COMPASS DIRECT NEWS
COMPASS DIRECT NEWS
News from the Frontlines of Persecution
November 2007
(Released December 3, 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
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IN THIS ISSUE
EGYPT
Christian Human Rights Activists Freed ***
MECA leader and colleague were jailed on spurious charges of ‘insulting Islam.’
More Christian Activists from Rights Group Jailed
Like colleagues just released, MECA workers accused of ‘defaming Islam.’
In Hiding, Convert Continues Fight for Rights ***
Mohammed Hegazy battles for religious freedom as HRW report slams country’s abuses.
Police Detain Convert Who Wedded Christian
Woman’s family had tied her to chair and beat her for relationship.
INDIA
Briefs: Recent Incidents of Persecution
November 6, 2007
Hindu Extremists Free to Attack Christians in District
Police are mere spectators; Maharashtra official’s promise of protection proves empty.
Village Muslims Ostracize Christian Couple
Conflict between two religious communities uncommon, leaders say.
Church Attacked in Chhattisgarh; Young Man Killed
Local Christians say Hindu extremists responsible, but police deny claim.
Delay Tactics on Dalit Christian Rights Protested
High Court again postpones hearing on equal benefits for downtrodden minority.
Two Pastors in India Stripped, Beaten – Then Arrested
Police refuse to book attackers; victims detained for ‘forced conversion.’
Christians Finally Can Adopt Children
Legal obstacles meant only Hindus had the right, except in three states.
NIGERIA
Christian Killed in Election Violence in Kano State ***
Religious motives underlie voter tensions; Christian’s lead at polls triggers attack.
Report Obscures Muslim Murders in Kano Riot ***
Investigative committee omits Islamist causes, killings in report to state officials.
Northern State to Demolish Four Churches ***
Road, hospital construction called guise for destroying temples in Muslim-run Kano.
PAKISTAN
Christians on Front Lines of Democracy Struggle
Three Christians killed in Swat valley crossfire.
TURKEY
Malatya Murder Trial Set to Open ***
Local press sensationalizes killers’ justifications for deaths by torture.
Lawyers Slam Investigation of Malatya Murders ***
Widows of slain Christians speak out at opening day of trial.
Kidnappers Demand 300,000 Euros for Priest ***
Neighbors fond of hard-working priest who doubles as village repairman.
Kidnapped Priest Freed ***
Motive for abduction of Syrian Orthodox clergyman remains uncertain.
Spurious Case Against Converts Prolonged ***
Judge orders 12 more questionable witnesses to testify for prosecution.
WEST BANK
Pastor Threatened with Violence Flees to U.S.
House church leader still alert for danger following Palestinian militiaman’s demands.
*** Indicates an article-related photo is available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.
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Egypt Frees Christian Human Rights Activists
MECA leader and colleague were jailed on spurious charges of ‘insulting Islam.’
by Peter Lamprecht
CAIRO, November 7 (Compass Direct News) – Egyptian police this week released two Christian rights activists detained for three months.
A host of journalists, lawyers, clergyman, family and friends gathered at the Cairo home of Adel Fawzy Faltas last night to celebrate the acquittal and release on Monday (November 5) of the Egyptian head of the Middle East Christian Association and an associate.
Faltas, 61, and colleague Peter Ezzat, 25, had been held on unsubstantiated charges of insulting Islam and tarnishing Egypt’s reputation abroad. Faltas had conducted an online interview with a controversial convert from Islam to Christianity only days before his arrest on August 8.
Faltas sported a wide grin, shorts and tennis shoes as well-wishers pressed around him at his 8th floor flat. He seemed unbothered that his clothes and other confiscated personal possessions had not yet arrived.
“I was always a free man,” Faltas said over coffee. “When you respect yourself and what you are doing, then you are free.”
Faltas recounted how approximately 30 State Security Investigation (SSI) officers and plainclothes policemen had raided his house at 2:30 p.m. on August 8. He said that the most difficult part of the ordeal was spending the first 14 days in an isolation cell, 1.75 meters in length and three quarters of a meter in width, with no seat.
Eventually state prosecutor Muhammad al-Faisal ordered that both Faltas and Ezzat be moved to a common cell with some 60 convicted murderers and drug dealers in Cairo’s Tora prison.
“The prosecutor was a good man,” Faltas said. “He ordered them not to return me to an isolation cell, and he always gave me time to meet with my lawyers.”
From his office at New Cairo’s SSI headquarters, al-Faisal renewed the Christians’ detention five times during their three-month jail stay. He never offered a reason for the four 15-day and final 30-day detentions.
For Faltas, one of the most difficult aspects of his imprisonment was missing his daughter’s October 20 wedding in Cairo.
Charges without evidence against Faltas and Ezzat included insulting Islam, posing a threat to national security and tarnishing Egypt’s reputation abroad.
“We never published caricatures of the Quran on our website,” Faltas said, responding to accusations floated by the prosecutor. The MECA Egypt president told Compass that the caricatures had been posted on a site called , different from the group’s site: m-e-c-.
Faltas claimed that their members had traced the fake site’s origin to Saudi Arabia.
Rude Awakening
Enjoying the reunion with friends and his mother and brother, Ezzat described his arrest and prison experience.
“I was at home taking a nap at 2 p.m. when I was awoken by the sound of our front door being broken in,” Ezzat said. “When I opened my bedroom door, I had some 10 soldiers and five officers pointing machine guns in my face.”
Ezzat said that the officers forced him onto the floor, blindfolded his eyes and tied his hands. The soldiers cleaned out his entire room, confiscating his computer, camera, mobile telephones, all CDs and tapes.
“Many times I thought that they were never going to let us go,” said Ezzat, who works on the organization’s website. “Each time that we went to court, they simply renewed our detention without any interrogation.”
At Faltas and Ezzat’s party, group members donned black t-shirts that called for the release of the two men pictured on them. As the evening wore on, everyone gathered around a laptop to hear the activists address members around the globe on the group’s online chat room.
Young people flocked around Ezzat, a shy young man who could not suppress a smile of joy at his new-found freedom.
Keeping Copts Down
Starting work in Egypt only 10 months ago, the Canada-based MECA has unabashedly challenged the government on a number of sensitive topics.
“It’s common for the government to arrest activists from time to time,” MECA spokesman Wagih Yaob said. “It’s a way of keeping the voice of the Copts down.”
In July, MECA lawyers opened a case against the government on behalf of Christians whose village was destroyed in a three-day rampage in January 2000. At least 21 Copts were killed, 18 injured and several hundred homes destroyed when Muslims attacked Christians in the upper Egyptian town of el-Kosheh.
MECA activists were also quick to publicize the case of a Muslim convert to Christianity who is suing the government for the right to change his official documents to reflect the change. Faltas interviewed Mohammed Ahmed Hegazy in an online chat room the weekend before his own arrest. Hegazy has since gone into hiding to escape death threats.
Apostasy is a sensitive issue in Egypt. Many Muslim scholars believe that according to Islamic law, enshrined in the constitution, converts away from Islam merit death.
Stronger Than Ever
“The government thought that if they took out our head, then the rest of us would crumble,” Yaob said. “But the arrest has made us stronger, because now everyone knows about us.”
At last night’s party, MECA gave the appearance of having gained confidence and increased publicity through their members’ imprisonment.
“No one had heard of us before this incident, now everyone knows our name,” a group member said.
Faltas, a retired gynecologist, first met MECA international founder Nader Fawzy in an online chat room discussing human rights in Egypt. “I eventually realized that it’s not a solution to always insult others under a chat room nickname,” Faltas quipped.
Retired from his work and with his grown son and daughter out of the house, Faltas said he began working on starting the MECA in Egypt. The group applied for legal registration in June but has not yet received a definitive response from the government.
Sitting in his flat today, Faltas said he hoped the Egyptian government would treat MECA better once they realize it is working for the country’s good.
“We are the alarm of the country,” Faltas said. “We want to focus a microscope on the problems of human rights and discrimination.”
Across the room on an otherwise bare wall hung a large photograph of Faltas eating dinner with Coptic Orthodox priest Father Zachariah. The controversial cleric has been forced to live outside the country due to widespread outrage over his television program critiquing Islam.
END
*** Photographs of Adel Fawzy Faltas, Peter Ezzat and Nader Fawzy are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.
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Egypt Jails More Christian Activists from Rights Group
Like colleagues just released, MECA workers accused of ‘defaming Islam.’
by Peter Lamprecht
CAIRO, November 12 (Compass Direct News) – Just days after two Christian activists from a human rights group were released from jail, Egyptian authorities took three of their colleagues into police custody over the weekend.
An Egyptian prosecutor has issued 15-day detentions to two of three Christian activists with Middle East Christian Association (MECA) who were jailed on Saturday (November 10). Officials detained the members of Canada-based MECA after the organization’s Egypt president finished a 90-day detention last week.
Released November 5 without charges, Adel Fawzy Faltas and MECA member Peter Ezzat had been alternately accused of insulting Islam, destroying Egypt’s reputation, owning a gun without a license and posing a threat to national security during the three-month interrogation.
“It’s the same thing again,” said Nader Fawzy, MECA international president, after speaking with lawyers who met the newly jailed activists over the past two days. “They are accusing us of defaming Islam and destroying the reputation of Egypt.”
MECA spokesperson Wagih Yaob, 45, and Victor George, 47, were taken from their Cairo homes at 4:30 a.m. on November 10, according to Fawzy.
Fawzy said that police treated Yaob “very badly,” and confiscated both Yaob and George’s personal belongings. “They even took George’s daughter’s laptop and university identification card,” Fawzy said.
Additionally, police stormed the Alexandria office of MECA lawyer Mamdouh Azmy at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday (November 10) and transferred the lawyer to a Cairo prison later that night.
After undergoing interrogation at a state prosecutor’s office in New Cairo over the weekend, Yaob and George were handed 15-day detentions, Faltas told Compass. Faltas said that Azmy is scheduled to appear before the prosecutor tomorrow.
The activists are being held in Cairo’s Tora prison.
A spokesman for Egypt’s Interior Ministry yesterday claimed to have no information about the rights workers, according to Reuters.
MECA has challenged the government on a number of sensitive issues since it began work in Egypt approximately 10 months ago.
Lawyer Azmy opened a case against the government in July on behalf of Christians whose village was destroyed in a three-day rampage in January 2000. At least 21 Copts were killed, 18 injured and several hundred homes destroyed when Muslims attacked Christians in the upper Egyptian town of el-Kosheh.
MECA activists were also quick to publicize the case of a Muslim convert to Christianity who is suing the government for the right to change the religion listed on his official documents. Faltas interviewed Mohammed Ahmed Hegazy in an online chat room the weekend before his own arrest.
Hegazy, whose second hearing is scheduled for tomorrow, has since gone into hiding to escape death threats.
Many Muslim scholars teach that Islamic law, enshrined in Egypt’s constitution, commands death for converts from Islam.
Widespread Torture
Upon his release last week, Egypt MECA president Faltas had been optimistic that the government was beginning to understand his organization’s goal of promoting human rights and fighting discrimination against Christians.
“If they understand that we are working for the good of all Egyptians, they [the government] will support us,” he told Compass. “I don’t think they will arrest me again.”
Now jailed, Yaob had told Compass last week that he was happy about the organization’s growing strength.
“The arrest has made us stronger, because now everyone knows about us,” said the activist. He rattled off a litany of problems Egypt’s Christians face, including church attacks, difficulty converting away from Islam and alleged kidnapping of Coptic women, all motivating his work with MECA.
Fawzy said that he hoped the MECA members would not be mistreated while in police custody.
Human Rights Watch recently condemned the “widespread use of torture in Egypt.” In a November 7 report, the organization welcomed the conviction of two police officers for raping a detainee in January 2006. The November 5 sentencing by Giza’s criminal court was a rare case of police accountability in Egypt, where officers often have a free hand in torturing detainees, according to the HRW report.
Egypt’s Christians, known as Copts, are estimated to make up 10 percent of the country’s population. The majority of Copts belong to the Orthodox Church, though significant numbers of Catholics and Protestants exist.
END
*** Photographs of Adel Fawzy Faltas, Peter Ezzat and Nader Fawzy are available electronically.
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In Hiding, Egyptian Convert Continues Fight for Rights
Mohammed Hegazy battles for religious freedom as HRW report slams country’s abuses.
by Peter Lamprecht
CAIRO, November 15 (Compass Direct News) – Sick of hiding in a secret apartment in Cairo, Mohammed Ahmed Hegazy risked his life to shop for groceries late one night last week, a cap pulled low over his face.
The Egyptian convert from Islam to Christianity does not normally chance being recognized in public by running errands for himself. Death threats forced Hegazy into hiding in August after he made an unprecedented legal bid to have his national ID card changed to note his conversion.
The 24-year-old belongs to a new breed of Egyptian Christian converts who see no contradiction between their faith and political activism.
“The Bible says to love your enemy and your neighbor as yourself,” Hegazy explained. “Working politically to provide food for poor people or freedom for the oppressed is one way to fulfill this command.”
That conviction in part motivated Hegazy’s court case, but that same desire to take action has also frustrated him as he has sat idle for the past three months in hiding.
The Christian acknowledged that he was finding his new life extremely difficult. He said it was impossible to hold a job because he couldn’t leave his apartment regularly for fear of being attacked by Islamists or state security police.
On a rare occasion that Hegazy took the chance of shopping in public, a Christian recognized his face from a newspaper photograph.
“If you are who I think you are, then God help you,” the Christian told Hegazy.
Hegazy’s new lawyer, Gamal Eid, noted: “In a country like Egypt, his fears are credible.”
Egypt Condemned
A report condemning Egypt’s treatment of converts away from Islam and members of the Baha’i faith this week noted that until 1990 most Christian converts did not believe they could remain in the country.
“Before [1990] it was just individual converts, and they left the country,” said an anonymous Christian convert quoted in the Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights report released Monday (November 12). “But fifteen converts … wanted to stay and stay together, this was something new.”
Since then, some converts have worked, albeit anonymously, to become more active in Egyptian society.
“The state does not recognize conversions from Islam and refuses to allow citizens to legally change their religious affiliation,” the report stated. It noted that because family law is governed by religion, converts face difficulties in the areas of divorce, marriage, inheritance, and their children’s mandatory religious education.
“The baby is the main reason for opening the case,” said Hegazy, whose pregnant wife is due to give birth in January. “All converts’ children have something like schizophrenia because they are Christians at home but have to act like Muslims at school.”
As a member of the Egypt Liberal Party, a group of secular-minded Muslims and Christians, Hegazy often attended demonstrations, fellow group members said. The party, not yet approved by the government, openly challenges Article Two of Egypt’s constitution, which designates Islamic law as the principle source of its legislation.
Islam forbids apostasy, a justification often used by government officials and Muslim fanatics when harassing converts from Islam.
“For Hegazy, challenging the government is as normal as eating breakfast in the morning,” one party member told Compass. “He’s not a coward, but that also means he doesn’t always think through the consequences of his actions.”
Hegazy said he had expected public opposition when filing his case but had not foreseen spending the next three months confined to his apartment. Massive publicity surrounding the announcement of his move caught the convert off-guard.
When lawyer Mamdouh Nakhla called Hegazy to say that he had filed the convert’s case and arranged an important interview with Agence France-Press, the convert said he went willingly.
“They told me that they would take photos and send them outside Egypt, and that no one in Egypt would know,” Hegazy said.
The next morning, Egyptian papers carried the convert’s picture and full story.
Within days, death threats forced Hegazy into hiding and Nakhla to withdraw. Newspapers have slandered the convert’s reputation, and on October 11 fanatics chanting Islamic slogans vandalized his former home in Old Cairo.
A journalist who later went to the scene told Compass that he had seen the remains of a large fire in the street where the group had burned the Christian’s belongings.
“By publicizing the case and then withdrawing, it was like putting Hegazy in the hands of society to be killed,” said one of Hegazy’s mentors, who said he had tried to persuade Nakhla against pulling out. “Every five minutes while we were talking, the security police would call Nakhla and tell him they could not protect him if he was attacked.”
On August 7, Nakhla held a press conference to announce his withdrawal, blaming Hegazy for not providing necessary documents.
Sitting in an undisclosed location in Cairo three months later, Hegazy did not seem angry with his former lawyer.
“Maybe this is part of God’s plan, and it may help other converts,” Hegazy said.
Trail-Blazer
The case has received much less public attention at its first two hearings, on October 2 and on Tuesday (November 13), than when it was first announced.
Returning Tuesday from a Giza administrative court where he had represented the convert, Eid said that eight Islamist lawyers had intervened against his client.
Judge Muhammad Husseini adjourned the case until January 15, giving Hegazy time to acquire proof that Egypt’s Civil Status Department had rejected his request to change the religious designation on his ID.
Several Christians close to Hegazy said they were skeptical about the chances of winning, but agreed that the case would still help the rights of converts in the long term.
Despite a smear campaign against Hegazy in Egypt’s national media, a number of newspapers and talk shows had openly supported his right to convert, Christians said.
“This case has allowed society to openly talk about the case of converts and sent the government the message people will rise up when oppressed,” one convert said.
Requesting anonymity, the Christian said, “[Hegazy’s] role should be appreciated, in that he has taken the first step in confronting society, the government and even the church and other converts.”
Cautious Churches
Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox church, several million strong, has been careful to officially distance itself from the issue of conversion.
“The matter is highly politicized, and the [Orthodox] church has taken the side of the government,” lawyer Eid said.
An Orthodox priest requesting anonymity agreed with the lawyer’s assessment.
“Church leadership tells priests who are involved in baptizing Muslims to keep doing what they are doing, but that they are not responsible,” the priest said. “In other words, ‘God bless you but stay away.’”
Christians from all three major groupings, Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant, told Compass that fanatics could easily attack and destroy a church if word got out that it was converting Muslims.
“When a Muslim converts to Christianity here, the problem doesn’t stem from the government or security apparatus, it comes from society,” a spokesman for the Egyptian Catholic Church commented.
Father Rafic Greiche, a Greek Melkite priest, said that many Christians, not just Muslims, had difficulty accepting converts to Christianity.
“I am ashamed because our church is not ready to accept converts,” Greiche told Compass. “More cases like that of Hegazy’s on the long term will help people to change their minds, but the government has to help.”
Speaking to reporters Monday (November 12), HRW Midde East Deputy Director Joe Stork called on the government to cease forcing non-Muslims to designate Islam as their official religion.
“We are talking about a government policy that is requiring people to lie and punishing people for telling the truth,” Stork said. “There is something very wrong with that.”
END
*** Photographs of Mohammed Ahmed Hegazy, lawyer Gamal Eid and Joe Stork of Human Rights Watch and Hossam Bahgat of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.
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Egyptian Police Detain Convert Who Wedded Christian
Woman’s family had tied her to chair and beat her for relationship.
by Peter Lamprecht
ISTANBUL, November 27 (Compass Direct News) – Police detained an Egyptian convert to Christianity on her wedding anniversary in Upper Egypt last week, her husband said.
Plainclothes officers arrested Siham Ibrahim Muhammad Hassan al-Sharqawi at 3 p.m. on Thursday (November 22) on the outskirts of Qena, 300 miles south of Cairo, according to an eyewitness. The reason for the arrest was not immediately clear.
The convert had attempted to leave a friend’s apartment building by a backdoor after realizing that plainclothes policemen were standing at the entrance, the source said.
Officers intercepted Al-Sharqawi, 24, on the street and took her to Qena’s security police headquarters, where she was interrogated until yesterday morning. Witnesses said that police treated the woman like a prostitute, calling her a “whore,” and threatening to beat her.
Sources gave conflicting reports about whether State Security Investigation officials used physical violence against Al-Sharqawi or limited themselves to only threats.
Many Egyptian Christian converts from Islam have been tortured at the hands of security police according to a report this month by Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. A Christian helping converts in Alexandria told Compass that in December 2006 police applied electrical shocks to his genitals and other sensitive areas of his body for seven hours.
A local source said that Al-Sharqawi was transferred from the station yesterday morning, but her destination remains unknown.
The convert’s husband fears that his wife will be transferred to her native Alexandria or Cairo’s Abbassiya security offices, where her full identity will be discovered. He said that he is not yet certain whether police are aware that she is a convert, because she was carrying neither her Muslim ID nor her forged Christian papers at the time of her arrest.
Al-Sharqawi’s husband and friends remain uncertain of the exact reason for the convert’s arrest. Apart from forgery, Al-Sharqawi may also be held for marrying a Christian man or insulting Islam.
Converts from Islam to Christianity in Egypt are unable to register the change on their national ID cards, which display the holder’s religion.
According to HRW, the Egyptian government at times prosecutes citizens who convert from Islam under Article 98(f) of the Penal Code, which prohibits “contempt of any divinely-revealed religion.”
“Officials have interpreted this article to proscribe conversion from Islam on the grounds that such conversion disparages Islam,” the November 12 report stated.
Tied and Beaten
The fourth of seven children in a conservative Muslim family in Alexandria, Al-Sharqawi began to investigate Christianity while attending a school of tourism in 2000.
There she met her future husband, one of Egypt’s indigenous Coptic Christians who comprise an estimated 10 to 15 percent of the national population. According to a source who spoke to her husband, the two of them began to meet regularly outside of class to talk about issues of faith.
In 2002, Al-Sharqawi’s family discovered she was spending time with a Christian and beat her, repeating the punishment whenever they suspected she had been to see him. Her husband said that an older sister who had attended al-Azhar, Egypt’s top Islamic university, often joined her father in administering the beatings.
“On October 28, 2003 they tied her up to a chair in her dining room and beat her,” her husband said. “Her arm was completely blue.”
The same day, Al-Sharqawi managed to flee her home. She called her parents two weeks later to let them know that she had left of her own free will and would not be returning.
Remaining in hiding with the help of friends, Al-Sharqawi continued meeting with her future husband and other Christians.
On August 26, 2004, Al-Sharqawi was baptized, and three months later, on November 22, she and her Coptic friend from tourism school were married. Due to Islamic law’s ban on Christian men marrying Muslim women, the convert was forced to use a false Christian name to procure a marriage certificate.
The couple continued living in Alexandria, but Al-Sharqawi was forced to stay inside her home for fear that a relative or friend would see her. Hearing that his sister had run away from home, Al-Sharqawi’s older brother returned from Holland, where he had been living, and began working to track his sister.
“She [Al-Sharqawi] couldn’t even buy vegetables or go out on the balcony,” the convert’s husband said. “She was afraid of anyone recognizing her.”
When a work opportunity arose on a cruise ship near Luxor last month, the Christian woman relocated to the southern city to obtain anonymity. Her husband first traveled to Sharm al-Sheikh in search of work and then followed her to Luxor on October 30. He found work in the same area several days later.
While they were away, the couple’s neighbors in Alexandria contacted them to say that unknown men had come knocking at their door several times, once at 2 a.m.
When Al-Sharqawi’s employer laid her off in the middle of the night on November 10, the convert was forced to travel to Qena, where a contact had suggested she could stay with a Christian friend. After staying several days in different homes, the Christian woman was picked up by Egypt’s security police.
Though persecution of converts from Islam makes it impossible to know their exact number in Egypt, HRW has estimated that there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Egyptians who have left Islam for another faith.
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India Briefs: Recent Incidents of Persecution
by Vishal Arora and Nirmala Carvalho
Jammu and Kashmir, November 6 (Compass Direct News) – At least four Hindu extremists attacked two Christians from the Believers Church in India (BCI) on November 4 in Jammu, the winter capital of the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir. A representative of the Christian Legal Association (CLA) told Compass that four extremists came in a vehicle, which carried the name of Shiv Sena, a Hindu nationalistic party, and beat two Christians identified only as Rinku and Santosh. The two Christians were on their way to meet a pastor in Arnia area of Jammu. A local leader of the BCI told CLA that the victims were brutally beaten, though they were not hospitalized. Although police refused to register a complaint against the attackers, they helped the Christians and the Shiv Sena extremists reach a compromise, which included a written apology by the Hindu radicals. About 6.7 million people in the Himalayan state are Muslim out of the total population of more than 10 million, while only about 3 million are Hindu, mainly concentrated in and around the Jammu city. – VA
Karnataka – Four Hindu extremists on November 4 beat an independent pastor and filed “prostitution” charges against him near Karnataka state’s Gundelpet town. Dr. Sajan K. George, national president of the Global Council of Indian Christians, told Compass that the 50-year-old independent pastor, M. Thankaraj, received injuries on his head, right hand and chest. He was attacked at about 1 p.m. on Sunday in Hosalli Colony area while he had gone to see off a 33-year-old woman of his church, identified only as Thulasiamma, who had visited him for prayer and counseling. Thulasiamma was facing opposition from her family due to her conversion to Christianity, George said. The extremists held the pastor hostage till about 8 p.m., and then dragged him to the police station, where they filed the complaint against him for “prostitution.” Police readily registered the complaint against the pastor, but refused to file his complaint against the attackers, George added. The pastor was recovering in the Gundelpet Government Hospital, while police were investigating the allegations against him at press time. – VA
Rajasthan – Local villagers filed a police complaint against two Christian workers for “forcibly converting” people to Christianity on October 30 in Rajasthan state’s Jhunjhunu district. Panna Lal and Dhan Raj from the Believers Church in India (BCI) were arrested by police in Udaipur Vati area and kept in police lock-up for a night. The following day, police took them to a district official who granted them bail, a representative of the Christian Legal Association (CLA) told Compass. When CLA spoke to police, an officer said the Christians were arrested “under suspicion,” as they failed to prove their identities. The Christians were arrested while they were visiting one of the families that had recently received Christ. A few families in the area had become Christian by listening to a radio program aired by the BCI. The complaint was allegedly filed by the members of the village court who were opposed to the families’ conversion to Christianity. – VA
Gujarat – Hindu villagers attacked a Christian man and warned him against attending his church on October 28 in Gujarat state’s Navsari district. Bharat Bhai, a farmer who worships in a church run by the Friends Missionary Prayer Band ministry in Ambapani village near Vansda Block, was attacked while he was returning from his field along with his family, according to the Evangelical Fellowship of India. Later the same day, the attackers went to the church and threatened the pastor, who was not identified, saying they would kill the Christians if they came together for worship. Police refused to register the victim’s complaint. Bhai then wrote to the National Human Rights Commission for intervention. A local Christian told Compass that supporters of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had stopped the church members from casting their votes during a local civic election last December. This led to a violent clash between the BJP activists and Christians, and tension has continued since then. – VA
New Delhi – At least 30 Hindu extremists disrupted a Christian meeting and manhandled the speaker on October 28 in New Delhi. The attack took place on the last day of the two-day meeting for local Christians organized by the Rev. Ravi Samuel of the Baptist Church, in New Delhi’s Kalyanpuri area. According to the Evangelical Fellowship of India, the extremists intruded into the meeting when about 250 people were listening to the main speaker, the Rev. Ivan Moses, and shouted anti-Christian slogans. They began pushing and shoving Moses and other believers on the stage. Police arrived and arrested a few of the attackers. Organizers did not press charges, however, against the extremists. Anti-Christian attacks are uncommon in New Delhi. – VA
Orissa – Around 40 Hindu extremists beat a Christian worker while he was praying for the sick in a hospital on October 27 in Orissa state’s Bhadrak district. A 28-year-old independent worker, Phiroj Lima, was distributing Christian tracts and praying for patients at the Bhadrak Government Hospital, where a group of extremists came and began beating him, said Dr. Sajan K. George of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC). The attackers then called relatives of all patients in the ward and told them that Lima was trying to “forcibly convert” the sick. Finally, the extremists phoned the police, who arrived soon and took Lima to the police station. “While the police were taking Lima to the police station, the extremists followed the police vehicle shouting anti-Christian slogans,” George said. Police released Lima three hours later, after the GCIC intervened, but tensions continued in the area at press time. – VA
Maharashtra – Pastor Victor Periera of Abundant Life Church was beaten in Vikramgadh, Thane district, Maharashtra on October 23. Periera told Compass that at around 12:30 p.m., as a healing and prayer service was in progress, three truckloads of 450 to 500 Hindu extremists belonging to the Vanvasi Kalyan Parishad (Forest Dwellers Welfare Council) and Bajrang Dal barged into the church shouting blasphemous curses. Accompanied by some villagers upset that their Hindu tribal neighbors had begun attending the healing services every Tuesday, the extremists began thrashing the congregation of 80 people, he said. “The extremists slapped and repeatedly kicked me on the stomach, back and legs,” said Periera, who was hospitalized for treatment. “I have a fractured rib and my right heel too is fractured.” Vivian Correia, a member of the Maharashtra State Minorities Commission, told Compass that Periera registered a complaint with police and that six persons had been arrested, but she said “the situation in Vikramgadh continues to be tense.” – NC
Orissa – Hindu extremists belonging to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council) on October 23 dragged four pastors to the Hindu temple in Mouza village, Cuttack district, Orissa state, and later filed false charges of forcible conversion against them. While the four pastors were distributing tracts and selling New Testaments, 15 to 20 extremists walked up to them, grabbed the New Testaments and tracts from their hands, cursed them and asked them their purposes for visiting, said Asit Mohanty, local co-ordinator for the Global Council of Indian Christians. After they had dragged the frightened pastors to the village temple, some extremists were guarding them while others went to arrange for a Hindu priest in order to tonsure the pastors and to “purify” them with cow’s urine, he said. “Fortunately for the pastors, the ‘purification rite’ could not take place, so the extremists took the pastors to the local police station and made false allegations of forcible conversion,” Mohanty said. Police charged the pastors with violation of the Orissa Freedom of Religion Act. The pastors, Pran Ranjan Mali, Santosh Kumar Majhi, Jayson Badra and Roshan Lima, of Jagatsingpur district, west of the Cuttack district, were released after nearly 12 hours of being detained, Mohanty said. – NC
Andhra Pradesh – Local residents of Andhra Pradesh state’s Adilabad district forced Christians to eat meat offered to a Hindu goddess on October 21. The Hindu residents of Krishnaraopet, near Nirmal area of Adilabad district, were distributing the meat offered to goddess Durga to the local people, but pastor Bikku Lal and some of his church members refused to take it, the All India Christian Council (AICC) said in a statement. Devotees of Durga began manhandling the Christians, who later went to the Mamidala police station to file a complaint, only to have police refuse them. When the Christians returned to the area, Durga devotees further harassed them, tore the clothes of some of them and ridiculed the Christian faith. Only after the intervention of the AICC did police finally file a complaint against the attackers. But at press time reports indicated no one had been arrested. – VA
Chhattisgarh – Hindu extremists of the Dharam Sena (Religion Army) on October 20 secretly filmed a baptism ceremony by a church and filed a police complaint against the organizers, charging them with forcible conversion in Raipur, capital of Chhattisgarh state. Dr. Sajan K. George of the Global Council of Indian Christians told Compass that the incident occurred during the six-day general convention of the Church of God, held October 16 to 21, in Raipur’s Rajatalab area. The baptism ceremony was a part of the convention. The Christians learned about the film in the evening of the same day, when Dharam Sena extremists came with senior police officials to the convention for investigation. Police interrogated the organizers, including the pastor, Thomas Mammen, and asked them to give details of all those who were baptized. The investigation continued as tensions persisted. – VA
Karnataka – Hindu extremists from the Bajrang Dal threatened independent pastor Vijay Kumar on October 18 in Chikkaningahalli, Hassan district, Karnataka. Hindu villagers approached five Christian families for a contribution for some temple festivities, said Kumar’s brother, Mohan Kumar. “The Christians refused to either contribute money or even participate in the Hindu festival, and this angered the Hindus,” Mohan Kumar told Compass. The local extremists groups accompanied by villagers waylaid Vijaya Kumar on his pastoral visit to the village on October 18 around 6 p.m., his brother said. “They threw Vijaya off his bicycle and caught him by the scruff of his collar, and angrily questioned him about the behavior of the Christians in the village,” he said. “The extremists accused Vijaya of forcibly converting them and warned him not to enter the village again, and they threatened to kill him if he refused to obey their orders to stay away.” Police refused to register any complaint by Pastor Kumar, but instead registered a complaint filed by villagers against the pastor for forcible conversion. – NC
Rajasthan – A Hindu extremist who was the primary suspect in a televised attack on a pastor in Rajasthan’s capital of Jaipur earlier this year has now accused a Christian orphanage of human trafficking and prostitution. On October 15, local police came to the Father’s Children Home in Jaipur and interrogated its warden, Jacob John, said Dr. Sajan K. George of the Global Council of Indian Christians. Police told John that Veerendra Singh Rana, who is out on bail, had filed the complaint with the state home minister, Gulab Chand Kataria, charging them with flesh trade. About 30 children live in the orphanage. Rana, a leader of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council), had led a violent attack on Pastor Walter Masih before a private TV channel’s camera on April 29. “It is extremely unfortunate that the perpetrators of the horrific televised attack are roaming scot-free and targeting innocent orphans for their divisive agenda,” said George. Christians complain that the state government ruled by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party is giving a free hand to Hindu extremists to launch anti-Christian attacks. – VA
Karnataka – Hindu extremists attacked a Christian worker on October 15 in Karnataka state’s Shimoga district. Mani Kumar of Grace Baptist House Church, in Jay Pee Nagar in Shimoga’s Sagar area, had gone to visit his friend in S.N. Nagar, who was not home. Some youths approached him and asked him to come with them to a nearby village, Itheri, to preach Christianity, said Dr. Sajan K. George of the Global Council of Indian Christians. Since Mani regularly traveled to the area to share the gospel, local villagers knew him. When they reached the village, however, the youths called extremists of the Bajrang Dal, youth wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council), who beat him up, accusing him of “forced conversions.” The 32-year-old Mani, who received injuries in his head, legs and arms, was rushed to a hospital for treatment. Police have registered a complaint against the attackers. – VA
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Hindu Extremists Free to Attack Christians in District in India
Police are mere spectators; Maharashtra official’s promise of protection proves empty.
by Nirmala Carvalho
MUMBAI, India, November 9 (Compass Direct News) – A rash of violence in Maharashtra state last weekend, Christian leaders say, is typical of a growing history of unchecked, Hindu extremist crimes against Christians in Thane district.
In a scene repeated for years in the area with impunity, Hindu extremists armed with wooden clubs barged into the worship service of the Mumbai Diocesan Missionary Movement in Kuttal village of Wada on Sunday (November 4) and beat several members brutally enough that they required hospital treatment.
When Pastor Suresh Suttar went to the police station to file a complaint against the extremists, officers instead detained him. Unable to find any evidence to file charges against him, they released him on Monday (November 5), said Dr. Abraham Mathai, vice chairperson of the Maharashtra State Minorities Commission.
The club-wielding extremists of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and its affiliated organizations, the Vanvasi Kalyan Parishad (VKP or Forest Dwellers Welfare Council) and the Bajrang Dal (youth wing of the VHP) were left free to pursue future victims. The Christians – Vishnu Barad and his wife Aruna Barad, Vandhana Barad, Nirmala Barad, Ramdas Ahad and Neelesh Barad – were left with swollen arms and legs, a bruised and swollen chin, bruises and abrasions to the temple and forehead and a bruised chest.
After the Hindu extremists had stormed into the service shouting curses and anti-Christian slogans, they struck the believers with their fists and clubs, snatched Bibles and tore pages from them and flung chairs. Some of the extremists marched up to the dais and slapped Pastor Suttar, raising the oft-repeated but baseless charge of luring poor tribal peoples to convert to the Christianity.
Collusion with Goons
“This attack took place despite an assurance on Friday, November 2, from state Home Minister R.R. Patil that the police would take action against attacks on tribals,” said Mathai, who is also general secretary of the All India Christian Council.
After visiting the victims in the hospital, Mathai told Compass that Vishnu Barad had informed him that he and his wife regularly received warnings from villagers not to attend prayer meetings.
“These are simple and poor people, and the fundamentalist goons roam about the area with impunity threatening these tribal Christians,” Mathai said. “What is even more outrageous is these Christian people get slapped with charges for disrupting peace.”
Mathai questioned why local police choose not to curb violent attacks on peaceful tribal Christians. He has implored Home Minister Patil to determine how constables in the rural Thane district remain in their posts for 15 to 18 years in the face of such unconscionable inaction.
Mathai said Patil told him that he has asked Konkan range Inspector General K.K. Pathak to submit a detailed report within eight days and that police would conduct an inquiry “on a priority basis.”
Local police denied that they take no action to defend the Christians. District Head Constable Y.T. Karale of Wada police station, Thane district, told Compass that officers have their hands full with “frequent skirmishes” between villagers and Christians.
“When the warring parties are brought to the police station, we try to arrange some settlement between them,” Karale said. “To pacify the villagers, we often make the Christians sign a bond before an executive magistrate for keeping the peace and good behavior, only as a preventive security measure against further offenses.”
Authorities thus blame Christians for provoking the Hindus by practicing their faith, Christian leaders said.
“I’m afraid that the police are proving to be unfair and ineffective,” Mathai said. “I was also told that the local police in another village had urged the tribals not to attend prayer meetings, as that may lead to further attacks.”
Widespread Criminality
The belt of tribal people in Thane district “is in the grip of the extremists groups who intimidate and terrify the poor tribals,” Mathai told Compass.
Hindu extremists attacked Christians in Vikramgarh last month; last week they attacked them in Manor and Mokhada, he said. Vivian Correia of the state Minorities Commission told Compass that last month pastor Vasudev Deshmukh of Maharashtra Village Ministries, in Thane district’s Mokhada village, was threatened by local villagers accompanied by Hindu extremists from the VKP and Bajrang Dal.
“They threatened to cut the water and electric supply to the pastor’s house church if he continued services there,” Correia said. “They made false accusations of luring poor Hindu tribals to convert.”
Pastor Deshmukh told Compass that he was unable to hold the worship service last Sunday (November 4) as a group of extremists and villagers hovered nearby, poised to attack.
“There were women also in the group who had chile powder in their hands to throw in the eyes of any one who came to service,” Pastor Deshmukh said. “In any case, none of the believers came for Sunday worship, as they were terrified of being assaulted by the extremists.”
On October 23, Hindu extremists beat pastor Victor Periera of Vikramgarh (see Compass Direct News, “India Briefs,” November 6); after a few days, police slapped notices on 11 of the people attending the prayer meeting for “disrupting peace in the area,” said Mathai.
After the attack on Pastor Pereira, Mathai said, worship services were cancelled the following two Sundays (October 28 and November 4).
Correia said attacks on Christians also took place last Friday (November 2) on prayer services in private homes in Manor and Mokhada villages.
“These extremists barged into the homes of the believers and disrupted the prayers and chased the believers away,” Correia said. “In most of these cases, tribal Christians are targeted and beaten for attending community prayer meetings, while the police mostly choose to be spectators.”
Mathai, for his part, said he is at a loss to explain how the area became an extremist hotbed. The tribal belt of Thane district is not close to the Gujarat state border – “the Hindutva [Hindu nationalism] laboratory” from which many extremist elements originate, he said.
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Village Muslims in India Ostracize Christian Couple
Conflict between two religious communities uncommon, leaders say.
by Vishal Arora
NEW DELHI, November 14 (Compass Direct News) – In a rare instance of conflict between two religious communities in India, Muslims in a village in West Bengal state have ostracized a couple for converting to Christianity from Islam.
Muslims in Badarpur village of Behrampur district on October 28 beat Johad Sahid and his wife Taslima, who recently had turned from Islam to receive Christ. Later the local village committee ordered all the villagers, mainly Muslim, to deny the couple access to common facilities, such as water taps and toilets, a representative of the Christian Legal Association told Compass.
Such incidents are uncommon, religious leaders said, as relations are generally amicable between the two minority communities, both of which are targeted by Hindu extremists. The 2001 Census showed Christians accounting for 2.3 percent of the more than 1 billion people in the country, with Muslims close to 14 percent.
‘Cousins in Crisis’
“In the post-independence India, Muslims and Christians have been in minorities and both face problems at the hands of the majority ‘communalists’ [Hindu nationalists],” said Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer, a Muslim scholar from the Centre for Study of Society and Secularism.
Engineer said that Muslims had long been targeted by Hindu extremists, with attacks intensifying in 1961 riots in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh state.
“But Christians had enjoyed better days until recently,” Engineer said. “The Hindutva forces started attacking Christians since the late 19th century, and these attacks became increasingly more violent.”
Hindutva is a Hindu nationalist ideology advocating rule by those with India-born ancestors and who belong to religions originating here – Hinduism and its offshoots. It allows religious minorities to live in the country but in subordination to the majority community.
Engineer asserted that although Muslims and Christians had no tensions between them in post-independence India, they had “regrettably” not come together to fight common problems. “Christian-Muslim unity is desirable in today’s conditions,” he said.
Dr. Tahir Mahmood, jurist-member of the Law Commission of India, called Indian Christians and Muslims “cousins in crisis” who must conduct their affairs as friends in adversity.
“In their camaraderie lies their future in India and indeed elsewhere,” he told Compass.
Dr. John Dayal, member of the National Integration Council and a Christian leader, told Compass that the church in India needed to speak for the Muslim minority without hesitation.
“That international fundamentalist Islam is killing people in Europe who happen to be Christians cannot be a legitimate excuse,” he said. “In India, both Muslims and Christians are in a minority. We [Christians and Muslims] will hang separately unless we work together.”
Equally Undeveloped
Dayal urged Muslims to push the government to study the economic and social conditions of the Christian community in India, just as the Rajinder Sachar Committee evaluated the social, economic and educational status of Muslims.
The committee, appointed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, presented a report in Parliament last November highlighting the lack of economic development in the Muslim community. As a result, the government is considering assistance programs for Muslims.
“The Sachar Report has become a benchmark of the underdevelopment of religious minorities,” Dayal said. “It focuses on Muslims, so ironically, in the government and public spheres, the debate has become strictly a Muslim issue.”
He added that 60 percent of Christians, including Dalits and tribal peoples, are “very poor.” Dayal issued a call for the Indian government to work on behalf of all minorities.
“We are not in competition for resources and opportunities, and we are not a threat to Hindus,” he said.
Divide and Conquer
Hindu extremists wary of friendly Christian-Muslim relations have long been trying to create a rift between the two communities.
For example, in the April 9, 2006 issue of the Organiser, mouthpiece of the Hindu extremist organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (National Volunteer Corps), the general secretary of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council), Pravin Togadia, urged Christians to “join hands” with Hindus to fight “Islamic jihad.”
Earlier, at a rally of Hindu priests in Tamil Nadu state on March 19, 2006, Togadia had said, “Instead of conversion of Hindus, the Christian world should join hands with the 90 crore [900 million] Hindus to fight against Islamic jihad, which poses a greater threat to both Hindus and Christians.”
In 2003, Hindu extremists tried to fan the flames created by media reports on alleged large-scale conversion of Muslim youths by Christian missionaries in the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir. A leader of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, Balbir K. Punj, falsely wrote in The Indian Express daily on April 22, 2003 that “the Vatican and allied Christian groups” paid Indian Muslims to convert.
“It’s no surprise that the Campus Crusade for Christ [CCC] could afford to pay every fresh recruit in the [Kashmir] Valley 12,000 rupees [about $300] per month, plus perks and other expenses,” Punj breezily vented. “Would this then not appear to be a more lucrative career choice for some Kashmiri Muslim youths – with hard cash which not even a terrorist organization would have paid him for picking up an AK-56 against the Indian Army?”
Punj’s editorial was based on a false report in the daily on April 6 of that year accusing at least a dozen Christian missions and churches based in the United States, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland of sending money to the Kashmir Valley. Among other errors, the author of the report, Tariq Mir, did not interview anyone from CCC in Kashmir as he had claimed, and CCC staff members did not receive 12,000 rupees per month.
Related false news reports in mid-2003 led to persecution of Christian workers by Muslim fundamentalists in the Kashmir Valley, a Muslim-dominated region in the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
There have been other notable exceptions to good relations between Christians and Muslims. On November 21, 2006, Islamic militants killed Bashir Tantray, a 50-year-old engineer and volunteer with several Christian organizations, in Mamoosa village of Barmullah district in Jammu and Kashmir. (See Compass Direct News, “Militants Kill Prominent Christian Worker in India,” November 21, 2006.)
Tantray had made headlines in 2003 for his alleged role in conversion of Muslims.
On May 22, 2003, Islamic militants launched a grenade attack near the gate of a Christian school, St. Luke’s Convent School, in Nai Basti in Anantnag district of Jammu and Kashmir. The attacks left a young Christian teacher dead and another teacher seriously injured.
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Church Attacked in Chhattisgarh, India; Young Man Killed
Local Christians say Hindu extremists responsible, but police deny claim.
by Vishal Arora
NEW DELHI, November 27 (Compass Direct News) – A mob allegedly led by a Hindu extremist group demolished a house church and beat the pastor and believers on November 19 in Chhattisgarh state’s Bastar district. The following day, a young relative of the pastor allegedly kidnapped by the extremists was found dead in a nearby jungle.
The attack on a house church belonging to the Christ Missionary Movement took place at about 5 p.m. in Mandwa village near Jadgalpur area of Bastar. The body of 21-year-old Aayatu Kashyap, a Christian and distant relative of the church’s pastor, Suduru Kashyap, was found about 15 kilometers (nine miles) from the village.
The superintendent of police of Bastar district, G.P. Singh, confirmed the incidents but denied the claim of local Christians that Hindu extremists were behind the attack and killing.
According to the All India Christian Council (AICC), the attack was led by the Bajrang Dal, youth wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad or World Hindu Council, whose members came in a jeep to attack the church and Pastor Kashyap, warning him not to conduct worship services again.
The extremists vandalized the church till it came to rubble, said an AICC statement, adding that they tied up Pastor Kashyap and his associates and severely beat them. Area Christians reportedly said the extremists tried to kill the pastor by throwing a heavy stone on his head.
A local Christian, on condition of anonymity, said the mob identified 21-year-old Aayatu Kashyap as Pastor Kashyap’s relative, and therefore they killed him.
Area Christians said the extremists abducted the young man the day of the attack, murdered him, and left his body in the jungle on the outskirts of the village. They said a police report showed the death occurred that night, November 19, between 7 and 8 o’clock, and that knife wounds were evident on the body.
The AICC quoted Arun Pannalal, general secretary of the Chhattisgarh Christian Forum, as saying that when Pastor Kashyap and his associates went to the Kodenar police station to lodge a complaint, they were detained for 24 hours without food and water and later released without their complaint being registered.
The police reportedly registered the complaint after the AICC issued the statement on November 22.
Police Version
Superintendent Singh said the killing of Pastor Kashyap’s relative was a “separate incident.”
“The body was found around 15 kilometers from Mandwa village, and the deceased was drunk,” he said.
Asked about the injuries found on his body, Singh said the young man was apparently killed from a heavy stone crushing his head.
He said police had registered a separate complaint against unidentified persons for the killing under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, which concerns murder.
The police superintendent also told Compass that those who attacked Pastor Kashyap and members of his church were local villagers who had been objecting to the pastor constructing a church hall inside his house.
Police said the 21 people arrested were local residents who did not belong to any Hindu extremist groups.
“The villagers were also angry with the pastor because he used to criticize other gods,” Singh said. The superintendent claimed the pastor received only “minor” injuries.
“There is another pastor in the area, but he was not attacked,” Singh said. “Why was only Kashyap’s church targeted?”
There are around 40 converted families in Mandwa village, he said, adding that some of them attend Pastor Kashyap’s church while others go to the church of the other pastor.
Chhattisgarh is ruled by Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, political wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the most influential Hindu extremist group and parent organization of a plethora of militant organizations in India.
The north-central state is one of the most insecure states for the Christian minority community. Chhattisgarh has a population of more than 20.8 million, out of which only 401,035 are Christian.
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India’s Delay Tactics on Dalit Christian Rights Protested
High Court again postpones hearing on equal benefits for downtrodden minority.
by Vishal Arora
NEW DELHI, November 29 (Compass Direct News) – More than 500 Christians from across the country staged a rally in New Delhi today to protest yet another Supreme Court deferment of a hearing on the rights of more than 16 million Dalit Christians.
Dalit Christians (formerly known as “untouchables”) eagerly awaiting the hearing yesterday were hopeful as a report of an advisory panel, the National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities (NCRLM), had in May favored affirmative action benefits for Dalit converts to Christianity.
The federal government, ruled by the Congress Party-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA), was expected to decide yesterday whether Dalit Christians can be denied affirmative action benefits extended to Dalits of other faiths.
The hearing, however, was postponed until January after the government told the court that the UPA government was awaiting response from the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs), also known as the SCs/STs Commission. The Indian Constitution refers to Dalits as SCs.
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) and the National Council of Churches in India (NCCI) said they strongly believed it was just and fair that Dalit Christians should get the legal protection and other educational and employment benefits given to their counterparts in other religions.
“Both organizations have stated over and over again that just by changing their faith, their status, social and economic backwardness and the burden of being downtrodden for centuries does not alter overnight,” said the CBCI and NCCI in a statement announcing the rally.
Archbishop Vincent Concessao of the Archdiocese of Delhi and president of the National United Christian Forum, which consists of the CBCI, NCCI, and the Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI), said in an EFI statement that Dalits have been demanding equal rights for five and half decades.
“They are an oppressed lot,” Concessao said. “We request the Government of India to listen to the voice of Dalit Christians and stop exploiting the goodwill of minorities.”
Among the participants at the rally were around 50 bishops and church leaders and 300 other clergy, along with more than 200 lay people, from different denominations who gathered under the banner of the National Coordination Committee for Dalit Christians.
Buying Time
Dr. John Dayal, member of the National Integration Council of the Government of India, termed the deferment of the hearing as the government’s “dilatory tactics.”
At the previous hearing, which was due on July 19, the government had told the court that it wanted to refer the NCRLM report to the SCs/STs Commission, which led to deferment of the hearing yesterday.
“This entire process of referring the issue to various commissions has taken more than a year,” said Dayal. “If the government wants it, and has the political will, it can change the law and restore full rights to Dalit Christians.”
Dr. Joseph D’Souza, president of the All India Christian Council, said the demand for Scheduled Caste status for Dalit Christians is a fundamental right. “It must be restored unconditionally and irrespective of religion,” he said.
The NCRLM had in May recommended repeal of a clause in the Indian Constitution, referred to as the Presidential Order of 1950, according to which only Dalits from Hinduism, Sikhism or Buddhism are entitled to government’s affirmative action, according to a report in national daily The Times of India on May 22.
Due to the 1950 order, when a Dalit converts to Christianity or Islam, he or she loses the status of SC or Scheduled Caste.
The NCRLM, headed by former Supreme Court judge Justice Rangnath Mishra and known as the Mishra Commission, also termed the denial of rights to Dalits after their conversion out of Hinduism as “violative of constitutional guarantee of non-discrimination on religious grounds.”
The 1950 order was based on the premise that non-Hindu religions do not have any caste system, and therefore they did not need any special privileges or protection. Yet the order has been amended twice to include Dalits from the Sikh and Buddhist faiths for affirmative action in 1956 and 1990 respectively.
Earlier Deferments
The hearing in the Supreme Court has been deferred eight times: in 2005, on August 23, October 18 and November. In 2006, it was rescheduled from February 18 to July 12, and then to October 11. Finally, the hearing scheduled for April 3 this year was moved to July 19, and then to November 28.
The hearings were delayed as the government asked for more time for the Mishra Commission to submit the report.
The petition was filed by attorney Prashant Bhushan on behalf of the Centre for Public Interest Litigation, a non-profit organization.
Right wing parties, including the Bharatiya Janata Party, and Hindu extremist organizations have been opposing the demand of Dalit Christians, arguing that such a move would encourage religious conversions of Hindus, as the exclusion of Dalit converts from the SCs list acted as a deterrent.
It is estimated that more than 65 percent of Christians in India are from Dalit backgrounds. Christians in India comprise only 2.3 percent of the 1 billion-plus population.
Dalits have traditionally occupied the lowest place in the caste system of Hinduism. They were considered to be outside the confines of caste, with their “impurity” derived from traditionally humble occupations.
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Two Pastors in India Stripped, Beaten – Then Arrested
Police refuse to book attackers; victims detained for ‘forced conversion.’
by Vishal Arora
NEW DELHI, November 29 (Compass Direct News) – About 20 extremists in Karnataka state’s Hassan district on Sunday (November 25) stormed a worship service, dragged out two pastors and another believer, stripped them and beat them after tying them to a pole.
The Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC) reported that pastors C.J. Joemon and C.J. Jojo and another believer, G. Anil, were attacked while they and about 15 others worshipped at Christ Vision Church, a house church associated with the Indian Pentecostal Church, in Balupette village in the Shakleshpur area.
“At around 10 a.m., at least 20 unidentified Hindu fundamentalists forcefully entered the house church and started abusing the pastors and believers,” Dr. Sajan K. George, national president of the GCIC, told Compass. “The fundamentalists threatened the believers and chased them away.”
After burning the believers’ Bibles, the Hindu extremists stripped Joemon, Jojo and Anil, and dragged them to the village junction about 500 meters away, George said.
“The three Christians were tied to a pole and kicked and punched by the gang,” he added.
The Hindu extremists continued to abuse the Christians till about 2 p.m., when seven policemen arrived and took the three victims to the police station.
“However, instead of protecting the Christians, the police charged the pastors with ‘forced conversion,’” George said, adding that officials refused to give medical aid to the Christians until the GCIC intervened.
The two pastors were later released on bail.
Asked why the attackers were not booked, Constable Krishna Gowda of the Shakleshpur rural police station pleaded ignorance, saying the sub-inspector handling the case was not available.
The Christians refused to press charges against their attackers, saying they had forgiven them. Joemon is 22 years old, and Jojo is 25. The house church started in the area three months ago.
Persecution High in Karnataka
In a similar incident, a mob of Hindu extremists on June 8 beat Pastor Laxmi Narayan Gowda, an independent pastor and representative of the GCIC, in Hessarghatta, about 30 kilometers from Bangalore, the state capital. (See Compass Direct News, “Hindu Mob in India Beats, Strips, Parades Pastor,” June 12.)
The attackers tried to set the pastor on fire before parading him naked in the area.
George said the incidence of anti-Christian attacks was highest in Karnataka. “The GCIC has documented atrocities against Christians in the last 20 months, according to which Karnataka has the worst record in this period with 87 cases,” he said.
He added the attacks were linked to the Bharatiya Janata Party, which in coalition with the Janata Dal-Secular or JD(S) took power from the Congress Party in February 2006. The coalition government, however, could not last its term, and a state assembly election is expected soon.
Effect of Political Turmoil
The state assembly of Karnataka was dissolved yesterday (November 28), after a split in the BJP-JD(S) coalition.
The tensions between the two parties began after the JD(S) refused to allow the BJP to appoint a chief minister from their party, as promised earlier as a condition for forming the alliance.
The JD(S) refused to transfer power to the BJP after its victory in a civic election late September, after which it wanted to form the government without the BJP.
But after H.D. Kumaraswamy from the JD(S) finally stepped down from the chief minister’s office, BJP leader B.S. Yeddyurappa was sworn in as the new chief minister on November 9. A new quarrel arose between the two parties, however, and Yeddyurappa too had to resign on November 19.
In the wake of the strained relationship between the two parties, the JD(S) said that the BJP was trying to make Karnataka a “laboratory of Hindutva,” according to national daily The Hindu on October 7.
Hindutva is a Hindu nationalist ideology which claims that India is essentially a land of Hindus, where religious minorities should live in subordination to the majority community.
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SIDEBAR
India Briefs: Recent Incidents of Persecution
by Nirmala Carvalho
Karnataka, November 29 (Compass Direct News) – Four Karnataka state police constables beat Indian Mission Society (IMS) evangelist Solomaon Nayak in Savalgi village, Bagalkot district, on November 23, according to Dr. Sajan K. George of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC). At about 12:30 p.m., as Nayak and four Christian volunteers were making arrangements for the inauguration of the Sanjeevani Rehabilitation Centre (SRC) run by the IMS, four constables posted at the Savalgi police station came to the SRC and began rudely questioning Nayak, George said. “The police accused them of setting up the SRC with the intention of alluring villagers to covert,” he said. “The police slapped Nayak and repeatedly hit the volunteers on their backs and limbs with their batons.” Laxman Narayan Gowda, GCIC regional coordinator, told Compass, “The police left after an hour of angrily questioning and abusing the Christians, and with a stern warning that the SRC would be closed down if there was even the smallest complaint from the villagers.”
Karnataka – Police arrested five Every Home Crusade evangelists for alleged conversion by allurement on November 18 at the state-run ESI hospital, Indiranagar, Bangalore, Karnataka. Dr. Sajan K. George of the Global Council of Indian Christians said that the Christians, identified only as Manjula, 48, Pal Santhosh, 27, Chandru, 24, Chandran, 38, and Prasad, 30, were praying for the recovery of hospital patients at about 8 p.m. when some patients alerted Dr. Anand P.S., the casualty medical officer. Shortly afterward a large group of Hindus interrupted the ministry and informed police. Officers seized two bags of pamphlets and many blank Bible Training Centre for Pastors forms, reported the Deccan Herald News Service on November 19. Dr. Anand registered a complaint at the local police station against the Christians for “illegally” converting patients to Christianity, the report stated. The Christians were charged with “communal disharmony” under Indian Penal Code, section 153-A, and were released on November 19, said George.
Karnataka – Hindu extremists allegedly belonging to the Bajrang Dal, youth wing of the Hindu extremist Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council) on November 18 stopped Christian worship at Praise of Righteous Ministry in Ananda Nagar, Old Hubli, Karnataka, and then beat a pastor identified only as Gokhavi and filed a false complaint of forcible conversion against him. Dr. Sajan K. George of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC) said that Gokhavi was preaching when 22 to 25 extremists led by a local villager identified only as Raghavendra barged into the worship shouting the Hindu chant “Jai Haunman (Victory to Lord Hanuman),” slapped Gokahvi, grabbed the microphone from his hand and struck him on his head with it. “The extremists lifted up the Bible and tore up some pages while cursing the Christian faith,” George said, “and began punching and kicking the believers, flinging chairs at them.” They extremists also damaged musical instruments and the sound system, and piled hymn books and Bibles outside the Church and burned them, said Laxmi Narayan Gowda, regional coordinator GCIC. Injured were Rekha Gokhavi, wife of the pastor, and others identified only as 25-year-old Somu, 27-year-old Satish, 24-year-old Anand, and 26-year-old Shivanda. “Police photographed the burning of the holy books and took Gokhavi, Rekha Gokhavi and the other injured believers to the local police station, where the extremists registered a complaint of forcible conversion against Gokhavi,” Gowda told Compass. The Christians were released at 6 p.m., he said. George said that GCIC and representatives of the Pastors’ Fellowship in Hubli, will meet with the police commissioner to seek security for the area Christians.
Karnataka – Hindu extremists from the Hindu extremist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Bajrang Dal, youth wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council), broke into the house church of pastor Durgappa Gangadhar’s Resurrected God’s Ministry’ on November 11 in Malai Bennur village, Adiyara Taluk in Davangere district, Karnataka. Dr. Sajan K. George of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC) said that the Christians were worshiping when about 30 extremists barged into the house shouting curses and halted the service. The Hindu extremists photographed the congregation of 70 people and threatened to harm them if they continued practicing their faith. Gangadhar told Compass, “Police Inspector Brijesh Mathew of Malai Bennur police station refused to register a complaint against the extremists – instead, he shouted angrily at me, accusing me of disrupting the peace in the village.” After the GCIC intervened, however, police accepted the complaint. On November 13, the Pastors’ Committee of Davangere met with Davangere District Superintendent of Police Ravindra Prasad to inform him about the harassment.
Karnataka – Hindu extremists forcibly stopped a Christian prayer fellowship, beat a pastor and congregants and filed a false complaint of forced conversion on November 8 at Nandeshwar, Gadag district, Karnataka state. Dr. Sajan K. George of the Global Council of Indian Christians said that independent pastor Yelumalai Nayak was at the house of Dharma and Mangalavva Singh conducting his weekly prayer fellowship attended by around 15 believers when some 25 Hindu extremists led by Shankar Tavarappa stormed into the house. They repeatedly slapped and punched Nayak and the other congregants, including women, and warned them not to conduct prayer services in their house again, said George. “The extremists then went to the Mundargi Taluka Police station [Gadag district] and filed a false complaint of [forced] conversion against the pastor and the couple,” George said. Police detained the pastor and the couple and released them at 2 a.m. the next day. Mangalavva Singh was hospitalized for internal injuries at the CSI Basel Mission Hospital in Gadag-Betgeri; she was discharged on November 10, Laxmi Narayan Gowda, GCIC regional co-coordinator told Compass. “On November 11 at 10 a.m., Nayak and Dharma Singh were summoned for questioning to the Mundargi Taluka Police station and were released at 6 p.m. the same day without any charges,” said Gowda.
Chhattisgarh – Hindu extremists on November 2 disrupted a prayer and healing service of the India Church Growth Mission (ICGM) in Timnar Village, Narayanpur district, Chhattisgarh. Dr. Sajan K. George of the Global Council of Indian Christians said that about 15 extremists charged into the house church of pastor Wesley Nagaranjan, shouting curses against the Christian faith. They slapped and punched the congregants and robbed them of their wallets and watches, leaving six women and seven men with injured arms, legs and ribs. Pastor Nagaranjan told Compass he and others went to the Narayanpur police station to file a complaint, but police declined to register it. On November 4, during Sunday worship, the extremists once again disrupted the service and even slit the tires of parked bicycles outside the house, he said. “Police again refused to register any complaint, but informed us that they would request the extremists to refrain from any intimidation of the believers,” Nagaranjan told Compass.
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Christians Throughout India Finally Can Adopt Children
Legal obstacles meant only Hindus had the right, except in three states.
by Vishal Arora
NEW DELHI, November 30 (Compass Direct News) – Ending a long era of absence of adoption rights for non-Hindus, the government has cleared the way for all religious communities in all Indian states to adopt legally.
The government of the Congress Party-led United Progressive Alliance on October 26 gave notice of new rules under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Amendment Act or JJA of 2006, making room for all communities to adopt, reported national daily The Times of India on November 17.
“This has ended a long wait by the Christian community, which for many years has been urging the government to grant them the right to adopt,” a representative of the Christian Legal Association (CLA) told Compass.
Christians from almost all denominations are happy with the government’s move.
Father Babu Joseph, spokesperson of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India, said, “The new [amended] law will help many more children waiting to be adopted by willing parents, both within India and abroad, thus giving them a new lease of life.”
The Rev. Dr. Richard Howell, general secretary of the Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI), said his group welcomed “the significant move” by the federal government “to enhance the legal rights of adopted children and the couples who adopt them.”
It is estimated that barely 5,000 children a year are adopted in the country, though there are more than 56 million orphaned and destitute children.
Legal Obstacles
The only law that governed adoption in India was the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act (HAMA) of 1956, which allows only Hindus to adopt.
Christians and other non-Hindu communities can become guardians under the Guardians and Wards Act (GAWA) of 1890. The GAWA, however, does not give the child the status of the family’s biological children, and guardianship may be revoked in certain situations.
Moreover, under GAWA there is no legal relationship once the child reaches age 18 years. (See Compass Direct News, “Why Can’t Christians Adopt in India?” October 21, 2005.)
But case laws in the states of Kerala, Maharashtra and Goa allow Christians who have taken a child in guardianship under GAWA to petition the courts for the adoption of the child. Christians from outside India could take Indian children under GAWA and convert their guardianship into adoption under the laws of their respective countries.
Hurdles Removed
The existing Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act (JJA) of 2000 allowed Christians and other religious minorities in all Indian states to adopt, but confusion about the role of adoptive agencies had stalled implementation.
Section 41 (3) of the JJA 2000 provided for adoption only through Juvenile Justice Boards (JJB), but no state government had provided implementation mechanisms, effectively preventing adoptions under the law.
The government amended the JJA in 2006 and provided notice of the amended law on August 23 that year. The rules were finally framed recently and published on October 26 of this year.
On November 17 The Telegraph newspaper quoted a senior official of the women and child development ministry as saying that the new rules had been sent to all states, which now have to pass the rules in their respective assembly houses or prepare a set of guidelines that the federal government will scrutinize.
To facilitate adoption, the amended JJA now allows courts, in lieu of JJBs, to give children in adoption. A district court in Delhi gave a child in adoption to a Muslim family under the amended JJA last month, according to the November 18 issue of The Hindustan Times.
The amendment also brings under its purview “surrendered” children, beyond the abandoned, neglected or abused children mentioned in the JJA of 2000.
Moreover, unlike the JJA of 2000, the amended law defines “adoption,” stating it is the “process through which the adopted child is permanently separated from his biological parents and becomes the legitimate child of his adoptive parents with all the rights, privileges and responsibilities that are attached to the relationship.”
According to reports, the new rules will also make it easier for foreigners to adopt children in India.
Some Muslims have criticized efforts to expand adoption rights.
“It is no secret that efforts over the years to bring adoption by all communities under a unified law have been scuttled because of objections by some Muslim leaders, who’ve shown themselves more interested in protecting their turf,” The Hindustan Times noted. “The latter have claimed that such a law would interfere with the community’s personal laws, and Islam, in any case, doesn’t recognize adoption.”
The government’s move came in the wake of a pending petition in India’s Supreme Court on the absence of laws enabling religious minorities to legally adopt children.
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Christian Killed in Election Violence in Kano State, Nigeria
Religious motives underlie voter tensions; Christian’s lead at polls triggers attack.
by Obed Minchakpu
KANO, Nigeria, November 26 (Compass Direct News) – Christians said violence over elections in the Sumaila area this month included a strong religious element, with Muslims killing one Christian in an attack on a Christian settlement.
Eyewitnesses said violence broke out in the Gani electoral ward of Sumaila on November 17 after news reports showed that the Christian candidate for councillor for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Zara Gambo, was ahead in the polls, signifying the first ever victory for a Christian in the area.
As a result, they said, Muslims attacked Christians in Gani town and in Gani Mission, a Christian settlement in the area, injuring several of them, destroying their houses and shops and killing elementary school teacher Danyaro Bala. He is survived by a wife and 11 children.
Sani Duma, Bala’s younger brother, told Compass that he believes Muslims killed the local church elder in order to cow area Christians into submitting to Islam.
“Religion is at the center of this attack on us and the killing of my brother,” Duma said. “The selection of only houses of Christians and their shops for destruction shows clearly that Muslims were out to force us into submitting to their hold on political leadership.”
Duma said that area voters are all Hausas who speak the same language.
“We are of one tribe, Hausa,” he said. “The only thing that divides them and us is religion. While we in Gani Mission are Christians, they in Gani town are Muslims. Religion is therefore the prime motive behind the attack on us, as only houses of Christians were burned.”
The administrator of the Sumaila Local Government Council, as well as the area divisional police officer, both declined to comment to Compass. On the night following the voting, Gov. Malam Ibrahim Shekarau blamed the PDP opposition for igniting violence in Sumaila.
Gov. Shekarau, an Islamic preacher, is considered an open proponent of the Islamization of Nigeria. The All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), which rules the state, introduced the Islamic legal code, sharia, in 2000.
In chaotic elections marked by accusations of fraud in which roaming, armed thugs kept voters from polls, the Kano government admitted to two deaths in Sumaila for a total of six throughout the state. The ANPP was reportedly declared the winner of the local government in Sumaila.
Among Sumaila Christians injured by rampaging Muslims, according to area Christians, was Danganye Barrau, who received machete cuts. Other injured Christians included Garba Buddi, Malam Saleh and Uba Bala.
Muslims burned the homes and shops of Christians Dan Wuye, Saleh Dogo, Malam Yakubu, and two others identified only as Anayo and James.
‘Your Vote for Your Religion’
The Rev. Auta Jinta, deputy chairman of the Kano district of the Evangelical Church of West Africa (ECWA), agreed that religion was a catalyst for violence. Muslims looted the property of the Dan Wuye family, he said, with one of his sons, Jarmai, losing two motorcycles, 30 goats and six bicycles.
“There is no doubt that religious sentiments were involved in this,” Rev. Jinta said. “Today in Kano, there is no separation between religion and politics. It is your vote for your religion, and your life for your religion.”
The Rev. Nathan Tella, pastor of a local ECWA congregation in Gani Mission, said Bala was a member of the board of elders at the church and a key leader in the church’s development.
“I knew Danyaro Bala very well, and he has never been involved in partisan politics,” Rev. Tella said. He added that Bala was working at home during the voting. Later Bala went to visit a friend in Gani town, Rev. Tella said, and that night, after the election violence had subsided, Bala was ambushed and killed as he returned home.
“The violence that broke out when it was getting clear that the Christian candidate would win is an indication that Muslims who control political power in Kano do not want Christians to be part of the government,” Rev. Tella said.
Duma, noting that his brother did not vote, said Bala spent that day working with his Guinea corn.
“My brother on that Saturday did not go to the polling station, as he has no interest in politics,” Duma said. After the Muslims killed him as he returned home on his motorcycle, he said, they set his corpse and bike on fire.
“Because he was ambushed and killed on Saturday night, we did not know about this, not until Bilkisu [Bala’s daughter], who resides in Kano, received a phone call from a Muslim in Gani town informing her that her dad had been killed,” Duma said. “Since it was already late, we could not find the corpse until the morning of Sunday, November 18.”
Duma said Bala, a teacher at the Gani elementary school, had never been a member of any political party.
“We knew him to be a peace-loving person,” he said.
END
*** Photos of Danyaro Bala, the Rev. Nathan Tella and the Rev. Auta Jinta are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.
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Report Obscures Muslim Murders in Kano, Nigeria Riot
Investigative committee omits Islamist causes, killings in report to state officials.
by Obed Minchakpu
KANO, Nigeria, November 28 (Compass Direct News) – A Kano state committee investigating the September 28 Muslim rioting in Tudun Wada Dankadai learned at public hearings that 19 Christians were killed, but it only reported three deaths in its interim report to state authorities.
The committee, made up of nine Muslims and three Christians, discovered from at least two official sources that 17 Muslims and Islamic preacher Isa Jihad were responsible for starting the violence, but in its report to the state government it sought to blame the disturbance on Christian students.
Inexplicably, in its report to state authorities earlier this month the committee stated that Christian students began the violent rampage when they supposedly became upset that one had converted to Islam.
The nine Muslims on the committee overruled protests by the three Christians against withholding the total number of deaths and actual causes from the state government, said the Rev. Murtala Marti Dangora, a member of the committee. The panel found that Islamic agitators burned down 10 churches, 36 houses belonging to Christians, and looted and destroyed 147 Christian-owned shops.
The committee also found that the Muslim rampage displaced 350 Christian families and that there is not a single house belonging to a Christian now standing in Tudun Wada Dankadai.
Muslim committee members held that they could report only three killings because the other 16 could not be officially identified. During the attack, 16 victims were buried in a common grave, while three corpses were identified by surviving family members were released to them.
“When we said we should reflect the fact that 19 Christians were killed in our report, the other members who are Muslims refused,” Rev. Dangora told Compass. “What could we have done when we were a minority?”
Rev. Dangora said the committee also refused to document its findings that Muslim preacher Isa Jihad and 17 other Muslims were behind the attack on Christians – even though the names of the perpetrators originally came from the Muslim district head of Tudun Wada, Alhaji Abbas Muhammad.
“Alhaji Abbas Muhammad, while receiving the committee members in his palace, told us that he had given the divisional police officer [DPO], Saidu Idris Jatau, the names of 17 Muslims who were behind the attack on Christians and demanded that the police arrest and prosecute them,” Rev. Dangora told Compass. “But he said that the DPO, being a Muslim, refused to do so.”
When district head Muhammad again appeared before the committee to present it with the 17 names, Rev. Dangora said, “The Muslim members of our committee deliberately refused to include these names in our report.”
Instead, he said, the panel decided to report that Christian students caused the September 28 outbreak in the course of refusing to allow the conversion of a Christian student to Islam.
Alhaji Yusuf Tanko, secretary of the investigating committee, declined to comment on the matter to Compass.
The principal of Government College-Tudun Wada Dankadai, Alhaji Garba Najume, told the committee that a cartoon drawn on the school’s mosque caused the rampage by Muslim students in the school that led to the town riot. But he said school authorities could not identify who drew the cartoon.
“The principal said it could have been anyone within or outside the school but doubted whether a Christian student could do this,” Rev. Dangora said. “The sad thing is that our Muslim colleagues on the committee instead insisted that it must have been a Christian student who did it. Despite our protest against such a judgement without evidence that a Christian student did it, the Muslim members of the committee insisted to include this in the report.”
Rev. Dangora said an officer of the State Security Service presented a report to the committee confirming that Jihad, the Muslim preacher, had been questioned and cautioned several times against inflammatory sermons against area Christians but had continued delivering such messages.
The security service report corroborated the district head’s conclusions, Rev. Dangora said, “but despite all these, the Muslim members of our committee decided against the inclusion of this in our report.”
The state established the investigative committee on October 9 to look into the immediate and remote causes of the attacks on Christians in Tudun Wada Dankadai. The committee first visited Tudun Wada to assess the extent of damages and destruction, and then it held public meetings with Muslims and Christians presenting their cases.
Those who appeared before the committee included Alhaji Aliyu Mustafa, sole administrator of Tudun Wada Local Government Council; Muhammad, the district head of Tudun Wada; Saidu Idris, divisional police officer; Najume, principal of Government College-Tudun Wada; Alhaji Umar Hamisu Kofa, zonal education officer; Alhaji Adamu Nazifi, chief imam of Tudun Wada Mosque; and the Rev. Habila Galadima, chairman of the local chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria.
Some of the recommendations contained in the interim report of the committee include provision of relief for displaced Christians, resettlement of these Christians back to Tudun Wada town, relocation of the school to the outskirts of the town and public education of the people against intolerance.
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*** Photos of the Rev. Murtala Marti Dangora, riot victims, burned churches and refugees from the attack are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.
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State in Northern Nigeria to Demolish Four Churches
Road, hospital construction called guise for destroying temples in Muslim-run Kano.
by Obed Minchakpu
KANO, Nigeria, November 30 (Compass Direct News) – Without discussion or compensation, the Kano state government has unilaterally decided to demolish four churches in this city to make way for roads and a hospital.
Two Pentecostal churches and two churches belonging to the Evangelical Church of West Africa (ECWA) will be demolished under the northern Nigerian city’s plan. The Rev. Murtala Marti Dangora, secretary of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Kano state chapter, said the road and hospital construction are a guise for demolishing the churches.
“Throughout last month [October], announcements were made by the Kano state government on its state radio that a road would be constructed in Badawa area, and that all structures there must give way,” Dangora said. “These churches are located in the said area, and the government has refused to discuss with us about the fate of these churches.”
Dangora said that during re-election campaigning earlier this year, Kano Gov. Malam Ibrahim Shekarau promised Muslims in the Ginginya area that if they gave him the mandate, “he would demolish the ECWA church and relocate the police barrack there in order to build a hospital for them.”
The ECWA church in the Ginginya area serves Christian policemen in the barracks and their families, as well as other members of the Christian community there. The other three churches to be demolished are Assemblies of God Church, Mountain of Fire and Miracles Church, and an ECWA church, all in the Badawa area of Kano.
The plan to demolish the churches, Kano CAN leaders said, is a continuation of an onslaught on the church by the state government under Gov. Shekarau, who has implemented the Islamic legal system (sharia).
The Kano State Commissioner for Information did not return calls by Compass requesting comment on the demolition plans.
Same Ploy
Dangora said the ploy reflects the same strategy the state government used last year, when it instructed local authorities of the Rogo town council to demolish the HEKAN church there. It was the only church serving the Christian community in Rogo town.
Muazu Aliyu, the HEKAN church caretaker in Rogo, told Compass that the demolition of the church on September 30, 2006 has left the 70-member congregation without a place of worship.
“In the process of demolishing the worship place, these Muslim government officials destroyed Bibles, hymnbooks, and church pews,” Aliyu said.
On the church premises, he added, was a 30-bedroom building accommodating Christian public servants who were denied lodging on properties belonging to Muslims.
“The house was also demolished along with the church building,” he said.
Aliyu said that the church has not been allowed to worship anywhere else, and the local government has made no land available for them to build a new church.
The HEKAN Church Rogo was built in 1982 and served as the only worship place for all Christians in the town, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) from Kano city.
Yahaya Ibrahim, pastor of HEKAN Church Kadafa Dari in the greater Rogo Local Government Area, told Compass that the demolition was an example of persecution in just one of various realms. Among other spheres, he cited discrimination against Christian children in public schools.
“Our children cannot be admitted into government-owned schools unless they change their names to Muslim names,” Ibrahim said. “There are times children of Christians are forced to convert into Islam.”
Ibrahim said that there are about 13,000 Christians in the Rogo Local Government Area, but that they are being denied land to build churches.
“When you go round this local government area, you would find that there are about 72 fellowship groups meeting under different names of church denominations, but they do not have land to build places of worship,” he told Compass. “Such is the situation that daily confronts us here.”
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*** Photographs of the Rev. Murtala Marti Dangora, Yahaya Ibrahim and Muazu Aliyu are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.
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Pakistani Christians on Front Lines of Democracy Struggle
Three Christians killed in Swat valley crossfire.
by Peter Lamprecht
ISTANBUL, November 28 (Compass Direct News) – Pakistani Christians have played a prominent role in the struggle against harsh emergency laws established by the country’s president this month. And many of have paid the price.
Pakistan’s Catholic Bishop’s Conference (PCBC) last week demanded an end to security measures used to arrest lawyers, journalists and rights activists, including many Christians.
President Pervez Musharraf has claimed that growing violent extremism and an unruly judiciary necessitated the harsh laws in place since November 3.
Many Pakistanis, including Christians, have indeed suffered from the growth of radical Islam in recent weeks. The deaths of three Christians in the northern valley of Swat, where fanatics have enforced radical Islamic law since July, sent fear through the area’s tiny Christian community.
But Musharraf’s opponents argue that he had arrested more than 5,000 activists under emergency law (many of them now released) in order to sideline political opposition.
“People detained after the imposition of emergency [rule] must be released immediately and unconditionally,” the PCBC stated on Friday (November 23).
“It is a very positive thing that Christians were part and parcel of this movement for democracy,” said Peter Jacob of the Catholic Church’s National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP).
Irfan Barkat of the NCJP and Nadeem Anthony, a Christian working with United Nations Special Rapporteur Asma Jahangir, were among 54 prominent human rights workers arrested for “illegal assembly” on November 4. The group had met at the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan’s offices to discuss emergency rule, instituted the previous day.
“The charges were eventually dropped,” said Anthony. “It was a drama.”
Immediately following the declaration of emergency rule, police raided the Faisalabad home of Christian lawyer Khalil Tahir, known for defending blasphemy suspects.
“I am in hiding because they are raiding my home,” the lawyer told Compass, speaking by telephone while at a protest in front of the Faisalabad press club last week.
He said that his wife and children had been home when police came on November 6, but that they had left to avoid raids the following three days.
Police also arrested several dozen Christian activists from the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance who staged a protest against the emergency rule in Lahore on November 13.
Impact of Islamic Insurgency
Three Christians were killed on November 16 by government-extremist crossfire in Pakistan’s northern Swat valley, where today locals reported gains against the militants.
Identified only by their first names, Waheed, Gulzar and Raja were returning from work as office and home cleaners in Kabler when they were shot on the road to Mingora.
Further details of their deaths remained unknown to Christians in the area. The funerals of the three men, who had moved to the area from Punjab with their young families only the previous year, were held on November 18.
Local Christians said that no priest or pastor was able to attend the funeral because roads into the area were blocked. No clergy currently reside in the valley to serve the tiny Christian community of approximately 70 families.
“Here we just have a small graveyard, not a proper one,” one Christian told Compass. “It’s under a bridge.”
Each of the three Christians left behind widows, and respectively they left three, five and six young children, a Christian from the area said.
“They all have small children, and the ladies are uneducated and have no work,” the source said. “We went to buy them some food, but we need special prayer for them.”
Known for its mountains and lakes, Swat valley has ceased to attract tourists since radical Muslim leader Maulana Fazlullah declared war on the government in July. His followers have bombed CD shops, closed down girls’ schools, forced women to fully cover themselves in public and threatened local Christians with reprisals if they do not convert to Islam.
In an attempt to establish an Islamic state, the cleric’s followers drove out a number of the valley’s elected officials, prompting the army to move troops into the area last month.
Events in Swat have alarmed moderates in Pakistan because it is the first major Islamic insurgency in what is known as a settled area, little more than 100 miles from Islamabad.
“But this is a sham sort of excuse for the emergency [rule],” said Jacob of the NCJP. “There are no new powers in the emergency [law] which the army needed and did not have before.”
On Friday (November 23) a new supreme court stacked with the president’s supporters validated Musharraf’s controversial September reelection. Opponents had challenged the general’s right to retain his position as military chief while being president.
Though the dual role is prohibited by Pakistan’s constitution, Musharraf has held both posts since staging a coup in 1999.
Following through on promises he first made in 2003, Musharraf resigned from his position as head of the military today.
Jacob praised the move, saying that it was an important step towards democracy.
Christians make up less than 2 percent of Pakistan’s 165 million citizens.
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Malatya Murder Trial Set to Open in Turkey
Local press sensationalizes killers’ justifications for deaths by torture.
by Barbara G. Baker
ISTANBUL, November 5 (Compass Direct News) – Malatya’s Third Criminal Court has set November 23 to open the trial of the confessed murderers of Turkish convert Christians Necati Aydin and Ugur Yuksel and a German Christian, Tilmann Geske.
All news about the pending trial in the Turkish press last week sensationalized justifications the killers offered for their crimes while under police interrogation, including far-fetched allegations against the victims.
The three Protestant Christians were tortured and killed by having their throats cut on April 18 of this year in the Zirve Publishing Company’s office in the southern province of Malatya.
After six months of confidential investigations, criminal prosecutors in Malatya had filed formal charges against the five accused killers on October 15, demanding the jailed culprits serve three consecutive life sentences in prison for their crimes.
Defendants Emre Gunaydin, Abuzer Yildirim, Hamit Ceker, Cuma Ozdemir and Salih Guler are accused of founding an armed group and murdering the victims in a deliberate, organized manner. The five killers are 19 and 20 years old.
An additional seven persons have also been charged for allegedly “aiding and abetting” the murder culprits. According to reports in the Turkish media, these seven unnamed suspects have not been arrested.
News on the pending trial date in the Turkish press sensationalized some scandalous allegations appearing in the killers’ official interrogation statements. All the reports were based primarily on an initial release from the Anatolian Agency, a semi-official news source close to the government.
One headline of one of the most repeated claims read, “Missionaries were linked with the PKK,” highlighting the murderers’ claim that the three Christians had “praised” the violent, separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The terrorist PKK group has killed more than 40 Turkish soldiers and civilians during the past month near Turkey’s southern border with Iraq. At least 30,000 Turkish citizens have died in clashes between the PKK and the Turkish military since 1984.
Sabah newspaper’s headline quoted Emre Gunaydin, the alleged ringleader of the five killers, as saying, “We committed murder out of fear they would harm our families.”
One newspaper, the widely circulated Hurriyet, targeted a Protestant pastor in western Turkey by naming him in its headline. The report quoted Gunaydin’s claim that he had planned to travel to kill the pastor once they had murdered the other three.
Most of the news reports also repeated Gunaydin’s claim that the Christians were forcing local girls into prostitution.
“It is clear from these statements of the suspects that there is some group of powerful influence behind them,” spokesperson Isa Karatas of the Alliance of Protestant Churches in Turkey told Compass. “These people want to portray Turkey’s Protestants as enemies of the nation.
“At the same time,” he added, “because honor is such an important concept in our culture, they are trying to accuse us of having weak morals, so that they can find a justification for their murders.”
The slayers had claimed the motive for the gruesome torture and murder of Aydin, Yuksel and Geske was to stop Christians from defaming Islam and the Turkish nation.
The three Christian victims left behind two widows, five fatherless children and a fiancée.
END
*** Photographs of the three Christians murdered in Malatya and their families are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.
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Lawyers Slam Investigation of Malatya Murders in Turkey
Widows of slain Christians speak out at opening day of trial.
by Barbara G. Baker
MALATYA, Turkey, November 27 (Compass Direct News) – At the opening day trial of three Christians tortured and killed here in April, attorneys for the bereft families accused prosecutors of “sloppy” investigations that focused on the religious activities of the victims rather than on the crime itself.
The 20 lawyers, most of them working pro bono on behalf of the victims’ families and Turkish Protestant churches, spelled out detailed criticisms of the prosecutors’ “irresponsible” investigations at the hearing on Friday (November 23).
The plaintiffs’ attorneys objected to the tone of the indictment and investigation, declaring that 16 of the 31 files focused on the religious activities of the Christian victims rather than on the murderers, who tied up, stabbed and slit the throats of Turkish converts Necati Aydin and Ugur Yuksel and German Christian Tilmann Geske.
According to one lawyer quoted by Milliyet newspaper on November 20, this “irrelevant” information looked like an indirect effort by the chief prosecutor “to reduce the charges by making the victims’ attempts to spread their religion look like ‘provocation.’”
“If a prosecutor sees missionary activities as criminal, then it is not difficult to understand how some people can become crazy and kill these missionaries!” wrote plaintiff lawyer Orhan Kemal Cengiz, legal representative of the Alliance of Turkish Protestant Churches, in a November 22 column in the Turkish Daily News.
The plaintiffs’ attorneys also presented a surprise demand to broaden the prosecution from an isolated case of terrorism to the criminal code statutes against religious “genocide.”
It was the first time the five confessed murderers, all 19 to 20 years of age, had appeared outside prison since their arrest. Two other young men who have not been detained are also being tried, accused of involvement in the crime. No photography was permitted of the defendants, and they were flanked in the courtroom by more than a dozen armed guards who shielded them from the view of court observers.
Prosecutors’ Irregularities
During the four-hour court proceedings, the plaintiff team protested a number of irregularities on the part of Malatya public prosecutors Mehmet Badem and Omer Tetik, who had conducted the six-month criminal investigation and prepared the written indictment submitted October 5.
In a series of four lengthy statements submitted to the court, the plaintiff team demanded that evidence and interrogations that were blatantly missing in the prosecutors’ investigation be obtained and included in the court trial.
Only after the indictment was filed were plaintiff and defense lawyers allowed access to the 31 investigation files, with even the victims’ autopsies officially kept “confidential” under Turkish anti-terrorism laws. Nevertheless, large portions of the murderers’ interrogations have been leaked to the Turkish press throughout the investigation.
Cengiz accused prosecutors of failing to properly investigate the organizations and individuals named by the murderers during their interrogations. No inquiries were made into inflammatory local media reports, which he said trumpeted the killers’ slanderous accusations of immorality and political intrigue against the three victims killed at their Zirve Publishing House workplace.
According to an article on the Turkish Bianet (Independent News Net) website posted yesterday, the tone of the criminal investigation and biased reporting in the Turkish media marks “a dangerous shift of focus from the presumed perpetrators of a crime to conspiracy theories linking Christian missionaries and PKK [the separatist Kurdish Workers’ Party] activities.”
Bianet fingered the Ihlas News Agency as one major culprit trying to deflect blame from the killers by targeting some of the joint team of well-known Turkish attorneys for their defense of various Kurdish defendants accused of PKK links. Other lawyers were targeted for representing the family of murdered Armenian Christian journalist Hrant Dink or Necati Aydin, who had been falsely accused in 2000 of distributing Christian materials by force.
Two days after the Malatya hearing, the plaintiff lawyers announced they were filing an official complaint over repeated surveillance and interference with their e-mail and telephone communications in the days leading up to the opening of the trial on Friday (November 23).
“When we tried to open our e-mails, we had a message claiming, ‘Blocked by court order,’” attorney Cengiz told Milliyet newspaper on Sunday (November 25). “But if this had been a court order, we couldn’t have accessed them a day later.”
The lawyer noted that details of private telephone conversations within the lawyers’ group were appearing in the press during the days just preceding the trial, including their discussions on applying “genocide” laws in the case. “Our complete defense strategy was known beforehand,” he said.
Widows’ Remarks
The hearing over the ritual slaughter of three Christians in eastern Turkey last April 18 grabbed national attention in last weekend’s Turkish media, with the spotlight focused on the court appearance of two widows of the murdered men.
News clip footage and reports from the hearing led a number of national TV and radio station broadcasts that evening, followed the next day by prominently headlined reports in nearly all national newspapers. The most prominent coverage focused on the two widows who attended the hearing and briefly addressed the court as official plaintiffs in the case.
Turkey’s largest circulation newspaper, the daily Hurriyet, featured the wife and children of Necati Aydin in its front-page banner headline the day after the opening day hearing.
“Mommy, when will they kill us?” read the headline, flanked by a photograph of widow Semse Aydin with her 6-year-old daughter Esther in her arms during the murdered pastor’s funeral seven months ago.
“My children are missing their father, and I cannot comfort them,” the widow told the court. “They are asking me if they will also be killed because they are Christians.”
Susanne Geske, wife of Tilmann Geske, told the court that after living in Turkey for 10 years, “As a Christian, I view this nation as my own. I have established my whole life here.” She noted that her neighbors and even the local Muslim imam had come to her home to pay condolence visits to her and her three children after the murders.
“Turkey is a secular country, and I believe a correct decision for justice will be made,” Geske concluded.
Uncover the Instigators
As the wife of a former Muslim who had converted to Christianity, Aydin said that while she also left the prosecution of justice to the Turkish state, she expected the court to uncover the instigators behind the young murderers who so viciously tortured and killed her pastor husband, along with Yuksel, also a former Muslim, and Geske.
“I want the murder mentality of these youths uncovered,” Aydin declared. “And I want not only punishment of these five youths, but those who were behind them in this mentality.”
Before and during the high-profile trial, Turkish police enforced a heavy security clampdown around the Malatya Criminal Court building as well as hotels where out-of-town lawyers, diplomatic observers, journalists and some relatives of the victims were staying.
International observers admitted into the courtroom included official representatives from the German and U.S. embassies and the European Commission’s delegation to Turkey, as well as two foreign journalists.
More than 20 Turkish Protestant church leaders gathered at the courthouse for the trial, although due to the limited space in the courtroom, only five were allowed to observe the proceedings.
During initial proceedings of the hearing, the plaintiff lawyers protested the presence of several observers expected to be called to testify in the case. The judge subsequently ordered three individuals removed from the courtroom, including the fathers of two of the killers.
At the hearing, plaintiffs’ attorney Cengiz complained that making some investigation files public had released private contact information, allowing Islamic extremists to target many Protestant Christians throughout Turkey as well as everyone the victims had contacted in the Malatya region since 2005.
“The prosecutor failed to make a thorough investigation, and he has also put many other lives in danger,” Cengiz said.
The bench of three judges refused the plaintiff lawyers’ request to withdraw these files from the trial. Nor did the judges agree to allow video or audio recordings of the court proceedings, although the court stated it would consider plaintiff demands to interrogate the defendants regarding possible commission of religious genocide or a hate crime.
Another Death Threat
Three weeks before the trial opened, a Zirve Publishing employee who had moved his family into Malatya several months ago received an e-mail message threatening in ugly terms to “take away your right to live … in a very short time.”
“You will go to join your three friends. You will die the very same way they did,” ended the message, which Zirve staff members turned over to the police.
A week later, Ihlas News Agency reported on November 15 that police had arrested and jailed the perpetrator of the death threats, who had a previous criminal record as a computer hacker.
At the request of the murderers’ defense team of lawyers, who declared they had not had sufficient time to examine the prosecution files and prepare the accused suspects to testify, the court adjourned the hearing until January 14.
Prior to that, the court declared that the status of the defendants’ prison detention would be reviewed on December 18.
Commenting on religious freedom in a Turkey 2007 Progress Report released by the European Commission (EC) earlier this month in Brussels, the EC noted a national deterioration in attitudes and acts of violence against non-Muslims.
“Attacks against clergy and places of worship of non-Muslim communities have been reported,” the report stated. “Missionaries have been portrayed in the media or by authorities as a threat to the integrity of the country and non-Muslim minorities as not being an integral part of Turkish society. To date, use of language that might incite hatred against non-Muslim minorities has been left unpunished.”
Underlining the Malatya slayings, the November 6 report concluded: “The killing took place against the background of statements and press reports which are not conducive to the establishment of an atmosphere of tolerance in the country.”
European Union Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn was quoted recently as saying, “The new momentum [of Turkish government reforms] should now be used to re-launch the reforms to improve fundamental freedoms, particularly the freedom of expression and religious freedom, so that they prevail in all corners of the country and in all walks of life.”
END
*** Photographs taken outside Malatya’s Third Criminal Court on the opening day hearing are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.
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Kidnappers Demand 300,000 Euros for Priest in Turkey
Neighbors fond of hard-working priest who doubles as village repairman.
by Peter Lamprecht
ISTANBUL, November 29 (Compass Direct News) – Kidnappers of a Syrian Orthodox priest abducted yesterday in Southeast Turkey have demanded an enormous ransom for his release, church sources said.
Father Edip Daniel Savci, 42, went missing yesterday afternoon while driving north from the city of Midyat to his home at Mor Yakup Monastery in the village of Baristepe. At the monastery he was serving as a foster parent to 12 children and was doubling as village electrician.
“Unknown persons cut him off with a car and abducted him between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m.,” Syrian Orthodox Metropolitan Timotheos Samuel Aktas said in a press release today.
Speaking from Fr. Savci’s monastery this morning, Isa Gulten, principal at a Syrian Orthodox school south of Midyat, said that villagers had found Fr. Savci’s empty car soon after the incident.
Following the abduction, the kidnappers called another Syrian Orthodox priest from Fr. Savci’s mobile telephone and demanded a 300,000-euro (US$443,720) ransom.
“We want 300,000 euros or we won’t release him,” read a text message they sent to the priest, who requested anonymity, according to a source who spoke with him.
Turkish Interior Minister Besir Atalay said this morning that there were no new developments in the effort to rescue Fr. Savci.
“Our security units and governors in the region are continuing to work on the incident with all possibilities at their disposal,” Atalay said, according to an article on website. Semi-official Anadolu Ajansi news agency reported that the governor of Mardin had established a crisis center to track new developments.
In his press statement, Metropolitan Aktas thanked the Turkish state for its quick response in working to recover Fr. Savci.
“It strengthens our hope that our priest will be released in good health,” the statement said.
Village Handyman
The versatile clergyman has lived and worked at Mor Yakup Monastery since he was 15 and is well loved by Baristepe’s several hundred residents, mostly Kurdish Muslims, a close friend told Compass.
“He was the first person in the village to get electricity and the first to get a telephone,” said the friend, who requested anonymity. “Everyone would come to him to use the phone, and he never refused to help anyone.”
Villagers often sought out the priest when they needed their car fixed or electrical work done on their homes, the friend said.
“He worked day and night,” said Fr. Savci’s friend. “If you saw his hands and his fingers, it was obvious how hard he worked.”
Fr. Savci is also responsible for 12 children between the ages of 6 and 17 – some orphaned, others from poor families – who lived at the monastery.
“The last time I met him, he was busy building new rooms for the children,” Swedish Assyrian journalist Nuri Kino wrote yesterday.
His father dead, Fr. Savci’s mother and siblings have all immigrated to Germany, his friend said. Fr. Savci was the only priest, along with four nuns, still living in the village at the time of his abduction.
“No one can understand it, there wasn’t a person who didn’t love him,” commented his friend. “Whoever did this hurt the whole village and the whole country.”
Motive Unknown
The motive behind the priest’s kidnapping remains uncertain.
“From the outside it appears that it is just a matter of wanting a ransom,” a source at the Syrian Orthodox Mor Gabriel Monastery south of Midyat told Compass. “Trusted sources have not yet been able to tell us if there was a political or religious motive.”
Violent attacks against Christians in Turkey have been on the rise in recent years.
In February 2006, a young Turkish teenager shot and killed a Catholic priest in the northern port city of Trabzon. Last week saw the opening hearing of the trial of five young men who tortured and murdered three Protestants at a Christian publishing house in Malatya in April.
But kidnapping clergymen for ransom is unusual in Turkey. The last known case occurred in 1994, when suspected Islamic Hezbollah gunmen abducted Syrian Orthodox priest Melki Tok near Midyat and held him hostage for four days.
Fr. Savci’s abduction is reminiscent of Iraq, where Islamist groups and gangs have kidnapped approximately a dozen priests since July 2006.
Unknown men abducted two Syrian Orthodox priests in Mosul last month and demanded $1 million for their release. Church officials did not comment on whether a ransom was paid before the two men were released following a week in captivity.
An ancient Christian sect that retains its liturgy in Aramaic, the language of Jesus, the Syrian Orthodox church now counts an estimated 15,000 adherents in Turkey.
The majority of Assyrians living in southeastern Turkey were massacred or driven out by nationalist elements during the break-up of the Ottoman Empire starting in 1915. Thousands more fled the region to escape violence between Kurdish separatists and the Turkish government in the 1980s and 1990s.
Small numbers of Assyrian families have begun returning to Turkey in recent years following warm overtures from Turkish officials backed by the European Union.
Disputes have at times arisen between returning Assyrians and Kurdish families who have moved onto the Christians’ land during their absence.
END
*** Photographs of Father Edip Daniel Savci are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.
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Kidnapped Priest Freed in Turkey
Motive for abduction of Syrian Orthodox clergyman remains uncertain.
by Peter Lamprecht
ISTANBUL, November 30 (Compass Direct News) – A Syrian Orthodox priest kidnapped in southeastern Turkey Wednesday (November 28) walked free from his captors this afternoon, a church source said.
Father Edip Daniel Savci, 42, was released around noon in the city of Batman, 70 kilometers (43 miles) north of Midyat, where he was kidnapped.
“He called us himself and gave us the news,” Yuhannan Gulten of Syrian Orthodox Mor Gabriel Monastery south of Midyat told Compass. “We immediately called the police, and they went to get him.”
Gulten said that the priest’s captors had set him free without outside intervention. He was unable to answer questions about Savci’s health, the identity of his kidnappers or whether a ransom was paid.
“All we know is that the security forces are accompanying him here, and we expect him within half and hour,” Gulten said.
Conservative news website claimed that Savci’s captors had also been captured but did not give further details.
The kidnappers had demanded 300,000 euros (US$443,720) in exchange for the priest’s release when they contacted a fellow clergyman from Savci’s mobile telephone soon after the abduction.
Batman Gov. Vekili Aziz Mercan said that Savci had been released in the city center and telephoned Mor Gabriel monastery from a business in Batman’s Sirinevler neighborhood, according to CNN Turk website.
The website reported that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan telephoned Mor Gabriel Monastery to congratulate the monks on the priest’s release.
It remains unclear why unidentified assailants first abducted and then released the hard-working priest, who took care of 12 children at his monastery and doubled as the village repairman.
Though the incident appears to have been done for money, the current anti-Christian atmosphere in Turkey may have influenced the kidnappers, columnist Murat Belge wrote today.
“At least society will look at it as a ‘partial good work’ [if I kidnap a Christian] – that’s an advantage,” the writer for daily Radikal said, in an attempt to simulate the kidnapper’s reasoning.
He commented that the words, “be smart” which reportedly preceded the captor’s demand for ransom in a text message sent on November 28, were an indication of an anti-Christian motive.
The phrase alludes to Yasin Hayal, one of the men charged with planning the death of Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in January. As Hayal was brought to an Istanbul courtroom in January, he shouted an apparent threat to Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk, “Orhan Pamuk, be smart! Be smart!”
Violent attacks against Christians in Turkey have been on the rise in recent years.
In February 2006, a young Turkish teenager shot and killed a Catholic priest in the northern port city of Trabzon. Last week saw the opening hearing of the trial of five young men who tortured and murdered three Protestants at a Christian publishing house in Malatya in April.
END
*** Photographs of Father Edip Daniel Savci are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.
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Spurious Case Against Turkish Converts Prolonged
Judge orders 12 more questionable witnesses to testify for prosecution.
by Barbara G. Baker
SILIVRI, Turkey, November 30 (Compass Direct News) – Bowing to demands of prosecution lawyers, yesterday the judge presiding over a contrived case against two Turkish converts to Christianity for “insulting Turkishness” ordered 12 more witnesses to testify.
During a 50-minute hearing yesterday in Silivri, 45 miles west of Istanbul, Judge Metin Tamirci summoned two alleged eyewitnesses, five gendarme soldiers, two policemen and three local residents to appear at the next hearing before the Silivri Criminal Court, set for March 13.
Ultranationalist lawyer Kemal Kerincsiz claimed on behalf of his three young plaintiffs that the potential witnesses on his September 4 petition to the court had “information and eyewitness details” pertinent to the accusations against defendants Hakan Tastan and Turan Topal.
The three Silivri residents summoned are listed on the defendants’ computers as people who had requested Christian literature and a visit from a local Bible correspondence course with which Tastan and Topal worked.
The prosecution had previously requested several of these individuals as potential witnesses, but their admission into the case had been denied by the previous judge. Judge Neset Eren withdrew from the case in September after Kerincsiz accused him of improper bias in his handling of the litigation.
“A year has passed, and the court has already heard all the testimonies on both sides of this case,” defense lawyer Haydar Polat told Compass yesterday. “But it is clear from today’s hearing that the court plans to continue this unfounded case for at least another year or more.”
Stonewalled Judicial Process
In July, State Prosecutor Ahmet Demirhuyuk had called for the Christians’ release, declaring that no credible evidence had been produced against them.
Not only did the three plaintiffs give contradictory testimonies, he said, but the prosecution failed to provide any concrete proof that the two men had ever cursed Turkey or Islam.
Accordingly, Polat told Compass, his clients should have been acquitted of all the charges at the next hearing on September 12. Instead, the presiding judge’s resignation and replacement in effect stonewalled the judicial process.
Without explanation, Demirhuyuk has been replaced by a succession of other state prosecutors at subsequent hearings on the case.
The new presiding judge yesterday overrode objections by lawyers Polat and Gursel Meric against calling new witnesses. The defense team had argued specifically that those persons who prepared the official statements for the case did not have the legal right to now come up with any other information differing from what had already been presented to the court.
The prosecution repeated its claims that the Christian defendants were part of an organized, illegal group suspected of possessing weapons and using immoral means to spread their influence.
Tastan and Topal are accused of insulting Turkishness, reviling Islam and secretly compiling files on private citizens for a Bible course by three young men, two of them minors.
The most prominent charge, denigrating Turkish identity, carries a maximum three-year sentence under the Turkish Penal Code’s article 301, which the European Union (EU) insists must be abolished or changed to meet EU membership standards.
Several hundred intellectuals, including Turkish Armenian editor Hrant Dink and Nobel Laureate novelist Orhan Pamuk, have been charged under the controversial article curtailing freedom of speech.
Yesterday marked the first time that Tastan and Topal appeared before Judge Tamirci, who will require them to be present at the March hearing to face cross-examination after the new witnesses testify.
Arrested for two days in October 2006 and put on trial last November, Tastan, 38, and Topal, 47, are both former Muslims who converted to Christianity more than a decade ago.
Their active involvement in Protestant Christian ministries has been labeled by Kerincsiz, nationalist elements and some government officials as “missionary activity” that should be curtailed – if not banned – in overwhelmingly Muslim Turkey.
Halting Hate Language
After the gruesome killing of three Christians who were tortured and their throats slit in the southeastern city of Malatya last April, the Turkish Interior Ministry admitted in June that there had been an increase in individual crimes against non-Muslim citizens and their places of worship.
The Interior Ministry’s official circular urged provincial governors to take precautionary measures.
But to date, no open steps have been taken to halt trumped-up legal pretexts against Christians or other non-Muslims, nor to prosecute the use of hate language that could incite violence against them.
Last night, still another episode of Turkey’s highly popular “Valley of the Wolves” weekly series on Show TV featured derogatory scenes against Christianity. In one scene, a character voiced the threat, “Just as we drove out the Christian crusaders, we will drive them out. If you don’t have a gun, let me give you one.”
In a thinly veiled variation of the Malatya murders, this fall the TV series even portrayed a teenage boy commissioned by a nationalist group to kill a Christian book publisher. Episodes on November 8 and 15 implied Christian missionaries were enemies of society, guilty of links ranging from the sale of body parts to prostitution.
This month Turkish Christians started a protest campaign against the overtly anti-Christian slant of the TV series, which has repeatedly dramatized popular misconceptions of the Turkish populace against missionaries, the Bible and so-called proselytizing of Muslims.
END
*** Photographs of the defendants and their lawyer at the November 29 trial in Silviri are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.
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West Bank Pastor Threatened with Violence Flees to U.S.
House church leader still alert for danger following Palestinian militiaman’s demands.
by Jeff M. Sellers
LOS ANGELES, November 21 (Compass Direct News) – A West Bank pastor who fled to the United States this week following threats of violence from a Palestinian security official said he feels he is in as much danger stateside as he was in Ramallah.
“I know that the man has relatives in the states – I don’t know how far they would go in searching for me, but back in August he said, ‘We will break your arms and legs when we get you, we know exactly where your business is and where your brothers work,’” U.S.-born Isa Bajalia, who has ministered in Ramallah since 1991, told Compass. “We know they do have contacts here in the states, so I’m taking it as serious as I would if I were still in Ramallah.”
Bajalia, 47, said that the Fatah security official from the Tanzim militia, Nader Dahoud Abu Dahoud, demanded $30,000 and the deed to property the pastor recently inherited. He said Dahoud had raised objections to a team of Christian visitors, which Bajalia had brought from the United States, praying for Muslims in Ramallah.
In a telephone interview from Ramallah, Dahoud denied making the threats and said he was seeking only repayment of money he had given Bajalia for property the pastor had failed to sign over to him.
Bajalia, however, said he never agreed to sell Dahoud the land. He told Compass that when the Islamic security official began harassing him in August, he made reference to the ministry project by the Christian visitors in May.
“It’s not unusual for the Palestinian Authority [PA] to plant people in Christian projects so that they’ll see if you’re trying to convert Muslims to Christianity or if there’s any political agenda involved,” Bajalia said. “My people were very zealous for praying for the people that came in, out of a compassion for the heart of the people, they were very zealous about distributing vitamins and medication, they were very zealous about treating those who were sick.”
Palestinian Authority officials warned him about the team praying for the Muslims, he said.
“They were saying, ‘Your people would pray for the Muslim people, so you’re an evangelistic organization trying to convert Muslims to Christianity,’” he told Compass. “That was where the problem started, it was a result of that project.”
Dahoud and his associates have continued to threaten Bajalia’s Christian colleagues in Ramallah, he added. The pastor said he is taking the threats seriously only because Palestinian Bible Society bookstore manager Rami Ayaad was murdered on October 7 in the Palestinian territory of Gaza after Islamic militants made similar threats.
Militant Backing
Bajalia said that when he advertised the sale of land inherited from his grandfather, Dahoud – who works part-time in a real estate office with Abdullah Kustandi Abu Bishara – began scheming with Kustandi to wrest it from him.
“They thought, ‘Not only are we going to stop the evangelistic projects, but we’re also going to take your land from you’ – and it became an extortion thing,” Bajalia said. “The last thing they said to me was, ‘You’re going to sign a piece of this land over to my name, and you’re going to pay me 30,000 U.S. dollars. And with that, then you’ll be left alone.’”
Bajalia said that since receiving this threat, he has heard other reports of Palestinian Muslims forcing Christians to give up title deeds to their land.
The pastor, who has been legally blind since birth, said that Dahoud could not have made his threats against him without the approval of leaders of the Tanzim, a militant faction of the Fatah movement that has recruited female suicide bombers. When Dahoud approached one of his colleagues in search of the pastor, Bajalia said, the security official was wearing Tanzim militia khakis and was armed with a pistol.
“There’s no member of the Tanzim who can put on a uniform in public and put on a gun unless they have permission from their leadership,” he said. “He had a couple of other men with him, and their intention was to kidnap me and force me into signing over the property – how they were going to force me I don’t know, but the imagination can run wild.”
Bajalia said he escaped kidnapping when friends quickly alerted him and helped to get him a taxi out of Ramallah. He lives in East Jerusalem, regularly traveling in and out of Ramallah for his ministry.
His parents, who were Greek Orthodox, were born in Ramallah but immigrated to the United States in the 1950s.
Land Dispute
In Kustandi’s real estate office in Ramallah, Dahoud told Compass by telephone through an interpreter that he had not threatened to break Bajalia’s arms and legs nor demanded $30,000 and the property.
Rather, the Tanzim militia officer said, he had agreed to purchase the land from Bajalia and given him $15,000 for it, but the pastor declined to sign the property over to him.
“We just want the money for the land deal,” Dahoud said. “He should either give the money back, or sign over the documents for the land.”
Real estate agent Kustandi, who is not Muslim, told Compass that he and Dahoud are not insisting on obtaining the land.
“Nader bought this land and gave him $15,000 to sign the document, but he escaped to the United States,” Kustandi said. “We will be content just to receive the money back.”
Kustandi and Dahoud later told Compass the amount in question was $12,500, not $15,000.
Bajalia said that Dahoud and Kustandi have threatened not only him but the lawyer he hired to handle the sale of the land in Ramallah.
“He was also threatened by these same two men,” Bajalia said. “The demands being made by these men include $30,000 in cash and that I register my personal property in their names.”
Bajalia said he has asked the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem for help without effect. He said that if the consulate were to request the intervention of the area director of secret police, Taufik Tarawi, the harassment would stop.
“One word to this man from the American consulate, or from somebody in the states or somebody in the European Union, will get these guys off of my back immediately – and all he [Tarawi] has to do is speak one word,” Bajalia said. “He’s the one who really has a say-so over the Tanzim.”
Micaela Schweitzer-Bluhm, public affairs officer for the Jerusalem Consulate General, told Compass by e-mail that the consulate is aware of Bajalia’s case and has been in frequent contact with him.
“We have given him advice about seeking the assistance of a local attorney and contacting the Palestinian Police,” Schweitzer-Bluhm said. “Property disputes are subject to the laws of the country in which the property is located. We are monitoring the situation and doing our best to give advice and assistance as appropriate.”
Bajalia said that he went to Palestinian authorities before seeking help from the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem, but an official there tried to get him to pay $5,000 for protection.
“He said, ‘If you have to have an attorney to protect you, you’d have to pay him $5,000, and he may help you and he may not – but if you pay the $5,000 to me, I can protect you,’” Bajalia said. “I just told him, ‘I don’t need your help. I’m sorry I even came to you,’ and I left.
“I felt that, on top of the fact that these guys were trying to extort $30,000 from me, I’m going to the PA and they in turn want to extort $5,000 from me,” he added. “It was a matter of choosing who you wanted to be extorted by.”
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COMPASS DIRECT NEWS
News from the Frontlines of Persecution
Jeff Sellers, Managing Editor
Bureau Chiefs:
Barbara Baker, Middle East
Sarah Page, Asia
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