.

Christian survivors of the attack told Compass that their survival was a miracle. While Kano state was the site of religious violence in which hundreds died in 2004, the destruction in Tudun Wada, they said, is unprecedented.


The Rev. Father Emmanuel Koro, parish priest of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in the town, told Compass that Muslim fanatics intent on killing him his hand cut with a machete.

“That I survived this attack is a miracle,” Rev. Koro said. “When I had the cut on my hand and was bleeding, it was not possible for me to do anything. Schoolchildren on the church premises were crying for help from me, but there was nothing I could do. I had to be helped out through a back fence in the parish to escape.”

The slashing of his hand, it turned out, may have saved his life, as it seemed to signal the aborting of a plan to burn Koro alive; they had already poured gas on him, he said, in preparation for doing so. He was rescued and taken to the police station, and then moved to a cathedral in Kano city.

Policemen who are Christians were not spared from attack; the Muslim rowdies attacked about 30 officers and their families, looted their household items and set their rooms on fire. Eyewitnesses said the Muslim fanatics also extended their attacks to Christians living in Kumbarau (Yarkawu) village.

Christian Shops DestroyedThe attack comes on the heels of a call in July by the Sultan of Sokoto, Abubakar III, to Muslims in northern Nigeria to rise against Christianity. Kano state government has led the implementation of sharia (Islamic) law throughout northern Nigeria.

Haruna of St. George’s Anglican Church estimated property damage at his church alone at 5 million naira (US$40,718). Haruna said that in the carnage, not only churches but Christian businesses were attacked.

“All shops and businesses of Christians were looted and burnt,” he told Compass at Tudun Wada police station. “Christians have been killed, and all homes of Christians burnt too.”

Afiniki Andy Luka, a Christian widow, told Compass at the Tudun Wada police station that she missed the carnage because she was in Kano city.

“I was phoned and told not to come back to the town, but my children were alone in the house,” she said. “God in his way led them through the carnage as they escaped to the police station. I found them among displaced persons the following day.”

Luka said no house belonging to a Christian in town, nor a church, remains – they have all been destroyed.

“There is not a single church standing in this town as they have all been burned,” she said. “I had two shops, but the Muslims looted them and then burned every other thing in them. I have now been forced to become a refugee in my country with no home to stay in, no husband and no means of survival.”


Dr. Chudi Nwoye, medical director of Assumpta Clinic, told Compass that the victims of the crisis have not only been violated but traumatized.

“These people have been dehumanized and traumatized,” Dr. Nwoye said. “Religious conflicts have become recurrent problems in Kano. It is terrible that these victims have been made to experience deep emotional trauma for not committing any wrong.”

He said there is the urgent need at the moment for these Christians to be rehabilitated.

Mark Lipdo, director of the Stefanos Foundation, a ministry to the persecuted in Nigeria, told Compass that it is shocking that the Nigerian government has done nothing to assist the injured and the displaced.

“It is surprising that an overwhelming thing like this that has displaced thousands of Christians is not known to the Nigerian government,” he said, as the government initially downplayed the extent of the tumult. “The government must act to check such unprovoked attacks against Christians.”

Haruna of St. George’s Anglican Church said, “We are living under persecution in Kano state, and yet, we are being told that we are under a democratic government. Do Muslims really want us to co-exist together as a nation? I doubt so.”

END

*** Photos of victims, burned churches and refugees from the attack are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.

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***********************************Islamic Court Endorses Abduction of Girls in NigeriaA Muslim mother’s dying wish: that Christian father lose custody of daughters.by Obed Minchakpu

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria, October 9 (Compass Direct News) – It has been more than a year since Allabe Kaku Chibok lost his three daughters because he became a Christian – paradoxically, he lost custody of them only after his ex-wife died.

An Islamic court in this city in the northern state of Borno granted custody to Chibok’s wife’s Muslim relatives after a chain of events that began in November 2004, when he allowed his daughters to attend the funeral service of their mother; she had divorced him when he left Islam.


The girls stayed for a week with Muslim relatives at his former wife’s house, but when Chibok arrived there to take them to school, he found that a retired female police officer, Hajiya Maryam Aliyu, had helped his ex-wife’s Muslim relatives abduct them.

Not knowing the whereabouts of his Christian daughters, Chibok on December 8, 2004 petitioned the Borno State police commissioner, asking that his three daughters be found and rescued from Aliyu. Chibok, now 50, had kept custody of the children after Malama Botul Grema divorced him in 1996, and when she remarried in 2000 he had maintained custody of Zara, now 14, Fati, now 12, and 11-year-old Aisha.

A member of the Church of Christ in Nigeria in the Gambaru area of Maiduguri, Chibok told the police commissioner that his efforts to rescue the girls had met with the blunt assertion that he was no longer capable of being their father because he had become a Christian.

Police did not recover his daughters, and after four months Chibok on March 9 again reminded the commissioner of the urgent need act, asserting that Aliyu “be ready to face the wrath of law in order to serve as a deterrence to others who may because of sentimental reasons indulge in such acts again.”

Maiduguri Muslims had threatened to visit harm on Christians should Chibok not back down from his demand for the return of his daughters.

“I am in this critical circumstance calling upon your humble self to urgently act before any ugly situation that is capable of creating chaos, anarchy or any break-down of law and order that ensues,” Chibok wrote. “Frankly, I have done all that is required of a law-abiding citizen in this circumstance.”

Sharia RuleSensing danger, the Rev. Joshua Adamu, chairman of the Borno State chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria, quickly sent an urgent letter to the police commissioner decrying the threat against Christians.

Police still did not act, Chibok told Compass.

“The police commissioner told me that the case of the abduction of my daughters is a family matter and cannot therefore be handled by the police,” Chibok said. “The refusal of the police to intervene is just because the police commissioner is a Muslim too.”

Aliyu and the family of his former wife then summoned Chibok to appear before a sharia (Islamic) court, Borno Upper Sharia Court I, to rescind his claims for custody. Aliyu and two Muslim relatives of his former wife, Hajiya Asabe and Muhammed Grema, filed claims against Chibok asking for custody of the girls.

Appearing before the court, Chibok recalled how the girls were taken from him. “I don’t know whether the children are alive or not,” Chibok testified.


Aliyu admitted to the court that she abducted the girls in accordance with their mother’s death-bed wishes. In the hospital, Botul Grema had asked Aliyu that the Christian girls be taken away from their father so they would be raised as Muslims.

Aliyu also told the court that the Muslim community authorized her to take the girls into her custody, saying Islamic leaders “authorized me to come with the children to my house, and that they would come and receive them from me,” Aliyu testified.

Islamic lawyers called for Aliyu and the Muslim relatives of Chibok’s ex-wife to obtain custody of the three girls, as under Islamic law the girls were now Muslims and could not be allowed to live with their Christian father.

On August 4, 2006, Borno Upper Sharia Court I ruled that under Islamic law a non-Muslim father cannot be a custodian to his children if the mother of his children is Muslim – or, in this case, if the deceased mother’s relatives are Muslim.

“Based on the principles of Islam, the father has no right to keep the children,” ruled Alkali Usman Gambo. “The father cannot be the custody [sic] of his children until it becomes [clear that there is] nobody from the mother’s relative[s] before the burden will be shifted on the father.”

Facing the bitter contradiction that he had retained custody of the children at divorce but lost them at his wife’s death, Chibok told Compass that he is hoping Christians and the Nigerian government will help him recover his daughters.

“I appeal to my Christian brethren to assist in rescuing my daughters,” he said. “I also appeal that those who can influence the Nigerian government to secure the release of my daughters should please do so.”

END

*** A photo of Allabe Kaku Chibok’s three daughters is available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.

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***********************************Muslim Threat to Attack Church Raises Tensions in NigeriaMilitants drop letters on premises of 3,000-member congregation in Borno state.by Obed Minchakpu

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria, October 10 (Compass Direct News) – Militant Islamists in this city in the northern state of Borno have sent three letters to a church warning that members would be attacked in the next few days, raising tensions where 50 Christians were killed and 57 churches destroyed last year.


Leaders of the Christian Association of Nigeria told Compass that the letters were dropped onto the premises of the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria (EYN), in the Polo Area of Maiduguri, on separate days last week.

Mosque calls to prayer were sounded at 11 p.m. and 1 a.m. last night, hours when Muslims do not usually observe prayers, putting police and security agencies on alert. By 6 this morning, police armored tanks were patrolling the streets to thwart any plans to attack Christians.

The Rev. Daniel Mbaya of the Polo Area Church of the Brethren, which has about 3,000 members, had reported the threat to police and Christian leaders. Nigeria’s security agencies and Christian leaders held an emergency meeting yesterday on ways to protect Christians in the event of an Islamic strike on the church.

Rev. Mbaya is no stranger to Nigerian security agents, as Muslims in the city have long opposed the existence of his church.

The church was planted when members of the Church at Wulari EYN Church in Maiduguri encountered difficulties in getting to their sanctuary whenever there was energy crisis, as getting fuel for cars was nearly impossible. To solve the problem, a member of the church, Andrew Balami, then a public officer in the Borno state government, offered his home for worship services.

Balami’s residence became a home church where Bible studies and prayers were being held regularly. The emergence of this house church in the GRA Area of Maiduguri attracted other Christians in the vicinity, and area Muslims soon took their objections to the presence of the church to Borno officials. The Muslim-dominated state government ordered Balami to close the house church or face sanctions it.

Balami did not budge, and harassment of the house church continued. The Borno government ordered a halt to payment of Balami’s salary. He was threatened with dismissal. Eventually Balami was suspended from office for one year.

Balami had received 10 letters from the government warning him against using his house as a church. He was also threatened with legal prosecution, and Balami asked members of the church to relocate. The church members decided to raise funds to build a sanctuary.

They managed to raise 3.5 million naira (US$28,500), which they used to buy a night club property. Construction of the new sanctuary began soon after.

The Borno state government, however, ordered construction to stop. While church leaders pressed for building to continue, Muslims moved into the area in order to claim that a church would be too close to where they worship and hence not allowed. The Christians’ new neighbors told them to leave the property.


Church members resolved to die in the defence of the new sanctuary, Mbaya said. They continued construction while worshiping under makeshift shade on the property. Since its completion, various authorities have ordered Mbaya to report to security agencies almost monthly.

“I have been arrested, harassed and detained by the police, security services, and even soldiers were used to harass me,” Mbaya told Compass. “This year alone, I have been invited by the police more than three times.”

Sanctuary Set AblazeThe sanctuary was set ablaze on February 18 last year, alongside other churches in the city, by Muslim militants protesting cartoons of the Islamic prophet Muhammad by a Danish newspaper.

On that day, Mbaya returned from a pastors’ conference outside the city. He entered Maiduguri and was able to get to his house before the violence erupted, but there he received a phone call that Muslims were heading toward his church to set it ablaze. He quickly phoned police.

“I drove to the church premises and discovered that already there were hundreds of Muslim militants who had congregated around the church and were setting the church building on fire,” he told Compass.

Mybaya was able to get six policemen to accompany him back to the church as it burned, he said, but the officers did not arrest any of the extremists.

“I and some members of my church who braved the crisis to defend our church building arrested eight of the Muslim militants and then handed them over to the police,” he said. “But they were released soon without trial.”

Besides the church fire, he said, five members of his church were attacked in their homes and critically injured.

“Our church building at the Church’s Farm Centre was also completely burned,” he said. “Mr. Misari, one of our church members at the Farm Centre Church, was stabbed with a knife and left to bleed to death. He was eventually rescued by other church members who took him to the hospital.”

On the whole, Mbaya says Muslim militants attacked Christians for a period of four hours. “They rioted from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. without restraint.”

Convert DangersMost of Muslim converts to Christianity in the city, Mbaya said, have been threatened with death from family members and other Muslims.


“Recently, we had one Muslim convert, Hussaini Mohammed. But, because of the threat to his life, we were forced to take him to another state in order to protect him,” he said. “We also have another convert by the name Musa Mohammed Tukur, who has been disciple and has to be taken into hiding because of the threat on his life.”

Whenever Muslims convert, the church takes them into hiding because it is not possible for them to return to their families, he said.

“Becoming Christians means permanent separation from their families if they must remain alive,” he said. “If they return to their families they would certainly be killed.”

The Church of the Brethren in Nigeria has about 10 converts from Islam hidden in different parts of the country.

The Rev. Yuguda Zibagai Ndurvwa, minister in charge of the EYN Church, Wulari area of Maiduguri, corroborated the threat to the local Polo Area church.

“It is not only that church that is facing tough times, but all Christian churches in the city of Maiduguri,” he said.

Ndurvwa said Christians also suffer discrimination in public service and in schools. Kidnapping of children was another problem common to EYN members as well as other Christians in Borno state.

“A member of our church here, Mama Asabe Ladagu, had her appointment terminated at the Ramat Polytechnic because she was seen speaking against discrimination of Christian staff and students of the institution,” Ndurvwa said.

He also cited the abduction of a Christian girl, Maryamu Bulus, a member of his EYN Church, who was forcefully married to a Muslim man.

For Mbaya, doing ministry among Muslims is a challenging task.

“Doing ministry among Muslims is very challenging and very difficult,” he said. “It takes the grace of God to save you, the pastor, as well as the convert.”

The imposition of sharia (Islamic) law, forceful relocation of churches, and lack of land for the building of new church buildings are other problems confronting Christians in this state, he said.

“Government resources are being used to propagate and promote Islam to the detriment of Christianity,” Mbaya said. “A ministry of religious affairs has been created to cater for the religious needs of Muslims, and yet, Christians do not have such privileges.”

END


*** Photos of the Rev. Daniel Mbaya and Rev. Yuguda Zibagai Ndurvwa are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.

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

Two Christians Murdered in Kaduna, NigeriaSword, wooden club attacks follow calls for violent jihad by Muslim leaders.by Obed Minchakpu

KADUNA, Nigeria, October 22 (Compass Direct News) – One man has been killed with a sword and another bludgeoned to death in this city in central northern Nigeria following Muslim leaders’ appeal to wage violent jihad against youthful Christians.

Muslim extremists on October 12 murdered Henry Emmanuel Ogbaje, a 24-year-old Christian, at an area known as Gamji Gate. The following day, church leaders said, a young Christian identified only as Basil was killed with a sword in the same area.

Ogbaje was a Sunday school teacher with the Military Protestant Church at Kotoko Barracks in Kaduna, while Basil, church leaders said, was a member of the Our Lady of Apostles Catholic Church. He was from Kagarko Local Government Area.

Elder Saidu Dogo, secretary of the northern Nigeria chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), told Compass that Islamic leader Sheik Gumi had urged Muslims to wage jihad against Christians during Tafsir, the reading and interpretation of the Quran, in televised broadcasts during the Islamic month-long observance of Ramadan.

“I saw Sheik Gumi on the television, NTA [Nigeria Television Authority], during that period preaching this inciting sermon – in fact, the same sermon was again broadcast by NTA Kaduna, on September 21 and 22,” Dogo told Compass Direct. “He specifically called for a jihad, and that when they go killing they should not kill the elderly people, because the elderly have spent their years already, but that Muslims should kill young Christians.”

Dogo said that Sheik Gumi justified his call for jihad by saying in the same way Muhammad captured the Arabian peninsula, and Usman dan Fodio influenced northern Nigeria. Sheik Gumi concluded that because the British took northern Nigeria from the Islamic reformer (1754-1817) by force, Muslims “should fight to take over Nigeria by going to war against Christians.”

“With these kinds of statements coming from Muslim leaders, why would the followers of Islam not attack Christians?” Dogo asked. “We believe that the killing of Henry Ogbaje and Basil are the result of such sermons of these Muslim leaders.”


Dogo expressed dismay that the NTA, an agency of the Nigerian government, could be used to air such inflammatory messages. Nor is the Nigerian government making any efforts, he said, to curb such manipulation of the media.

Left for DeadHenry Ogbaje’s father, Sgt. Emmanuel Ogbaje, told Compass that his daughter phoned him in Abuja on October 12 with news that Muslims had beaten his son to death with wooden clubs.

“She said they attacked him around the hours of five and six in the evening in the Gamji gate area, where they left him unconscious believing they had killed him,” Ogbaje said. “Henry was left in that state for about three hours with no one helping him.”

The young man regained consciousness, and a passer-by helped bring him home, where family members immediately took him to the 44 Military Reference Hospital, Ogbaje explained. Stationed in Abuja with the National Defense College, the elder Ogbaje rushed to Kaduna and found his son at the hospital.

A doctor treated him on October 12, a Friday, and requested that he be brought back to the hospital the following Monday for further examination.

“I went back to Abuja on Sunday, October 14, to enable me get a pass before returning to Kaduna the day Henry was to see the doctor again,” Ogbaje said. “But by Sunday night, my family phoned me that Henry’s situation had become worse and that he had been rushed back to the hospital. By 8 p.m. that Sunday, Henry died in the hospital and his corpse is now at the Nigerian Air Force Hospital mortuary, because the mortuary at the military hospital is being renovated.”

Ogbaje said the attack was doubly shocking for the family as they knew the young man had no known conflicts with anyone.

“Henry was a peace-loving person. He was straightforward,” Ogbaje said. “He was not a troublemaker.”

A brilliant soccer player, Henry Ogbaje was a high school graduate seeking admission to university at the time he was killed, his parents said.

Resisting RetaliationCAN’s Dogo said at least one Muslim attacked Basil with a sword at Gamji Gate while the Catholic was on his way from church.

“Basil was attacked and left in his pool of blood, but died while he was being rushed to the hospital,” Dogo said. The victim’s family had traveled out of the city for his funeral in his hometown at the time that Compass was in Kaduna, the capital of Kaduna state, and was unavailable for comment.


Both murders took place as Muslims were celebrating the Eid-El-Fatr festival marking the end of Ramadan.

Noting that other Muslim leaders also preached attacks against Christians during Ramadan, Dogo raised a plea for the Nigerian government to act quickly to forestall what he and other Christian leaders said was a systematic effort to wipe out Christianity from northern Nigeria.

“We are alarmed over these types of killings and plead that the government seriously do something about these security breaches,” he said.

The Rev. Joshua Magaji, assistant secretary of the Kaduna state chapter of CAN, said the killings were meant to provoke Christians into angry retaliations and trigger another religious crisis in the state, which has seen tens of thousands of deaths from religious violence in the past three decades. Violence has broken out several times since the imposition of sharia (Islamic) law in 2000.

“We thank God that Christians in the state have restrained themselves from avenging the killing of these two, and we would like to appeal that they continue in this spirit,” Magaji said.

Magaji said Christian leaders have already met with the deputy governor of Kaduna state and the permanent secretary of the state Ministry of Religious Affairs over these two murders.

He called on the state to ensure that the murderers be brought to justice. “So also, I want to appeal that Christians and the government of Kaduna state should assist the two families in this difficult time,” he said.

Government efforts at curtailing the conflicts through the establishment of inter-religious councils and interfaith dialogues between Muslims and Christians have yielded little or no results, he said, as attacks against Christians have continued unabated.

END

*** Photos of Henry Ogbaje, Sgt. Emmanuel Ogbaje, Elder Saidu Dogo and the Rev. Joshua Magaji are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.

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***********************************Muslim Officials Dismiss Christians from Posts in Nigeria School librarian, others forced to leave after requesting land for chapel.by Obed Minchakpu


MAIDUGURI, Nigeria, October 24 (Compass Direct News) – Asabe Ladagu, a Christian widow in this capital city of Borno state in northern Nigeria, has survived without income the past 16 months. It was that long ago, the former librarian told Compass, that Muslim administrators at Ramat Polytechnic forced her into early retirement – without pay – after she and others requested land to build a chapel.

“We were branded as dangerous people because we are Christians,” Ladagu said.

Ladagu had put in 35 years of government service as Ramat Polytechnic’s librarian and chief lecturer.

“I have been forced out of office now for more than 16 months, not retired and not on staff roll of Ramat Polytechnic,” Ladagu said. “Other Christian brethren too have either been forced out or have been the subjects of witch-hunts.”

Roots of the conflict go back to 1991, she said, when a Muslim student attacked a Christian student, threatening to cast the institution into religious crisis.

“The Muslim student slapped the Christian student on claims that Christian students were disturbing them with worship songs in a classroom,” Ladagu said. “At this time, we were using classrooms for our worship services, Bible studies, and prayers because we didn’t have a chapel.”

She and others were able to calm Christian students, averting large-scale violence at the institution. “Sensing that this ugly situation needed to be arrested, we, the leaders of the Christian community, felt that we should apply for land to build a chapel,” she said.

Community Christians managed to raise enough funds to build the chapel, but the polytechnic’s administration did not grant their request for land. Ladagu recalled a time when they were told to shut up or be shown the way out of the institution for advocating for a chapel.

“I remember Ummara calling both Christian staff and students to a meeting in the school and telling us that we were in the school for educational purposes only and not for religion,” she said. “He warned that he would not tolerate our request to have a chapel in the school. It was from this point that we were marked out for elimination.”

The Christians viewed the denial as deliberate discrimination against Christians by Muslim administrators at a time when there were seven mosques on campus.

“It was baffling that in spite of this number of mosques in the institution,” she said, “our demand for just a parcel of land to build a chapel became a thing for the Muslim administration in the institution and in the state to use to discriminate against us leaders of the Christian community and begin a witch-hunt.”


Shortly after the request for land to build a chapel, colleague Deacon Anyetebo’s appointment at Ramat Polytechnic was terminated, Ladagu said. The shock of receiving the notice and the stresses of having no income contributed to his death barely a month later, she said.

After Ladagu and co-worker Maryam Fika were forced into early retirement, they successfully petitioned the Commissioner of Education to be re-instated – only to be dismissed again.

“We were recalled, but later told that we must leave,” Ladagu said. “After we left, Deacon Anyetebo was also retired; he died soon after because of shock. And then Maryam Bwala became the fourth Christian victim to be retired because of the chapel matter.”

Another Christian leader in the institution, Barnabas Atiyaye, was the next to go.

“He was suspended and dragged before security agencies and harassed several times, all because of the same chapel problem,” Ladagu said. “Eventually they forced him out, and he is currently working with the United Nations country office in Abuja.”

Two other Christian staff members, John Ojediran and a worker identified only as Dr. Poopola, were also forced to leave, Ladagu said.

According to Ladagu, all administrators at the institution during the period were Muslims, including Babagana Tijani, Alhaji Modu Mustapha, Umar Baba Ummara, and Babagana Ummar. They were unavailable for response, as government officials are prohibited by law from commenting on disputed issues, especially sensitive religious matters.

Discrimination has weakened the Christian community at the school, a public institution owned by the Borno state government, Ladagu said. The school was established in April 1978 and named after the late Muslim military head of state Gen. Murtala Ramat Mohammed, who was killed in a military change of government in 1976.

Ramat Polytechnic now has one Christian among the five principal officers in its administration.

Islamic BiasDiscrimination against Christians in Borno state goes well beyond the Ramat Polytechnic case.

The Rev. Joshua Adamu, chairman of the Borno state chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria, asserted that persecution of Christians has become a state policy.

“Discrimination against us in this state is very common,” the 67-year-old Adamu told Compass. “It is practiced in all government agencies and ministries. Our children too are


not left out in the practice, as they are denied admission in schools or even denied the teaching of their faith, the Christian faith.”

Consequently, Adamu and other Christians took the Borno state government to court for failing to teach Christian Religious Knowledge (CRK) in schools.

“The government requested that we settle the case out of court, and we did, but up till now that I am speaking to you, the teaching of CRK has not been permitted, and yet Islamic Religious Knowledge is being taught in all schools,” Adamu said.

Difficulties in the state emerge against a backdrop of violence still fresh in the memory. Under the guise of protesting cartoons of Muhammad in a Danish newspaper, Muslims in Borno killed 57 Christians and burned over 52 churches.

“One Catholic priest was also killed, and in my church, the Church of Christ in Nigeria, Gambaru local congregation, 82 women and two pastors were injured,” Adamu said. “I and my associate were attacked by Muslims too. All my theological books worth over 1.5 million naira were destroyed when the pastorate was burned by Muslim militants.”

Land, Adamu said, has become very difficult to acquire for new church auditoriums or for expansion of existing buildings – an increasingly disturbing obstacle. Even lands acquired decades ago by churches have not been government certified, rendering them illegal.

The Rev. Paye Pama, pastor of Rhema Assembly and secretary of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, Borno state chapter, echoed the problems enumerated by Ladagu and Adamu.

A pastor in Maiduguri for 20 years, Pama said working in the Islamic-dominated environment has been dangerous.

“If you are a Christian and your blood brother is a Muslim,” Pama said, “whenever there is a religious crisis, he would be ready to kill you.”

During last year’s cartoon violence, he said, some pastors were killed by Muslim relatives or Muslims whom they had served.

“These Muslims had received assistance from these pastors in form of money, food, clothing, etcetera,” Pama said. “They knew where the pastors lived, and so they brought their fellow Muslims to kill these pastors.”

The number of Christians killed in the February 2006 violence is probably higher than the 57 known dead, he said.

“It is difficult today to say exactly how many Christians were killed because security agents kept the figures secret,” Pama said. “In addition, they removed some corpses and


buried them in a mass grave. We have only been able to count those we recovered, and that is the figure we’ve been using.”

Pama lamented that persecution has resulted in the fleeing of many Christians to other parts of the country, depleting the population of Borno state churches.

END

*** Photos of the Rev. Joshua Adamu and the Rev. Paye Pama are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.

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***********************************Muslims Apologize for Attack on Pakistani ChurchKashmir militant instigated call for jihad from mosque minaret.by Peter Lamprecht

ISTANBUL, October 25 (Compass Direct News) – Muslims who attacked a Pakistani church and declared religious war against Christians from mosque minarets have apologized for their actions, human rights workers said.

Police no longer stand guard around Gowindh village’s sole church following its attackers’ apology October 12, a Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) member told Compass.

No charges have been brought against the 300 Punjabi Muslim villagers who vandalized the New Apostolic Church at 6 a.m. October 10. The mob broke church windows, threw dung on its walls and cut wires to the church’s loudspeaker.

But subsequent threats against Gowindh’s Christians were even more serious than the initial attack, Mehboob Khan of the HRCP told Compass.

Following these acts of vandalism, Muslim clerics called for jihad, Islamic holy war, against the Christian “infidels.” The clerics issued the call from the town’s eight mosques, Khan said.

Another HRCP worker who visited the village, located east of Lahore on the Indian border, said that the threats had included demands for Christians to convert to Islam.

“Become Muslims or be prepared to fight or die,” the clerics announced from the mosque loudspeakers, HRCP member Nadeem Anthony said. “This was the first time it happened, which is why the villagers were so scared.”

According to Anthony, the New Apostolic Church is more than 60 years old, built before the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947.


Police arrived 12 hours after the early-morning vandalism, delayed in part by bad road conditions and the fact that no Christians in the village had a telephone with which to call them, Anthony said.

Their arrival halted plans for further violence but did not stop Muslims in the village of 10,000 from declaring a boycott on its Christian minority, some 300-strong.

“Christians couldn’t get anything from Muslims’ shops,” Gowindh Christian leader Sattar Masih told Sharing Life Ministries Pakistan, a Christian rights group that visited the area. “They couldn’t go to the doctor as the doctors were Muslims.”

Khan, who also traveled to Gowindh with a fact-finding team following the attack, said that Muslims were angered over the church’s use of its loudspeaker. Members were using the amplifier to call the congregation to a prayer meeting each morning at 6 a.m.

Muslim villagers claimed that the call was interrupting fajr, the first of five daily Islamic calls to prayer made from the mosque minaret. They said that for months they had been asking the Christians not to use the loudspeaker, according to an October 17 article in English-language newspaper Daily Times.

According to Khan of the HRCP, fajr occurs at approximately 5 a.m., a full hour before Christians were using their loudspeaker.

Muhammad Sadiq, described as an influential Muslim in the village, initially claimed that there had been no attack on the church, according to the Daily Times.

“We have no grudges with the Christians,” an October 12 article quoted Sadiq as saying. The leader only admitted that certain villagers had cut wires to the church loudspeaker.

But a source who requested anonymity said that a Muslim who had recently returned from training with militant extremist groups in Kashmir had instigated the violence.

“He came back from military training and he had some propaganda against the Christians,” said the source who visited the village following the attack. The militant had convinced other villagers that local Christians were agents of the United States working to convert Muslims to Christianity.

Pakistan and India have disputed the ownership of majority-Muslim Kashmir since the area’s Hindu ruler chose to join India in 1947. Under the supervision of supervisory police officer Athar Ismail, representatives of the Muslim community eventually promised to drop the boycott.


“We apologize to the Christians for desecrating the church and hurting their religious sentiments,” stated an apology signed by Muslim leaders on October 12, the Union for Catholic Asia News (UCAN) reported.

Muslim community leaders Daler Khan, Haji Yaseen Gardor and Tariq Mehar signed the statement in the presence of 100 Muslims, Christian leaders and local police, UCAN reported.

In a euphemistic reference to the calls for jihad issued from mosque minarets, the signatories also promised not to misuse loudspeakers in the future.

No charges have been brought against villagers who attacked the church, instituted the boycott and called for holy war against the Christians, leaving the Christian community anxious about the future.

According to UCAN, the churchgoers decided not to use the loudspeaker for the first few days after the agreement was reached with the Muslims.

“We are even willing to pray at home to avoid further troubles,” Sattar Masih told UCAN.

But Anthony of the HRCP told Compass yesterday that Gowindh Christians have now resumed use of the loudspeaker.

The incident is consistent with the ongoing pattern of isolated church attacks in Pakistan where perpetrators later apologize and avoid facing charges.

Several Christians were injured and Christian literature was destroyed when Muslim villagers attacked a church north of Faisalabad in June. The congregation had obtained permission from the village government to use a loudspeaker to broadcast evangelistic meetings they were planning to hold the night of the attack.

In a similar out-of-court settlement, the attackers apologized but were not charged for the violence.

In May in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province town of Charsadda, two madrassah (Muslim seminary) students confessed to having authored anonymous threats against Christians. At least 50 Christians had fled Charsadda after they received a letter telling them to convert to Islam or face suicide bombing. But the Christian community chose not to press charges and on June 4 officially forgave the two students, who said the threats had been a prank.

Christians make up approximately 1.5 percent of Pakistan’s population, according to the U.S. State Department’s 2007 Report on International Religious Freedom.

END


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***********************************Pro-Sharia Rebels Threaten Pakistani ChristiansMilitants clash with army over Islamic law.by Peter Lamprecht

ISTANBUL, October 31 (Compass Direct News) – Islamic militants threatened to bomb a Christian family for refusing to convert to Islam as fighting between militants and government troops resumed in northwestern Pakistan yesterday.

A tiny Christian community in North West Frontier Province has reported increasing pressure to conform to Islamic law in recent months.

Since July, followers of Muslim cleric Maulana Fazlullah have worked to enforce Islamic law (sharia) in much of Swat Valley, prompting clashes with government troops this week.

“Become Muslim. Otherwise, we are going to destroy your house with bombs,” an anonymous caller told a Swat Christian family last night.

The family, who requested that their name and village be kept anonymous for security reasons, said that they stayed awake all night praying after the 10 p.m. threat. They said that a Muslim neighbor, a close friend, spent the night in their front room as a token of solidarity.

Last month the family received a similar threat in writing, delivered by militants to a camp site they owned and ran.

A worker with the Church of Pakistan in Peshawar confirmed that Christians in Swat have been forced to accept Islamic law.

“Militants have begun to enforce Muslim customs, which is creating problems for the local community,” said Ashar Dean, assistant director of communications for the diocese.

Life has become even more difficult for Christians and other moderates in the valley since fighting broke out between government forces and extremists last week.

A brief truce on Monday and Tuesday allowed civilians to shop for food and other essentials. But according to sources in Swat, clashes resumed last night. It remains unclear whether locals again will be forced to stay indoors.


“In these conditions sometimes people are going to lose their faith,” a member of the threatened family said. “But I am making the request [for prayer] that God give us our faith.”

Islamists beheaded two policemen and seven civilians Saturday (October 27), warning that violence would continue until Islamic rule was established in Swat, the Daily Times reported.

Extremists loyal to Fazlullah carried out 53 bombings between July and October, Dawn newspaper said in an October 9 article. In addition to killing government officials, the blasts targeted anything deemed “un-Islamic,” including CD shops, girls schools and tailors making Western clothes.

In areas wrested from government control, Fazlullah’s followers established sharia courts to try violators of Islamic law.

According to Dean, the valley’s Christian minority of approximately 70 families has been especially hard hit by the enforcement of sharia.

“Christians in Swat are very vulnerable because they don’t live together in a group,” Dean said. “They are individually living among the majority community in various villages.”

Mainly lower-class street sweepers, the valley’s Christians have begun donning Muslim attire in order to blend in, Dean said.

Two boys from Swat studying in Peshawar had found their family’s lives drastically changed when they returned home for a holiday, according to Dean.

“They were told by their father to wear white colored hats that [Muslims] wear when they go to the mosque to say their prayers,” Dean said. He also said that Christian men were forced to grow out their beards.

Militants have forbidden barbers to offer shaves.

A Christian resident said that she and her daughter can now only leave home wearing a burqa. The Islamic attire leaves only a woman’s eyes and hands exposed.

“You can’t watch TV, and you can’t keep CDs in your house,” the woman said.

Catholic-run Sangota Public High School, an all-female institution, temporarily closed its doors last month after it received a threatening letter from alleged Islamists.


The note claimed that nuns were involving the young women in adultery and working to convert Muslim students to Christianity. It demanded that all female students and teachers don the burqa.

In response to the extremist takeover, Pakistan moved several thousand troops into Swat valley last week, precipitating four days of fighting that ended in a temporary ceasefire on Monday (October 29).

But Fazlullah’s Islamists appear reluctant to back down from enforcing sharia.

“The ceasefire was reached to facilitate wounded persons’ treatment,” a spokesperson announced on the Muslim cleric’s illegal radio station. “Later on we will hold negotiations with the government on establishing sharia in the region,” the Daily Times quoted him as saying.

The fighting forced Sangota Public High School to again close its doors last Thursday (October 25), Father Anwar Batras Gill told Compass from Peshawar.

The Catholic priest said that three nuns running the school were doing well but that their students could no longer attend because of the violence.

Islamists increased efforts to establish Islamic rule in Swat following a government crackdown on militants at Lal Masjid mosque in Islamabad in July. The takeover of the mosque sparked violent reactions from Islamists throughout the country.

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***********************************Suicide Bomber Kills Youths in Sudanese Church Officials call it accidental, but general says attack meant to intimidate Christians.by Peter Lamprecht

ISTANBUL, October 3 (Compass Direct News) – A suicide bomber in military fatigues killed five young people at a church meeting last week in Sudan’s Upper Nile State, according to eyewitnesses.

The man detonated a grenade on his belt after approaching a group of 34 young people holding an outdoor church meeting in Khorfulus, 40 kilometers (25 miles) southwest of Malakal last Thursday evening (September 27).

Khorfulus authorities have taken the position that the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) soldier was drunk and accidentally set off the grenade, a church leader said. But according to a Christian support organization, one general said that he believed the goal of the attack was to intimidate churches.


The Rev. Joseph Maker Gordon, acting secretary general of the Presbyterian Church in Sudan, told Compass he was on a week-long visit to Khorfulus at the time of the bombing.

“We were praying in another church [nearby] when we heard the explosion at 10 p.m.,” Rev. Gordon said.

The pastor immediately went to the scene of the attack to find that four young people and the bomber had been killed.

Eyewitnesses told Rev. Gordon that the man had approached a group of Christian youth who were singing worship songs outside of a Sudan Interior Mission (SIM) church building. The property, in use by other church groups, had no fence around it, allowing the man to walk directly up to the group of children and teenagers, Rev. Gordon said.

“Then he took out a match and began to smoke, and the children heard a strange noise,” Rev. Gordon said. “Some children started to gather around the man to see what was making the noise, and unfortunately the bomb went off.”

According to Rev. Gordon, a young boy, two young girls, a young man and the bomber died immediately. Donguei Matok Chan, 8, Dhieu Nyandual, 20, and the two 11-year-old girls, Nyaniok Ryak Chol Ayoum and Nyawyly Kon Rwaj, were buried in Khorfulus.

Rev. Gordon said that a fifth young man hit in the explosion, 17-year-old Simon Chol Charles Thon Arob, died in Malakal General Hospital on Saturday (September 29). His funeral was held Monday (October 1) in Malakal.

The blast also wounded approximately 20 people, Rev. Gordon said. At least 10 young people were seriously injured, with four still in critical condition in Malakal as of yesterday. A police source who visited the Malakal General Hospital yesterday put the number of injured at 12.

News of the attack hit national headlines on Monday (October 1) after the United Nations Mission in Sudan published a brief report on the bombing.

Responding to claims that the bomber was drunk, Khorfulus city officials have banned public consumption of alcohol.

“They told people over loudspeakers on Saturday and Sunday that they do not want to see any wine in public from Monday onward,” Rev. Gordon said. The pastor told Compass that Christians in the city, who number approximately 30,000, did not feel threatened and were continuing to hold services.

But military officials were unable to identify the bomber, Rev. Gordon said, raising suspicions that the bombing was a deliberate attack on Christians. Despite wearing an SPLA uniform, army officials claimed that the attacker was not from a local battalion.


One Christian support organization reported that the dead bomber was an Arab soldier from Northern Sudan who had recently joined the southern-based SPLA. Open Doors said a military official identified only as SPLA Maj. Gen. Deng in Khorfulus believed the motive for the attack “was to intimidate Christians in the area,” the organization stated in a release yesterday.

According to Rev. Gordon, the government has posted plainclothes police around Khorfulus churches since the attack. The pastor said that officials also arrested a second man who ran up to the church and yelled at the dead bomber moments after the explosion.

One of the northern-most areas under southern Sudanese jurisdiction, Malakal has remained relatively peaceful since the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed in January 2005.

The CPA brought an end to a 21-year civil war between northern Islamist Arabs and southern Christians, Muslims and animists.

But in December 2006 violence erupted between southern SPLA forces and northern government of Sudan-backed militias in the area.

Over the past three years, the government of Sudan has failed to carry out democratization called for by the CPA, causing many to worry that the nation is headed back to civil war.

The CPA is “in danger of collapse due to government sabotage and international neglect,” International Crisis Group stated in a July 2007 report.

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***********************************Widow of Slain Turkish Worker: ‘A Cross for Me Every Day’Semse Aydin prays for ‘the ultimate revenge.’by Barbara G. Baker

ISTANBUL, October 1 (Compass Direct News) – Last Sunday night on the way home from church services, a sad little voice came from the back seat of the car.

“Mommy, I miss my Daddy so much. Can’t Jesus bring him back to us?”

Her mother sighed, and then turned from the front seat to explain gently once more to her 6-year-old daughter, “Esther, Jesus decided to take Daddy to heaven, to be with Him. So we have to wait until Jesus takes us to heaven to see Daddy again.”


The little girl thought for a few seconds and then declared, “Well, if Daddy isn’t coming back, then I want to go to heaven too!”

More than five months have passed since Esther Aydin’s father was beaten, tortured and then slaughtered with a knife in Turkey’s eastern city of Malatya by five young Muslims who claimed in initial statements they had done it “for our religion.”

But Esther and her brother Elisha, 7, are still struggling painfully with the loss of their father, Necati Aydin, who shared his martyrdom on April 18 with another Turkish Christian, Ugur Yuksel, and German Christian Tilmann Geske. They were bound hand and foot, tortured with multiple stab wounds and had their throats cut. The ritual slayings appeared to be a deliberate observance of the Quranic instruction to “strike terror into the hearts of unbelievers” by smiting them above the neck and striking every finger (Surah 8:12). The victims’ fingertips were sliced repeatedly and their windpipes and esophagi severed.

As their mother put them to bed one night last week, Elisha finally asked, “Mommy, are you crying about Daddy?”

Admitting it had been hard for her to cry since his death, his mother told him, “I am crying in my heart every day, Elisha.”

Bravely trying to comfort her, Elisha answered, “You don’t need to cry, Mommy. We know he is in heaven with Jesus, along with Uncle Ugur and Uncle Tilmann.”

But a few nights later, as he again dissolved in a flood of tears, he sobbed out his own fears to her, admitting he was terrified that she might die, too.

In-Laws’ OppositionFor Semse Aydin, who spoke at a recent memorial service near Istanbul to her husband’s Zirve Publishing Company colleagues, the shock of the cruel and sudden death still hits her every morning when she awakens.

Equally painful, she said, is knowing that Elisha and Esther will grow up without their father’s loving care and nurture.

“Necati’s absence is a cross for me every day,” she admitted. “It’s as if after nine years of marriage and two children, God is saying to me, ‘I want him back.’”

Ten years ago, Necati Aydin’s strict Muslim family had violently opposed his decision to become a Christian. They literally kidnapped him when they learned of his pending marriage, threatening both of them if he did not change his mind and come back to Islam.


“I was afraid for his life, and that he would renounce Jesus,” Aydin said. “So I told the Lord I would give him up, that I would sacrifice our marriage. I prayed that the Lord would just keep Necati for Himself, not for me.”

But Necati Aydin stayed firm in his new faith in Christ, and after writing a farewell letter to his family (see sidebar), he married Semse in 1998.

“Now, God has taken him back,” she said. “He is the one who gives and takes away. So how can I be angry with the God who is over everything?”

But the realities of single motherhood still overwhelm her, despite the comforting support of her older sister, who squeezed them into her modest apartment in western Turkey the week after the tragedy.

After months of searching, it was only in early September that Aydin was able to rent an apartment for herself and move her household goods from Malatya to western Turkey. She now lives a few blocks from her sister, who is married to the pastor of the Protestant church in Izmit.

One prospective landlord backed out of signing a contract with her after learning her husband was one of the Muslim converts to Christianity killed in Malatya.

Threats, Eviction and AttackIn June, her sister’s landlord bowed to neighborhood pressures, asking them to move out because of complaints that it was “dangerous” to live in the same building with them; local and national media had reported that her pastor husband had been openly targeted as the next Christian the Malatya murderers said they planned to kill.

Because of these threats, the pastor has a full-time, government-provided police guard who accompanies him in the city and is posted on duty whenever the church building is in use.

Even so, their church has been attacked twice since Aydin and her children moved to Izmit. It was splattered with eggs in late July, and in early September an overnight attempt was made to set the entrance on fire.

“It’s a daily stress on all of us,” Aydin said, “for my 9-year-old niece and her parents as well as for me and my children, to know there are people who hate us so much they want to frighten us and even kill us.”

Because both of her young ones have distinctively Christian first names, she said, even last year in Malatya they were confronted in their first-grade and kindergarten classes with inevitable questions. The surviving family was subjected to practically subconscious ostracization by their Muslim schoolmates and teachers.


No school official or parent from Elisha’s school in Malatya contacted Aydin after her husband’s murder, she said.

‘A Knife to My Heart’The draining process of returning to Malatya in early September to pack up and move their former home was like “a knife to my heart,” she said. “It was as painful as death itself to close that chapter of my life.”

“Without Necati, I feel like I don’t have a home anymore. I can’t feel like this is really my home now, because he’s not here.”

Even so, she made time during the visit to call on her Muslim neighbors, once again testifying to them of the love and forgiveness she had found in Christ. She gifted each one with a New Testament and a copy of her husband’s letter to his family explaining why he had become a Christian.

It was one of the hardest things she had ever done, she admitted. “It took so much energy, and it was so painful, but Jesus would not let me dodge this last opportunity,” she said.

She also braved the strain to again visit the relatives of the other Turkish victim, comforting them and sharing the hope of Christ’s message with them.

But there were encouraging times as well, she said, meeting singly or in small groups with many of the Christian believers in Malatya who had come to faith through the witness of herself and her husband, who had been their pastor.

Despite the personal cost of her pain, Aydin stands by her public statement to the Turkish media two days after her husband’s death, declaring that she has forgiven the five culprits, now jailed and awaiting trial.

In fact, she is actively praying for at least one of them to repent of their deeds and come to faith in Christ. “That’s the ultimate revenge, isn’t it?” Aydin asked.

“It was not easy for me to say that I forgive the killers,” she said at the Zirve memorial service. “To be honest, my heart is broken and my life feels shattered. I really loved Necati. He was the love of my life, my closest friend. But there is no one I love more than Jesus. Only because of this, I can bear it.”

END

*** Photographs of Semse and Necati Aydin and their children are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.

SIDEBAR

Convert’s Farewell Letter to Muslim Family


Necati Aydin’s Muslim family released the following letter to the Turkish press on April 20. The letter from Aydin to his family was undated. – Eds.

My dear mother, father, brothers and sisters,

First of all, I greet you in the almighty name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and kiss you.

After all the turmoil and conflict we have experienced, I have decided to separate myself from you to be able to keep and live my faith in Christ Jesus, and to be able to guard this truth unto the very end.

This decision is not based on any kind of fear nor on anything I desire or yearn for. It is my very own decision which I have reached after many deliberations and arguments with myself. So please do not blame anybody. Don’t exhaust your mind with all sorts of theories.

I have returned to the place where I belong, to Jesus and his people. Just as you are my physical family, I also have a spiritual family. Please do not be afraid or worried about my leaving you. Don’t upset yourselves. For I have been saved not by any loss on my part but by eternal gain. You now have a son who has been saved. Rejoice in this.

I have received this salvation by faith in Jesus, and there is nobody, no poverty, no hardship, no illness, no evil, no death that has the power to turn me away from my faith unto salvation.

The strength and veins that give me life and salvation are tied to Jesus by faith. To live without him would mean to deserve eternal death and destruction.

In our relationship as of now, I will still love you as your son and brother. I will constantly be in contact with you and will pray for you to be saved.

For the time being I ask that you don’t phone us or try to get in touch with us, but that you patiently wait for the hatred in you to be wiped away and that you replace those feelings with love, compassion and understanding.

And above all, I want you to know Jesus Christ as “the way, the truth and the life,” that by putting your faith in Him you also would gain eternal salvation.

I love you.

May my Lord show you his truth. Amen.

Rana Necati Aydın

(Return to Index)


***********************************New Judge Prolongs Converts’ Trial in TurkeyPresident calls for change in controversial free speech law.Special to Compass Direct

LOS ANGELES, October 4 (Compass Direct News) – A new judge has prolonged the case of two Turkish converts to Christianity after his predecessor resigned under pressure from the plaintiffs’ ultranationalist lawyer.

At a September 26 hearing, his first in the 12-month case, Judge Metin Tamirci set the Christians’ next court date for November 29. Defendants Hakan Tastan and Turan Topal had hoped for a quick dismissal of charges of insulting “Turkishness” at their last hearing on September 12 after the state prosecutor said in July that there was no evidence against them.

But Judge Neset Eren prolonged the case when he told the Silivri court, 45 miles west of Istanbul, that he was stepping down. He said he hoped to “distance the court’s decision from any form of indecision or doubt.”

Eren’s announcement came after the plaintiff’s ultranationalist lawyer, Kemal Kerincsiz, called for his resignation, accusing the judge of failing to deal with the case impartially.

Kerincsiz has raised a number of cases against Turkish intellectuals, including Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk, under article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code for “degrading Turkishness.”

A higher court in Bakirkoy, Istanbul accepted Eren’s resignation on September 13.

Defense lawyer Haydar Polat said that despite the change of judge and a new state prosecutor, he was still 99 percent sure that his clients would be acquitted.

“There is no crime to be found, we’ll just have wait and see if the state prosecutor agrees with us,” Polat said.

In addition to insulting Turkish identity, Tastan and Topal are charged with reviling Islam and secretly compiling files on private citizens for a local Bible correspondence course.

At a hearing in July, State Prosecutor Ahmet Demirhuyuk called for the Christians’ release, saying there was no credible evidence against them. He said that the plaintiffs had give contradictory testimonies and failed to offer evidence that the Christians had cursed Turkey and Islam.

A new prosecutor has been present at each of the subsequent hearings.


Lawyer Polat said that the case could be prolonged if the judge decides to call on further witnesses from Silvri’s gendarmerie. The military police had ordered the initial investigation of Tastan and Topal.

New Turkish President Abdullah Gul yesterday called on the government to change article 301 of the Turkish penal code. The controversial article outlaws “degrading Turkishness, the Republic, the State or its institutions.”

Addressing the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France on his first official visit abroad, Gul claimed that the article had caused unfair criticism of Turkey.

“Nobody was sent to prison under article 301,” Gul said, according to the Turkish Daily News (TDN).

Writers have often been prosecuted for insulting “Turkishness” when they challenge the Turkish state’s version of historical events, such as the killing of hundreds of thousands of Armenians following World War I, TDN reported yesterday.

More than 100 writers were tried under the controversial law in 2005 and 2006, according to an April release from Human Rights Watch.

Last month, Turkey’s Human Rights Association reported that during the first half of 2007, another 17 trials had been opened under article 301. Apart from ongoing trials, all cases have ended in suspended sentences or acquittals.

European Union officials have repeatedly called on Turkey to abolish the controversial law in order to bring their legal system in line with European standards of free speech.

END

*** Photographs of Hakan Tastan, Turan Topal, their lawyers and ultranationalist lawyer Kemal Kerincsiz are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.

(Return to Index)

***********************************Threats, Violence against Turkish Christians on UpswingPresident: ‘There are no attacks targeting Christians in Turkey.’Special to Compass Direct

LOS ANGELES, October 5 (Compass Direct News) – Turkish Protestants have reported increasing attacks and threats in recent months despite claims by President Abdullah Gul this week that Christians in Turkey are not targeted.


Believers told Compass that threats have increased since two Turkish Christian converts and a German Christian were tortured and killed at Zirve Publishing House in Malatya on April 18. Neighbors have threatened Christian radio station workers in Ankara in recent weeks, and a visitor to Antalya’s Bible Church this summer attacked an elderly member with a chair.

Antalya Bible Church pastor Ramazan Arkan said that he is pursuing four court cases against Rasim Eryildiz, a construction worker who began threatening church members in May.

“He came approximately 15 times to harass us,” Arkan said. “Every time he’d come, we would complain to the police. They would arrest him and then let him go.”

After one such incident on June 22, Eryildiz returned drunk the next morning and began shouting vulgarities at a Christian who was trying to enter the church.

“I will kill you and turn this into a Malatya incident,” Eryildiz said. “I will f--- this church’s priest and kill him.”

But at a court hearing on July 31, judge Hakan Sil decided to free Eryildiz. The following week, neighbors warned Arkan that the construction worker had been looking for the pastor in his home. The next hearing is scheduled for November 11.

On August 19, following a Sunday morning service, Altan Gultekin, a visitor who claimed to be a Christian, grabbed a chair in the church garden and leveled an 82-year-old church member.

“[Gultekin] was about to hit the man a second time when our friends jumped on him and subdued him until the police could arrive,” Arkan said.

The blow badly cut the elderly Christian’s arm and head. “There was blood everywhere, but fortunately one of the believers is a doctor and was able to do some emergency treatment right away,” Arkan said.

At a local hospital emergency room, doctors gave the Christian nine stitches in his arm and another 12 in his head.

Gultekin began threatening to murder Arkan when the pastor told police that he wanted to open a court case against the attacker. But later, at the police station, officials told Arkan that only the victim of the attack could press charges. In addition, they claimed that Gultekin had been diagnosed with psychological problems.

“Police told me, ‘Ramazan [Arkan], even if you become a complainant it won’t change anything, because he has a medical report and he’ll be set free,” Arkan said.

The elderly victim of the attack declined to file an official complaint against Gultekin.


On August 24, the week of the attack, Arkan submitted an official request for police protection for his church. Since then, officers have stepped up patrols around the building, and plainclothes officers sit in the church garden during services.

“The interesting thing is that until I went to the police [to request protection], we always suffered from this harassment, whether from Altan Gultekin or Rasim Eryildiz,” Arkan said. “But as soon as I went, the threats ended just like that. It shows they can stop this if they want.”

Media Buzz Despite the threats, Arkan said that he believes Christians in Antalya, one of Turkey’s most popular tourist destinations, have an easier situation than believers in other areas of the country.

“The police here have been very helpful, most of the pressure we experience is from the media,” Arkan said.

The pastor has appealed a court case he lost against local newspaper Kitle, which published an article claiming the church was traumatizing children by putting on a passion play.

In February 21 front page article titled, “Scandal in the Church,” the paper cited anonymous psychologists who said that baptizing children could cause lasting trauma. The article printed pictures of a passion play from the church website and claimed that the church was playing on the emotions of youth by making them smear tomato paste on their faces and then “crucifying” them.

“All of these events take place in front of small innocent children who come to the church,” the article stated.

On March 2, an Antalya court ruled against Arkan, saying that the pastor could not sue the newspaper for slander because his name was not used in the article, though it referred several times to the “church pastor.”

“This is a pretty serious thing, because they are trying to destroy our reputation with the people here,” Arkan said.

Threats at the Front DoorChristian radio station staff members in Ankara have also seen an increase in threats from visitors to their front door since the Malatya attacks in April.

“Actually, it was only after Malatya that this started,” Radio Shema Director Soner Tufan said. “Before, they wouldn’t directly contact us. Sometimes they would fax us or e-mail us, but they wouldn’t even call us on the telephone.”


Tufan said that, since May, at least three times a month men have come to the station’s door and threatened workers. One man ran away when a radio staff member opened the door, but he telephoned the office minutes later to say, “We’ll tear this place down on top of you, you’re doing missionary work.”

In order to beef up security, radio staff members installed a video camera outside their front door and now refuse to open up for anyone they don’t know.

Using security camera footage, police managed to arrest four of the culprits on July 24. Several of the men turned out to be members of a local sports association whose offices are located in the apartment across the corridor from the radio station.

After taking their statements, officials released the men. A date has yet to be set for the first hearing.

“Most recently, we had one man come on Thursday last week at 8:10 a.m.,” Tufan said. “He told us over the intercom that he was a policeman who was there to do a routine check.”

Tufan said that radio personnel refused to open the door, and the man eventually left. When the Christians discussed the visit with the local security office later in the day, officials denied that they had sent anyone to the radio station that morning.

A second man rang the bell two hours later, claiming to be a salesman. Using security camera footage, radio staff members watched from inside the apartment as he eventually gave up waiting for the door to open and went into the sports association offices across the hall.

Two months ago, the radio station installed shutters over its windows to prevent them from being broken almost weekly, Tufan said.

President in Denial“There are no attacks targeting Christians in Turkey,” Turkish President Abdullah Gul told a Council of Europe gathering in Strasbourg, France on Wednesday (October 3).

He claimed that attacks against Christians were “political crimes,” and mentioned the murder of Catholic Priest Andrea Santoro in February 2006, according to an October 4 article in the Turkish Daily News. He said that the murderer, a juvenile, had been quickly captured and tried before independent courts.

An Ankara appeals court yesterday upheld the murderer’s jail sentence of 18 years and 10 months. During initial police interrogations, the killer reportedly confessed that he had murdered the priest as revenge against Danish cartoons of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam.


Gul did not mention the brutal torture and murder in April of the three Christians at Zirve offices in Malatya. The murderers said they had killed the Christians to serve their country and because the Christians were attacking their religion, according to initial press reports.

“In the last year, there have been scores of threats or attacks on congregations and church buildings,” a report by the legal committee of the Turkish Alliance of Protestant Churches said last month.

“It’s not really possible for the government be completely unaware of this,” Tufan said. “There has been an increase of attacks since Malatya.”

END

*** Photos of the Antalya Bible Church are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.

(Return to Index)

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

News from the Frontlines of Persecution

Jeff Sellers, Managing Editor

Bureau Chiefs:Barbara Baker, Middle EastSarah Page, Asia


compass direct news - living faith information, …old.lff.net/resources/compass/october...

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