COMPASS DIRECT



COMPASS DIRECT

Global News from the Frontlines

February 9, 2005

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

Copyright 2005 Compass Direct

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IN THIS ISSUE

CHINA

New Religious Law Promises Little Change

Tightened restrictions seek to control rapid religious growth.

COLOMBIA

Guerrillas Refuse to Return Remains of Murdered Priest

Catholic officials denied access to burial site of Father Francisco Montoya.

Prison Releases Evangelical Seminary Student

Luis Vera is under house arrest, working to clear his name.

EGYPT

Christian Director of Girls’ Home Put on Trial***

Coptic family refused custody of teenage runaway.

Safe-House Rescues Victimized Coptic Girls (Sidebar)

ERITREA

Government Cracks Down on Catholic Believers

Police target wedding parties in new arrests.

INDIA

Arsonists Attack Christian School in Guwahati

School authorities say attackers were motivated by jealousy.

High Court in Gujarat to Review Murder Sentence against Christians

Defendants say police are biased in favor of Hindu fundamentalists.

IRAN

Jailed Pastor Finally Produced in Court***

Christian convert is accused of deception, apostasy and proselytizing Muslims.

IRAQ

Kidnapped Archbishop Released Unharmed***

Abductors’ motives remain unclear.

NIGERIA

Fresh Outbreak of Religious Violence in Plateau State

Muslim militants attack Christian community a month after state of emergency lifted.

Christians Criticize Government Report on Religious Violence

State officials warn of more attacks by Islamic militants in 2005.

Muslim Militants Target Expelled Christian Students***

Two students are in hiding after their families are attacked.

Peace-keeping Soldiers Kill Christian Woman

Kano family fears missing son killed while in custody.

PAKISTAN

Christian Accused of Blasphemy Acquitted***

Innocent defendant still forced to stay in hiding.

Enraged Muslim Chops off Christian’s Arm***

Death threats force victim into hiding.

VIETNAM

Imprisoned Mennonites Appeal to People’s Supreme Court

Evidence emerges that church workers endure severe torture.

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

(Return to Index)

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China’s New Religious Law Promises Little Change

Tightened restrictions seek to control rapid religious growth.

by Xu Mei

NANJING, January 17 (Compass) -- China has announced a new law governing the freedom of religion, which comes into effect on March 1.

The government first announced the new Religious Affairs Provisions on November 30, 2004, according to a mid-December report by the New China News Agency (NCNA). The NCNA, a government news agency, said the new law is regarded as “a significant step forward in the protection of Chinese citizens’ religious freedom.”

The NCNA further stressed that the new provisions are designed to “deal with new situations and issues that have emerged in recent years with China’s rapid socio-economic development.”

However, a detailed examination of the provisions shows that, with some minor exceptions, very little has changed in China’s religious policy. In fact, it appears some of the new regulations tighten existing restrictions.

The new law consists of 48 Articles, divided into seven sections titled General Principles, Religious Bodies, Religious Venues, Religious Personnel, Religious Finance and Property, Legal Responsibilities, and Addenda. They lay out a comprehensive system to control affairs for all religious believers in China.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) first established control over religion in the early 1950s, through its United Front Work Department and Religious Affairs Bureau -- recently renamed the State Administration for Religious Affairs.

The system ran aground during the chaos of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), but was re-established between 1978 and 1979 and codified in Document 19 of the CCP Central Committee in 1982.

Now more than 20 years later, the new provisions re-affirm the dominance of the Communist Party and the mechanisms of control laid out in 1982.

Beijing’s overriding concern is clearly apparent in Article 3, which states, “Religious bodies, religious venues and believers must uphold the constitution, laws and regulations to safeguard national unity, harmony between the national minorities, and social stability.”

Over the past two decades, the rapid growth of religion has alarmed Party hardliners. Islamic separatism in Xinjiang, Buddhist nationalism in Tibet and Mongolia, the growth of Catholic and Protestant house churches, and the spread of religious cults such as Falun Gong and Lightning from the East, have all combined to place the control of religion at the top of the CCP’s agenda.

Indeed, in late October 2004 as officials prepared to announce the new law, bloody clashes broke out between Muslims and Han Chinese in Henan, China’s ancient rural heartland.

Beijing’s nervousness with its more than 20 million Muslim citizens is underlined by Article 43 of the new law, which authorizes the Religious Affairs department to “prohibit those who take it upon themselves to organize pilgrimages overseas.” This clause is obviously designed to prevent Chinese Muslims from traveling to Mecca.

According to Article 3, the State “protects normal religious activities.” However, “normal” and “abnormal” religious activities are not defined. The CCP reserves the right to make such distinctions.

Government registration for all religious organizations is re-affirmed in Articles 6, 12 and 15. For example, Article 12 states, “The collective religious activities of religious citizens must generally take place in religious venues which have been registered.”

Article 7 stresses continuing government control over religious publications. “Patriotic” or registered religious organizations are still restricted to printing limited numbers of religious books for their internal use.

Books with a religious content are still censored and must not promote “religious extremism.” Again, what is “extreme” is presumably defined by the CCP.

Article 19 stresses the supervisory role of state officials. “Religious venues must accept the supervision and investigation of the Religious Affairs departments.”

There are a few minor improvements in religious policy. For example, Article 15 orders local government to respond within 30 days to requests from religious believers to register a new church or temple.

If implemented, this may help Christian believers to cut through the often impenetrable thicket of bureaucracy when applying for official registration.

The rights of registered religious organizations to their property are also safeguarded, as is the right to proper compensation if religious buildings are demolished as part of China’s vast program of reconstruction, according to Articles 30 through 33.

Article 34 grants permission for registered religious organizations to “set up social service projects in accordance with the law.” Some Protestant and Catholic churches are already operating kindergartens, orphanages, old-people’s homes and clinics on a modest scale, but this provision should encourage expansion of these services.

However, the improvements are more than offset by new provisions to punish members of unregistered religious groups.

Article 43 reads, “Those who arbitrarily set up religious meetings, and religious meetings which after having had their registration cancelled continue to meet, as well as those who arbitrarily set up religious schools, will all be prohibited by the Religious Affairs departments which will confiscate their illegal gains such as illegal property.

“Non-religious bodies and non-religious organizations and venues which undertake religious activities and receive religious offerings will be ordered to stop by the Religious Affairs departments. If they have illegal gains, these will be confiscated. In serious circumstances, they can be fined two to three times the worth of what they have illegally gained.”

Article 43 could have serious repercussions for Chinese house churches. Many of these churches refuse to register for reasons of conscience; others who seek to register are sometimes turned down and thus placed in the illegal category.

Under these provisions, Christians who use their factories, shops or homes for unregistered worship meetings run the risk of losing their property.

Finally, Article 45 ambiguously states that those who “undertake religious activities masquerading as religious professionals will be ordered to stop by the Religious Affairs departments, and their illegal gains confiscated.”

This provision may be aimed at religious cults, but history shows that the government has used similar provisions to harass, arrest and even imprison unregistered Protestant and Catholic priests and teachers, simply because they operated outside the strict parameters of “patriotic” religious activities.

The NCNA claimed the government had spent six years drafting the new provisions, in consultation with “people in law, religion and human rights.”

However, it seems very doubtful that religious people outside the state-controlled patriotic associations were ever consulted. The results are likely to exacerbate tensions between state and party organs on the one hand, and religious communities and individuals on the other.

Religious life in China has mushroomed over the past 20 years and, as recent history has shown, the rigid Maoist framework laid down 50 years ago is no longer sufficient to control it.

The Chinese government has addressed this issue by tightening existing provisions. However, their approach seems to ignore the dynamics of a rapidly-changing China.

(Return to Index)

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Colombian Guerrillas Refuse to Return Remains of Murdered Priest

Catholic officials denied access to burial site of Father Francisco Montoya.

by Deann Alford

AUSTIN, Texas, January 19 (Compass) -- Guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) operating in Colombia’s northwestern department (state) of Chocó remain firm in their refusal to hand over the body of a beloved Roman Catholic priest they kidnapped, shot and buried last month.

Francisco Montoya was kidnapped December 8 while traveling from Chocó’s capital city, Quibdó, to the village of Nóvita, about 400 miles northeast of Bogota.

The bishop of Medellín had asked Montoya, the parish priest of Istmina Tadó village, to celebrate the festival of the Immaculate Conception in Nóvita. He left November 19.

After Montoya celebrated mass and was traveling in a FARC-controlled area, guerrillas kidnapped him. “He had entered the area without their authorization. They accused him of being an army informant,” said Manuel García, Vicar General of the Quibdó diocese.

FARC guerrillas and right-wing paramilitaries control large swaths of territory in the embattled Chocó department, terrorizing local residents and profiting from the illegal narcotics traffic that thrives there.

“They didn’t know him,” García explained. “They knew he was a religious worker because the people told them so. [The guerrillas] said that maybe he was a religious worker, but [suspected] him of being an army informant just because he came from another region.”

For several days, FARC held Montoya captive, taking him to several towns and finally to a mountain base in another region. The guerrillas eventually declared the priest to be an army informant and despite “no proof, no serious investigation,” shot him, García said.

The church became alarmed when no one heard from Montoya and on December 20, sent out a group to look for him. The Aurelio Rodríguez Front of the FARC then claimed responsibility for his murder.

Guerrilla spokesmen said they had buried him on the mountain but refused to return his remains. Allowing outsiders to exhume his grave would breach security, they said.

“The church can enter, but only with their [FARC] authorization,” García said. “It’s a very painful situation.”

News accounts of Montoya’s death placed his age at 45, but García, who knew him well, said he was around 33.

“He was a very humble man with a very happy soul,” García said.

Originally from Colombia’s second-largest city, Medellín, Montoya asked the church to send him to minister to the far-away indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities in El Chocó. He HHHThe young priest eagerly embraced Chocó culture, traveling on foot throughout the region and carrying his belongings in a typical indigenous basket. He played his clarinet in the villages and entertained children with toys and magic tricks.

Chocó’s Roman Catholic priests have been threatened by illegal armed groups before, García said. When a clergyman is threatened, the bishop negotiates with the respective armed group to deactivate the threat. In some cases, the diocese has transferred priests under threat.

In November 2001, Father Jorge Luis Mazo and a representative for a Spanish non-government organization were killed. Five years ago, another religious worker was murdered in the region.

“There’s no general threat against priests,” García said. “The groups get upset with the church when it denounces their crimes. In some cases, they have threatened priests.

“This is a problem we’ve had with guerrilla groups and self-defense groups as well as with the government armed forces, all of which the church asks to respect human rights and not attack the civilian population,” García said.

Nevertheless, García maintains that clergymen themselves are not in the gravest danger. “The real danger is for the peasants,” he said. “So we clerics go to the rural areas to try to defend the peasants who are caught in the crossfire. Eventually we put ourselves in danger.”

Church leaders have also sought to broker agreements and regional dialogues with the warring factions to reduce the violence.

Meanwhile, Quibdó’s 30 priests continue to do what they can to protect themselves. They move about with prudence, travel in pairs to the most dangerous places and watch each other’s backs.

(Return to Index)

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Colombian Prison Releases Evangelical Seminary Student

Luis Vera is under house arrest, working to clear his name.

by Deann Alford

 

AUSTIN, Texas, January 26 (Compass) -- Luis Alberto Vera was released last month from Bellavista National Jail, a maximum security prison in Medellín, Colombia, in time to spend Christmas with his young family. Vera, however, remains under house arrest at the Biblical Seminary of Medellín.

 

The evangelical seminary student faces a complex legal tangle to prove he is innocent of the crime for which he was imprisoned. His lawyer says it could take four years to clear his name.

On November 26, Vera was buying bus tickets home to the city of Bucaramanga when Medellín police checked the number on his identification card and found a warrant for his arrest. He and three other men stood accused of mugging a man in Bucaramanga in 2002. (See Compass Direct, “Colombian Seminary Student Arrested on Weapons Charges,” December 3, 2004.)

Vera, 24, spent two weeks in a Medellín police processing center before being transferred to Bellavista Jail. Justice officials approved his release from the overcrowded prison in late December but placed him under house arrest on the seminary campus, where he is enrolled in theological studies, until he can prove his innocence.

Sloppy police work and an overloaded justice system evidently combined to land Vera in prison. Those same deficiencies could likewise hinder his quest to clear his record.

Vera’s saga began several years ago when he was involved in a traffic mishap in Bucaramanga. Police took a photograph of him and apparently misfiled it into the station’s criminal records instead of the cabinet containing accident report files.

Police then inexplicably placed Vera’s photo in a lineup of several others from criminal records to identify the perpetrators of a 2002 mugging. Even though Vera does not fit the mugging victim’s description of his attacker -- the suspect is reportedly dark complexioned and 10 years older than Vera -- his misplaced photo eventually led to his arrest.

Upon his arrival at Bellavista on December 9, Vera was sent to a room where the prison director, the prison psychologist and other prison staff were waiting for him.

Once there, Vera learned he had been sent to Bellavista to serve six years for rebellion.

“They said I was a guerrilla,” Vera told Compass by phone from Medellín. “The week before, they had conducted questioning in which they were accusing me of something I hadn’t done, but they weren’t accusing me of being a guerrilla.”

Vera demanded that the information be corrected and discovered that the secretary who copied his identification number had written it wrong.

“What’s happening in Bucaramanga could be the same thing,” Vera said.

Vera’s lawyer is suing Bellavista prison authorities, insisting that they send Luis to Bucaramanga immediately to confront the mugging victim face-to-face in the presence of legal authorities and clear his name. But prison officials have refused to do so because they say they have no budget for transportation.

Meanwhile, Vera’s legal bills have risen to five million pesos ($2,110). Vera does not have the money, so his family is trying to take out loans to pay it.

“I’m not sure I will be able to continue my studies,” Vera said, adding that the school term begins in two weeks.

Vera, a member of a Foursquare Gospel church in Bucaramanga, became a Christian at age 6. He left his native city last year with his wife and toddler son to begin seminary studies in Medellín.

A bright spot in Vera’s ordeal was his evangelistic ministry during the weeks of incarceration. He estimates that between 15 and 18 men accepted Christ in the police processing center after conversations with Luis about the gospel. Later inside Bellavista, he connected with many of the new converts and helped them connect with the jail’s renowned prison fellowship ministry.

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Egypt Puts Christian Director of Girls’ Home on Trial

Coptic family refused custody of teenage runaway.

by Barbara G. Baker

ISTANBUL, January 13 (Compass) -- The Egyptian Christian director of a home for troubled Coptic girls goes on trial January 16 on criminal charges before Cairo’s Abbassiya Criminal Court No. 15.

Shafik Saleh Shafik, 57, is accused of allegedly holding a 16-year-old Coptic girl against her will and without her parents’ permission, and also of trying to rape her.

But according to Shafik, who holds both Egyptian and American citizenship, the “clearly false” case against him is an attempt to close down his recovery ministry among Coptic girls who are being enticed to leave their Christian families and convert to Islam.

“The state security police wrote on their report about me that I am a ‘very dangerous man,’ because I am preaching Christianity,” Shafik told Compass.

The case began four months ago when one of 27 girls living in his “safe-house” residence in Cairo’s El-Salam district escaped from the facility the morning after her family placed her there. Shouting wildly at a nearby coffeehouse, the girl demanded police protection from Shafik and other Christians who she claimed had beaten and mistreated her.

It was a parish priest who had brought Magda Refaat Gayed to Shafik on September 5, saying that the police had returned the girl to her Coptic family after she had run away with a Muslim boy.

The youngest in a lower middle class family of 10 children, Magda had been reported missing and feared kidnapped. But two weeks later, she was found living with an Islamic group who were teaching her Muslim rituals, promising that the boy who eloped with her would marry her after she converted to Islam. Her traditional Coptic cross tattoo on her wrist had already been surgically removed.

At the request of Magda’s male relatives, who were at a loss how to handle her after the police brought her back, Shafik agreed to accept her in his safe-house. But the following morning, Magda escaped from a bedroom window and went to a nearby coffeehouse, where she began screaming, “Christians have beaten and raped me!” She named Shafik as her attacker, displaying chains she said he had used to confine her.

After police were summoned to the coffeehouse, they ordered a young mob of bystanders to find Shafik and bring him to the police station. Police then took Magda off with them.

Shafik said he watched from an upper floor of the safe-house as some 25 to 30 young men surrounded the building, armed with chains and knives. Although they were determined to fight with him and capture the girls housed there, Shafik managed to transfer his wards to a safe place before he reported to the El-Salam police station.

For the next 48 hours, Shafik was detained and interrogated without any access to his lawyer. His guards also refused for two days to allow his heart medicine to be given to him.

Shafik said he was jailed in a cell with about 50 hardened criminals. “I never saw human beings like that before in my life,” he said. “Some had razors in their mouths to use in fighting, and they were chain smoking, with only a tiny window in the cell door for ventilation. The floor was wet with urine, and my hands were chained. I was sweating, so my clothing was soaked, and I became very dehydrated.”

The Coptic Orthodox layman said he finally started praying: “Lord, I have always been asking to carry Your cross. But I find it very heavy. I am very weak. I can’t carry it by myself.”

Five minutes later, Shafik said, a guard came and opened the cell door, called his name, removed his wrist chains, and put him in a cell by himself, with the door open. Shortly afterwards, the officer brought him his medicine and some food to eat.

When Shafik was finally brought to court on September 8, four charges were filed against him: trying to rape the girl, holding her in his house against her will, beating her with a stick and belt, and assuming her custody without parental permission.

“The Gayed family came to the police station and verified that they had put their daughter in my custody,” Shafik said, “but the police refused to accept their statement.” The police forensic report confirmed, however, that the girl had not been violated.

 

Three weeks later, Shafik learned while planning a trip to Lebanon that by order of the state prosecutor, he had been blacklisted from leaving the country until the court case against him was resolved.

“This is not a case involving national security; it’s a criminal case,” objected Shafik’s lawyer, Naguib Gabriel. “It is not normal procedure to blacklist him because of this trial, which could take as along as two years,” Gabriel said.

The attorney was even more disturbed, however, when he read the transcript of the court proceedings on September 8. In direct violation of Egyptian law which forbids a minor girl from changing her religion without her family’s permission, the prosecutor ordered the police to take Magda to the Islamic center at Al-Azhar to declare herself a Muslim.

“This is totally illegal,” Gabriel declared. “So it is very strange. It is not the job of the police to play the role of a Muslim evangelist!”

Now 17, Magda has been placed by the police in an undisclosed facility operated by an Islamic group. The Egyptian authorities have refused to return her to her father’s custody.

The September incident has forced Shafik to close down his El-Salam facilities and transfer his safe-house ministry to a smaller residence, where currently only 13 girls are housed.

***Photographs of Shafik Saleh Shafik and his attorney are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct for pricing and transmittal.

FOR THE SIDEBAR:

Safe-House Rescues Victimized Coptic Girls

by Barbara G. Baker

Although privately funded, Shafik Saleh Shafik’s safe-house ministry in Cairo operates in close cooperation with parish priests and leaders among Egypt’s Coptic clergy. Shafik and his wife immigrated to the United States in 1973, but when heart trouble forced him to retire from his Texas appliance business four years ago, he returned to Egypt to minister among poor and disadvantaged children.

“My wife and I started a rural project in upper Egypt,” he said, “but then we began to understand all the problems facing our church families with their young girls who are being pressured to change their religion.”

So Shafik bought two large residences in Cairo for use primarily as shelters for Coptic Christian girls. “Most of these are hard cases of teenage girls who have been convinced by a Muslim boy to leave home to marry him and become a Muslim,” Shafik said.

“This creates big problems for the church, and everyone gets hurt along with the girl herself -- the girl’s family, her priest and church, and the Christian community at large,” Shafik said. The majority are from very poor homes, many barely schooled. “They know almost nothing about their faith when they are brought to me,” he admitted.

But after six months or more of Christian training and instruction, Shafik said the girls are visibly transformed. “The girl’s personality becomes completely changed, from vulgar speech to talking like an angel!”

To date more than 100 girls have been sheltered and restored through Shafik’s safe-house ministry. Daily personal counseling, along with teaching them how to pray and experience God’s love personally, is coupled with group therapy sessions. Most stay from six months to a year or more before they return to their families, enroll in higher studies, get married or even prepare to work in the church.

(Return to Index)

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Eritrea Cracks Down on Catholic Believers

Police target wedding parties in new arrests.

Special to Compass Direct

LOS ANGELES, January 14 (Compass) -- Eritrean authorities extended their crackdown on organized religion this past week to Roman Catholic citizens, arresting and jailing 25 members of the Catholic Church during a wedding rehearsal in Asmara.

The victimized bride and groom had met with their wedding party on Sunday morning, January 9, to rehearse their planned ceremony two weeks before the wedding. But police inexplicably entered the building, a facility rented by the Tebadasso renewal group of the Catholic Church, and stopped the proceedings.

The entire group present, including the wedding couple, was jailed at Asmara’s Police Station No. 1, where they remained under arrest as of yesterday.

This arrest marked the first such reported crackdown on members of Eritrea’s Catholic community, who enjoy “official” recognition by the government along with Orthodox and Lutheran Christians, and Muslims.

In a televised speech from Rome the day after the Asmara arrests, Pope John Paul II listed religious liberty as one of four challenges facing the world in 2005. “It is necessary that religious freedom be everywhere provided, with an effective constitutional guarantee,” the Catholic pontiff said.

The same Sunday morning, security police swooped down on a wedding ceremony being held in Barentu, a town in western Eritrea, arresting the 67 evangelical Christians present. Participants had been escorting the bride to the wedding venue when police intervened and took them all to prison, including the wedding couple.

Three clergymen among the prisoners were identified as pastors Oqbamichel and Simon from the Kale Hiwot Church, and Hagos Tuomai from the Full Gospel Church.

Reportedly the 67 prisoners were to be taken to the Sawa Military Training Center for “military punishment.”

Local sources said it was “very disturbing” that a number of elderly people and young children were among those jailed, and asked Christians around the world to “pray and protest.”

Still a third arrest was reported on January 9 in the Beleza district of northern Asmara, where four men meeting for morning prayer were arrested by the police. All members of the Kale Hiwot Church, the men are currently being held under military confinement in the Mai-Serwa camp north of Asmara.

Meanwhile, Compass has confirmed that 25 of the 60 Rema Charismatic Church members arrested at a New Year’s Eve celebration in Asmara have been released after signing a pledge not to participate in such meetings again. The pastor’s wife had previously been set free on January 4, leaving her husband, Habteab Oqbamichel, and 33 other Rema believers still in custody at Mai-Serwa.

Curiously, when Eritrean Christians celebrated Christmas on January 7 this year, the annual Christmas message always broadcast by the Patriarch of the Eritrean Orthodox Church was not aired on national media.

The unexplained lapse is attributed to growing tensions between the government and Patriarch Abune Antonios, who has reportedly accused government authorities of “interfering” in the religious affairs of his church. The patriarch recently voiced his objections to the arrest of senior members of the Medani Alem Fellowship, a religious institution within the Coptic Orthodox Church.

Traditionally, half of Eritrea’s population is Christian and the other half is Sunni Muslim. The majority of Christians belong to the traditional Orthodox Church founded in the region in the 4th century, with Catholics and Protestants representing five and two percent, respectively, of the national population.

Since May 2002, the government of Eritrea has targeted the nation’s independent Protestant churches, closing down their places of worship and arresting and torturing hundreds of their members for involvement in “illegal religions.”

Three leading Protestant pastors have been held incommunicado under arrest since May 2004 by the government, and hundreds of evangelical soldiers remain imprisoned for refusing to recant their faith.

Despite being named last fall by the U.S. State Department as a “country of particular concern” for its severe violations of religious liberty, Eritrea denies that any religious persecution is taking place.

(Return to Index)

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Arsonists Attack Christian School in Guwahati, India

School authorities say attackers were motivated by jealousy.

by Vishal Arora

DELHI, January 26 (Compass) -- An irate mob set fire to a newly-opened Catholic school in the northeast state of Assam, India, on January 19. The mob accused school staff of attempting to convert Hindus.

Local newspaper reports claimed villagers opposed the establishment of the school in Nalbari district, 70 kilometers from the state capital of Guwahati.

However, most parents welcomed the school. Some had even helped with the construction of the building, now destroyed by arsonists, which would have served as a classroom for their children.

Assam is one of the “seven sisters” or seven states of northeast India. This little-known territory is a hotbed of unrest for separatists who want independence from India’s federal government.

The state has a total population of 1.1 million, of which 68 percent is Hindu. Christians comprise just over three percent of the inhabitants.

St. Jude’s school was attacked on the day classes were to begin. However, the attack occurred at 8:30 a.m., before students arrived at the school.

A local newspaper then exaggerated reports of the attack to stir up public opinion against the school.

“About 10,000 people demonstrated before the ... school and set the school building and a church situated in the school campus afire in protest against the alleged conversion of Hindu (students) to Christianity by missionaries of this school,” the Assam Tribune claimed.

The newspaper also quoted police sources who said the mob shouted slogans against the missionaries and pelted stones at the school. Some members of the crowd then set the school afire.

“A police team immediately rushed to the spot and brought the situation under control,” the newspaper reported.

However, Vinay Masih of the Evangelical Fellowship of India in New Delhi, who visited the school immediately after the attack, said some aspects of the newspaper report were false.

“The newspaper exaggerated the incident by alleging that a mob of about 10,000 people attacked the school, whereas the mob was only 70 people strong,” he told Compass.

The claim of a church being set ablaze was also false, since there was no church in the school compound. The school consisted only of the simple shelter that was to serve as a classroom.

“The report in the Assam Tribune gave the impression that the local people were against the opening of the school, which is not true,” Masih added. “Until now there have been no tensions of any sort between different communities living in the area.”

Local Christians see the attack as a serious offense and have registered a case at the local police station.

The Archdiocese of Assam issued a press statement condemning the attack on the school. The statement also denied conversion of Hindu students. “Certain vested interest groups have been trying to intimidate the school authorities, including Father Acharya Nazarene, the principal of the school, and the local Catholic community since the establishment of the school, asking them to vacate the land,” the statement said.

 

The statement also asserted that local people were in favor of the school.

Masih explained that many parents in the area preferred to send their children to Christian schools because of their reputation for high academic standards. This may have provoked suspicion in some quarters.

“It is extremely sad that by exaggerating and falsely reporting on the incident, the newspaper helped the cause of the vested interests,” said Masih.

The Vicar General of the Catholic Church, Father Varghese Kizhakevely, told reporters from the Assam Tribune that the allegations of conversion were baseless. He has also called for action against the arsonists and others involved in the attack.

Meanwhile, the children of Nagrizuli village will have to wait a little longer for the opportunity to go to school.

(Return to Index)

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High Court in Gujarat, India, to Review Murder Sentence against Christians

Defendants say police are biased in favor of Hindu fundamentalists.

by Vishal Arora

DELHI, February 2 (Compass) -- The High Court of Gujarat, India, is expected to hear an appeal in early February asking to overturn the murder conviction of five tribal Christians. The five, including a boy of minor age, were sentenced to life imprisonment for killing a Hindu fundamentalist who was part of a mob that attacked a fellow Christian in the Valsad district of Gujarat state.

Found guilty by a sessions court on June 19, 2004, the five, Ramesh Chandubhai Varli, Harjee Chandubhai Varli, Ishwar Chandubhai Varli, Chandubhai Dharmabhai Varli, and Dakalya Kalubhai Varli, appealed to the High Court on August 17, 2004, for revision of the conviction.

The case stems from a violent clash between Hindu and Christian tribal peoples that broke out in 2001 in the interior village of Piproli, Valsad district, Gujarat state. During the melee, an activist of the Hindu fundamentalist group Bajrang Dal was struck in the head and died of his injuries in a local hospital three days later.

Local Christians claim that repeated attacks by Hindu fundamentalists against tribal Christians triggered the clash.

Mr. Samson Christian, president of the Gujarat chapter of the All India Christian Council, said in a press release that the trouble began when Hindu fundamentalists tried to convert tribal Christian Ramanbhai K. Gavit to Hinduism on April 26, 2001, the day his wife died of a snake bite.

According to Christian, fundamentalists “attacked Ramanbhai’s house, saying, ‘If your Christianity is a true religion, then ask your Lord Jesus Christ to bring your wife back to life at once. And if your wife doesn’t come back to life, you will have to accept the Hindu religion.’”

Ramanbhai was beaten severely after he protested the fundamentalists’ demand. “He had to be admitted [to the] local Dharampur Civil hospital,” Christian said.

Family members of Ramanbhai were also beaten the following day when they were on their way to take part in the burial ceremony of his wife, Christian said.

“Due to these ongoing incidents, Christians lodged a police complaint in the local Dharampur police station, but the police authorities did not listen and failed to take any action in the matter.”

Christian said that Ramanbhai was attacked again on the morning of May 28, 2001, this time with sharp weapons.

“Ramanbhai cried for help. In response, Christians of the village, Ramesh Chandubhai Varli, Harjee Chandubhai Varli, Ishwar Chandubhai Varli, Chandubhai Dharmabhai Varli (to name a few), rushed to the site and tried to save Ramanbhai,” reported Christian. “Due to their intervention, members of both groups were injured and were admitted to the civil hospital of Dharampur.

“During the treatment, a member from the communally-based group, Gopjibhai Ramabhai Varli, expired on May 29, 2001,” Christian added. The four Christians named, along with a fifth tribal Christian, were charged with his murder.

Christian claimed the fundamentalists, with the cooperation of the local public prosecutor and police department, falsely ascribed the motive of the murder to a “financial transaction.” “Communal elements [religious fundamentalists] presented false witnesses before the police authorities,” he said.

The Rev. Johnson Barnabas, zonal secretary of the Christian organization Friends Missionary Prayer Band (FMPB), told Compass, “The five accused come from a very poor economic background. Since they are in custody, their family members -- including women and children -- have been working as laborers to support themselves. Local staff of the FMPB are supporting the accused for the court case with their tithes and offerings.”

Barnabas conducts FMPB ministries in Valsad and the neighboring district of Navsaris.

“We are disturbed that although members of both the communities were injured in the clash, no action has been taken against Hindu tribals, who on several occasions had attacked Christians,” Barnabas added.

According to Barnabas, the tribal Christians are facing an uphill battle to prove their innocence. “The family members are still living in fear of further persecution, as tension can erupt again if the Hindu villagers come to know that Christians have appealed the conviction,” he said.

Attorney T.S. Nanavati of the Gujarat High Court, who is defending the accused, told Compass, “The matter should come up for hearing in the court in the first or second week of February.

“Four of the five convicted under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code have a reasonably good chance of acquittal, but nothing can be said about the one who is convicted of hitting the murdered on his head,” Nanavati added.

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Jailed Iranian Pastor Finally Produced in Court

Christian convert is accused of deception, apostasy and proselytizing Muslims.

by Barbara G. Baker

ISTANBUL, February 4 (Compass) -- Christian pastor Hamid Pourmand went on trial before a military court in Tehran last week, charged with deceiving the Iranian armed forces about his religion.

It was the first time Iranian authorities have produced Pourmand, 47, arrested five months ago when police raided a church conference in Karaj, near Tehran.

Although the nine other pastors and 76 laymen detained with him were all released within a few days, the Assemblies of God lay pastor has remained under incommunicado arrest since September 9, 2004.

Relatives of the jailed pastor confirmed to Compass yesterday that Pourmand’s wife was allowed to see him on the day of his military court martial, held during the last week of January.

An Assyrian Christian, his wife was also given court permission to visit him yesterday at the military prison where he has been jailed in Tehran for the past three months. Her only previous contact had been a very short telephone call from her husband in late September, about three weeks after his arrest, to assure her that he was “all right.”

Together with his wife and two children, Pourmand was living in Bandar-i Bushehr, a port city on the Persian Gulf in southern Iran. In addition to his military duties as a colonel in the army, he was the volunteer lay pastor of a small Assemblies of God congregation in the city.

Pourmand converted from Islam to Christianity nearly 25 years ago. Shortly after the Islamic revolution, Iranian laws had been passed to prohibit non-Muslims from serving as military officers.

But according to his family and Christian acquaintances, Pourmand had never concealed his religious conversion. Rather, he was widely liked and respected for his honesty, one friend told Compass.

Pourmand reportedly declared in court last week that he had documented proof, in the form of a letter, that the army knew he had become a Christian before he was ever given officer rank.

It is expected that regardless of the outcome of his deception charges before the military court, Pourmand will now be forcibly discharged from the Iranian army.

During last week’s trial, the Christian prisoner was informed that he would be transferred back to Bandar-i Bushehr, where he will face trial on two separate charges of apostasy and proselytizing.

During the hearing, court officials declared that for many years Pourmand had belonged to an “underground” church through which “many Muslims” had deserted Islam and become Christians.

“Either he will be forced to return to Islam,” one Iranian Christian source noted, “or he will face a very big problem now.”

The world’s only theocratic regime, the Islamic Republic of Iran maintains harsh suppression of local evangelical churches and various house-church movements accused of evangelizing Muslims.

Since 1990, several ex-Muslims who converted to Christianity have been either assassinated or executed by court order, under the guise of accusations of spying for foreign countries.

Under Iranian law, apostasy is listed along with murder, armed robbery, rape and serious drug trafficking as a capital offense.

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

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Kidnapped Iraqi Archbishop Released Unharmed

Abductors’ motives remain unclear.

by Barbara G. Baker

ISTANBUL, January 18 (Compass) -- Less than 24 hours after armed gunmen kidnapped the Syrian Catholic archbishop of Mosul, the 66-year-old cleric was set free today unharmed.

Archbishop Basile Georges Casmoussa was accosted by armed men late yesterday afternoon as he left the home of a family of parishioners near the university in Mosul. The abductors, who were unmasked, forced the archbishop into the trunk of a car and drove off with him, diocese officials reported.

The Vatican reacted quickly to the abduction last night, calling it a “despicable terrorist act” and demanding Casmoussa’s immediate release.

This morning before the cleric’s release, one of his close friends spoke with Compass by telephone from Mosul. “The archbishop is alive. He has telephoned to his church,” the source said. Hinting at a ransom demand, the source said the church was “negotiating” with the kidnappers.

Archbishop Casmoussa was released just before noon local time today, less than an hour after church officials had reported that his abductors were demanding a $200,000 ransom.

By 2:15 p.m., the Rome-based Catholic missionary news agency MISNA reported, the archbishop had arrived back at the offices of his diocese. Mosul church officials and Vatican sources declared that no ransom had been paid for his release, MISNA said.

The prelate told Vatican Radio today that he had been treated well during his day in captivity, which he described as a “coincidence.” “As soon as they found out I was a bishop, their attitude changed,” he said.

According to a spokesman for the Mosul diocese, “The captors did not know that their hostage was an archbishop.” Reportedly, many Iraqi priests have recently chosen to wear civilian clothing to avoid being targeted by insurgents.

Although kidnapping has become a common phenomenon in Iraq, it remains unclear whether the motive of Casmoussa’s abductors was political, religious or financial.

According to a press release issued today by the U.K.-based Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), “ ... within the past few weeks, Archbishop Casmoussa had refused to comply with Mosul Arab demands for Christians to leave the city and the surrounding villages.”

Archbishop of Kirkuk Louis Sako told ACN that he was “convinced the abduction was politically motivated and not the work of a hit squad.”

When Archbishop Sako spoke with Compass, he noted that he had only talked with Archbishop Casmoussa for a minute by telephone after his release today and that he did not know “precisely” why his fellow bishop had been kidnapped.

“But I think that they wanted to push the Christians not to go to vote in the elections,” he stated. Another priest who requested anonymity agreed that it appeared to be an attempt to intimidate the Christians in Mosul and nearby villages.

Dogged by insurgent violence for the past 10 weeks, Mosul is considered of critical importance to the upcoming elections on Sunday, January 30. As Iraq’s third-largest city, some two-thirds of its residents are Sunni Muslims. It is also home to one of the country’s largest Christian communities.

“Maybe the next time somebody is targeted, it will be me,” Archbishop Sako told ACN. “Who knows? The situation here is getting worse and worse.”

Meanwhile, Chaldean Patriarch Emmanuel Delly confirmed today from Baghdad that several days ago, a Chaldean priest had also been kidnapped and held by gunmen for 24 hours and then released. “We do not know who was responsible,” the patriarch told MISNA. But he emphasized that such incidents were not “deliberate attacks against Christians,” but rather indications that “Iraq is in a state of chaos.”

From Rome, papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls stressed that the Vatican did not view Casmoussa’s kidnapping as “an anti-Christian act” but rather part of the general climate of violence in Iraq.

In the wake of a wave of 12 church bombings since August, Iraq’s Christian community has kept an increasingly low profile, even canceling its traditional midnight Christmas mass last month.

An estimated three percent of Iraq’s population is Christian, although several thousand Christian families have fled to Syria and Jordan since the overt church attacks began five months ago.

***Photographs of Archbishop Casmoussa and Archbishop Sako are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct for pricing and transmittal.

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Fresh Outbreak of Religious Violence in Nigeria’s Plateau State

Muslim militants attack Christian community a month after state of emergency lifted.

by Obed Minchakpu

JOS, Nigeria, January 13 (Compass) -- Fresh violence broke out in the central Nigerian state of Plateau when Muslim militants attacked the village of Gana-Ropp in the Barakin Ladi local government area, killing Christian community leader Davou Bulle and injuring his wife and son, who remain in critical condition at the Plateau state Specialist Hospital in Jos.

The attack came just weeks after the federal government lifted a six-month state of emergency imposed on the state between May and November 2004.

Mr. Bulle was killed on December 29 while he and his family members were returning home from their farm.

The attack threw the community, the site of Christian mission schools, into confusion and forced the Plateau state government to deploy four units of anti-riot police to the area. Police authorities in Plateau have announced the arrest of eight of the Muslim militants who carried out the attack.

Plateau state Police Commissioner Joseph Apapa told journalists in Jos on January 1 that the eight Muslim militants would be charged in court as soon as investigations are completed.

The same day, John Gobak, secretary to the state government, issued a press statement urging Christians in the state to remain calm. The state government has taken measures to ensure that the attacks are checked, he said.

“We are tired of the frequent killings of our people by Muslim militants,” community spokesman Simon Mwandkwon told those at a press conference in Jos on January 3. “[That] is one of the reasons that led to the imposition of a state of emergency on the state last year.”

Mwandkwon said the Muslim militants shot Bulle in the chest, killing him almost instantly.

The assault on Bulle is “a chilling reminder of the nightmarish experiences of the pre-state of emergency era,” Mwandkwon said. “The murder is the latest of such tragic encounters in the recent past.”

Three years of religious violence beginning in September 2001 resulted in the deaths of more than 10,000 people, the majority of them Christians, in Plateau state.

In May 2004, Christian militias carried out retaliatory attacks against Muslims in the Plateau town of Yelwa, killing over 300 people. President Olusegun Obasanjo then declared the state of emergency in response to pressure from Muslim leaders, who had given him a seven-day ultimatum to declare emergency rule in Plateau or face full-scale war with the Muslim community.

Prior to the lifting of the state of emergency in November, the Muslim Council of Ulamas insisted that officials extend emergency rule and threatened to make the state ungovernable if the government did not heed their warning. Christians view the December 29 murder of Bulle as a fulfilment of the Muslim leaders’ threat.

On December 6, the Rev. Yakubu Pam, chairman of the Plateau state chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria, alerted the public to plans by Muslim militants to renew attacks on the Christian community of the state.

Two days after Pam raised the alarm, police authorities confirmed that they had uncovered plans by an armed group working in concert with local Muslim leaders to destabilize Plateau state. They claim to have arrested suspected members of the armed group.

Sources in Nigeria predict that if the Nigerian government fails to check the activities of Muslim militants, there will be an escalation of conflict between the adherents of the two major faiths in Nigeria.

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Christians in Nigeria Criticize Government Report on Religious Violence

State officials warn of more attacks by Islamic militants in 2005.

by Obed Minchakpu

KANO, Nigeria, January 18 (Compass) -- Christian leaders in northern Nigeria say a report released in December by the government of Kano state grossly underreports the number of Christians killed by Muslim militants in violent attacks last year. Estimates of the value of churches and homes destroyed in the clashes are also much too low, leaders claim.

The report states that 84 people died in religious violence in Kano in 2004. However, Methodist Bishop Foster Ekeleme, chairman of the Kano chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), told Compass that reliable estimates place the casualty count close to 3,000 Christians dead.

“When you are talking about the dead, it is painful,” Ekeleme said. “Is it even good to kill one person?

“Let us not continue to argue about numbers. What I am asking as the CAN chairman is, why should even one Christian be killed? What are the offenses of these 84 that have been killed?”

According to CAN, Muslim extremists destroyed church buildings and private properties belonging to Christians totaling nearly $1.5 billion in value. The government, however, reported Christian property losses of only about $70 million.

The official report, prepared by an 11-member commission of inquiry appointed by Kano Governor Malam Ibrahim Shekarau, said 160 people were injured and another 1,971 displaced in attacks against Christians.

Religious violence in Kano was provoked by earlier clashes in the town of Yelwa, Plateau state. In February, Islamic militants attacked Christians participating in morning devotions in a Yelwa church and killed 48 worshippers, including Pastor Samson Bukar.

Two months later, Christians and other groups attacked Muslims in Yelwa. An estimated 350 Muslims died and another 250 disappeared in that clash, according to police and press reports. The incident, in turn, sparked the assaults on Christians in Kano that are the subject of the recent government report.

Alhaji Sule Ya’u Sule, Shekarau’s Director of Press Affairs, told journalists on December 17 that the 84 people reportedly killed in the Kano outbreak included both Muslims and Christians. CAN leaders, however, rejected that finding, insisting that the only fatalities were among Christians.

Christians may well face more violence in Kano this year. At a press conference on December 21, State Information Commissioner Alhaji Abubakar Garba Yusuf revealed that government security agents have uncovered plans by Muslim militants to attack Christians and burn down churches in order to force the observance of Islamic law in Kano state.

Yusuf indicated that groups of militants have been recruited and sent to Saudi Arabia to undergo training. He said the government has intercepted inflammatory pamphlets circulating in the Islamic community that aim to incite Muslims against their Christian neighbors.

“The idea is to create the opportunity for militants in military and police uniforms to easily storm Sabon Gari (Christian quarters) and destroy churches and property in order to give the government a bad name,” Yusuf said.

“These devilish plans ... are deliberately planned to destabilize the state and create unprecedented unrest.”

Yusuf said that police have arrested about 30 Muslim militants in possession of weapons and military and police uniforms.

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Muslim Militants in Nigeria Target Expelled Christian Students

Two students are in hiding after their families are attacked.

by Obed Minchakpu

BAUCHI, Nigeria, February 3 (Compass) -- Muslim militants pronounced a death sentence on five Christian students expelled from public schools in November for conducting an evangelistic outreach.  

The families of two of the students, Miss Hanatu Haruna Alkali and Abraham Adamu Misal, were attacked on January 26 when militants went to their family homes in the state of Gombe in northern Nigeria intending to kill them.

A sister of Alkali, who asked not to be named, reported to Compass from Gombe that Muslim militants have attacked the house several times. Family members fear for their lives.

Rev. Oludare Aliu, national coordinator of the students’ ministry of the Evangelical Church of West Africa (ECWA), confirmed the report. “Muslim militants went to Gombe to … kill Hannatu, but fortunately, she was not at home at the time. The family was held at gun point. Hannatu’s father happens to be a former military officer. He wrestled with the militants and was able to disarmed one of them who had a gun. While he was fighting them, one of the militants stabbed Hannatu’s mother with a knife. She has been treated for the wounds.” Alkali is now in hiding.

“Also, the militants attacked the family of Abraham Adamu Misal; he has already escaped and is now in hiding. We are yet to get details about the whereabouts of the other three students,” Aliu added.

Alkali, Misal, and three other Christian students (Habakkuk Solomon, Hankuri Gaya, and a student identified as Uzochukwu) were expelled by the authorities of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University (ATBU) and the Federal Polytechnic in Bauchi for sharing the gospel with Muslim students. According to officials in the two schools, Muslims in the schools complained that the Christian students blasphemed the prophet Mohammed (see Compass Direct, “Nigerian Student Murdered in Clash over Evangelism,” December 20, 2004).

Sunday Nache Achi, a student and president of the campus chapter of ECWA students’ ministry at ATBU in Bauchi, was murdered over the incident on December 8, 2004. He was not part of the group of Christian students conducting the gospel outreach.

In January, representatives of the Christian Association of Nigeria in Bauchi called on the Nigerian government to carry out investigations into the murder of Achi and bring to justice those who killed him. They also demanded the reinstatement of the five expelled Christian students and the removal of the head officials of the two public schools for contributing to the conflicts between Muslim and Christian students.

On January 25, Muslim leaders in Bauchi held a press conference. They called on all Muslims to defend Islam and to resist the demand by Christian leaders that the Muslim militants who killed Mr. Achi be brought to justice.

Alhaji Muhammad Dan Madami, who led the conference, said the Muslim leaders opposed the reinstatement of the Christian students and supported the activities of the Muslim militants. He also said the Nigerian government must not remove the heads of the two schools, both of whom are Muslims.

“The incidents [Christian evangelism outreach to Muslim students] in both ATBU and Federal Polytechnic Bauchi were meant to deliberately provoke the Muslims,” Madami said. Therefore, all Muslims must be prepared to defend their religion “and the person and good name of the prophet of Islam, Mohammed, at all times.”

***Photographs of expelled students Hanatu Haruna Alkali and Abraham Adamu Misal, and the murdered student Sunday Nache Achi, are available electronically. Please contact Compass Direct for pricing and transmittal.

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Nigerian Peace-keeping Soldiers Kill Christian Woman

Kano family fears missing son killed while in custody.

by Obed Minchakpu

 

NUMAN, Nigeria, February 7 (Compass) -- Judith Lan’guti, a young Christian woman in Numan, a town in the northern state of Adamawa, Nigeria, was shot dead allegedly without provocation on January 28 by soldiers who had been deployed to keep peace in the town following the outbreak of violence between Muslims and Christians.

“The murder of Miss Judith is coming 19 months after the killing of our Rev. Esther Jinkai Ethan by a Muslim fanatic,” Mahula Tika, a Christian community leader in Numan, told Compass. “Up to this moment, the fanatic has not been prosecuted and now we are being forced to mourn the death of another Christian woman.”

Ethan, a Christian evangelist, was killed in Numan by a Muslim man 19 months ago. Her murder set Muslims against Christians, and Numan has remained under siege since.

Two major clashes occurred in the town during May 2003 and May 2004. Violence claimed several hundred lives and destroyed valuable property. (See Compass Direct, “Nigerian Town Riots on Anniversary of Preacher’s Murder,” June 14, 2004.)

While Christians in Numan town were observing the first anniversary of Mrs. Ethan’s death, Muslims there built a mosque beside the cathedral of the Lutheran church and adjacent to the palace of the town’s Christian monarch, Feddy Soditi Bongo. The construction of the mosque sparked another religious clash which claimed more lives and displaced hundreds of residents.

Major General John Ahmadu, speaking to journalists on February 1 in the city of Yola, said that reports reaching him indicate a likelihood of the reoccurrence of religious turmoil in Numan.

“The present wind [religious crisis] that is blowing in Numan does no one any good,” Ahmadu said.

The officer declined to comment on Lan’guti’s killing.

Christians in Numan reportedly interpret the Adamawa state government’s removal of Bongo as persecution against them. According to local sources, the deposed monarch has been forced into exile in Bali town in the northern state of Taraba.

Meanwhile in the city of Kano, the family of Yusuf Olawale, 27, reported him missing and believes he may have been killed. The family has not heard from Olawale since his arrest by Islamic law enforcers on May 13 on allegations that he had breached sharia, the Islamic legal code.

Tunde Olawele, Yusuf’s older brother, said that police searching for the young Christian man have not found any trace of him in the last six months.

“We are scared that he might have been killed since the police claim they have not seen him and have declared him wanted on the same offense of breaching the Islamic law,” the elder Olawale told Compass.

Alhaji Aliyu Usman, a Muslim and the Kano State Commissioner for Justice, declined to talk to Compass about the Olawale arrest.

However, Usman did comment, “A judge of the Islamic court may use his discretion within the confines of the Islamic law to impose an imprisonment or a fine on a Christian or any non-Muslim who has breached the Islamic law.”

The Olawale family fears for Yusuf because he was arrested a few days after Muslims rioted in Kano, Plateau state, last year. (See Compass Direct, “Muslim ‘Protest’ Turns Deadly in Nigeria,” May 13, 2004.)

That clash left scores of Christians dead or maimed, and destroyed several churches. Yusuf Olawale’s family thinks he may have been killed along with other Christians.

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Pakistan Acquits Christian Accused of Blasphemy

Innocent defendant still forced to stay in hiding.

by Barbara G. Baker

ISTANBUL, January 17 (Compass) -- Anwer Masih was acquitted in Lahore last month by a Judicial Magistrate’s Court, making him the first Pakistani Christian ever acquitted of blasphemy in Pakistan’s lower courts.

All Christian citizens tried on alleged blasphemy charges in Pakistan over the past two decades have eventually been acquitted through appeals to higher courts. But since the lower courts hearing their cases initially convicted them, they remained in prison on death row for additional years until the verdict was overthrown.

Judicial Magistrate Dr. Mohammed Anwar Gondal ruled in the December 17 hearing that the accusations against Masih were based only on hearsay evidence.

In addition, the magistrate declared that the First Information Report (FIR) filed against the defendant was nullified, since it violated Section 196 of the criminal procedure code. Under this statute, any prosecution of alleged blasphemy offenses under Article 295-A must first be approved by the central or provincial government before the FIR can be lodged.

Masih, now 32, was arrested November 30, 2003, and charged with violating Article 295 and 295-A of the Pakistan Penal Code, allegedly for “disturbing someone’s religious feelings” and slandering a religious prophet.

A neighbor of the defendant who had converted from Christianity to Islam claimed that Masih had mocked his new beard and derided Islamic beliefs. The plaintiff now goes by the name of Naseer Ahmed.

Masih was held in the Lahore District Jail for six months, until the Lahore High Court noted that no direct evidence had been produced against him and ordered him released on bail on June 4, 2004.

But according to lawyer Justin Gill, representing the Center for Legal Aid and Assistance Settlement in Lahore which defended Masih, his client remains in hiding, unable to be reunited with his wife and four children since his acquittal a month ago.

Extremists from the banned but active Lashkar-e-Mujahideen (Islamic Religious Army) have vowed to kill Masih over his alleged remarks against the prophet Mohammed.

In a handwritten threat in Urdu sent to Masih after he was released on bail, the group warned the defendant that only heavy police security at his court hearings on Friday, December 17, had prevented them from shooting him.

“But we will never let you go,” the letter said. “We will shoot you whenever we find you alone, since you blasphemed against our holy prophet. We have an earnest desire to kill you because you have infuriated us. We Muslims don’t want to see you alive. Someone from our Lashkar-e-Mujahideen will eliminate you one day.”

“I was really afraid for my life from the mob stirred up in the mosque that Friday,” Masih told Compass during an interview this past September. His wife, Bushra, had been forced to snatch up the children that afternoon and flee on the bus to her relatives living in another city.

“I was quite afraid when we had to leave, and I started crying,” she recalled. “I didn’t even take any clothes, because there wasn’t time. After 15 days I was able to visit him at the jail, but I never took the children to see him, because he didn’t want them to see him there.”

While the trial was underway, Masih’s accuser once tried to abduct the defendant’s young daughters from their school grounds. Masih and his wife have three daughters and a son, ages nine to two years. “I am safe in hiding, but my wife and family, including my parents, have been under pressure because of me,” Masih said.

“My religion says I should forgive this man,” Masih told Compass. “But after hearing these things, that he even tried to kidnap my daughters, I don’t want to forgive him.”

Masih has been able to meet his wife, children and parents secretly on occasion. “But I know the mullahs are still searching for me,” he said.

With his judicial charges cleared but his life still under threat, Masih joins more than a dozen other Pakistani Christians who, despite their innocence, have been forced to apply for asylum abroad to live under new identities.

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

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Enraged Muslim Chops off Pakistani Christian’s Arm

Death threats force victim into hiding.

by Barbara G. Baker

ISTANBUL, January 21 (Compass) -- A young Christian shopkeeper in Pakistan’s Punjab province had his arm chopped off by a Muslim customer who became enraged during a disagreement over a TV rental.

Shahbaz Masih, 22, was approached last November 28 by a customer wanting to rent a television set from his video shop in Talwandi, a little village near Chak Jhumra in Faisalabad district. When Masih declined the request, his customer, a 26-year-old butcher named Ahmed Ali, became furious, declaring the Christian had insulted him.

“How dare you, a poor Christian, refuse my request?” he reportedly shouted at Masih before he left the shop. Returning home, Ahmed Ali consulted with his father, Maqsood Ahmed, also a butcher. Shortly afterwards he went back searching for Masih, armed with a butcher’s ax.

Ahmed Ali forced his way into Masih’s house and attacked the shop owner, chopping off his left arm near the elbow. He left the house threatening the victim and his widowed mother, Munawar Bibi, with even more “dire consequences” for the alleged insult he had endured.

Later that same day, Masih was admitted for emergency treatment at the Allied Hospital in Faisalabad. After his discharge from the hospital four days later, the young man was forced to close his shop, take his mother and leave their village to go into hiding.

When Masih’s parish priest in Chak Jhumra reported the incident to Catholic Bishop of Faisalabad Joseph Coutts, the church sent a delegation, including advocate Khalil Tahrir, to seek legal action on the case.

As a result, a First Information Report was filed at the Chak Jhumra police station on November 30, demanding the arrest of Ahmed Ali as the “main accused” and his father as an accomplice in the crime.

Ali was apprehended that day by the Chak Jhumra police, who also recovered the ax used as the crime weapon. Ali was kept in police custody for four days before he was transferred to the Central Jail in Faisalabad.

When police finally located Ali’s father, Ahmed, he promptly obtained pre-arrest bail, with a hearing on his case now set for January 24. According to church sources, local police are under heavy pressure to establish the innocence of both Ahmed and his son.

No date has yet been set for court proceedings against Ali, who remains in prison on four charges of criminal conduct.

Meanwhile, Masih has been subjected to what the lawyer called “consecutive threats” from Ali and his supporters since the attack. Both he and his mother have been warned repeatedly that they will be killed if they “dare” to appear in court against Ali and his father.

“I hope that justice will be done,” said Tahrir, who is representing Masih without charge in the case. “Shahbaz is the only son of his widowed mother and is very, very poor,” the lawyer told Compass this week.

For the time being, the Faisalabad Catholic diocese has covered Masih’s hospital debts and medications, arranging safe lodging for him and his mother in a hidden location along with a minimal monthly sum for their living expenses.

“This is a very difficult thing for this young man,” commented his parish priest, Fr. Yousaf Riaz, “to face this loss for the rest of his life.” But a prosthesis fitted to Masih’s shoulder would cost approximately $2,000 in Pakistan, where the annual per capita income is less than $600.

According to the current U.S. State Department report on religious freedom in Pakistan, “The lack of an adequate government response contribute[s] to an atmosphere of impunity for acts of violence and intimidation against religious minorities.” Christians represent an estimated three to four percent of the predominantly Muslim population.

***Photographs of Shahbaz Masih are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct for pricing and transmittal.

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Vietnam’s Imprisoned Mennonites Appeal to People’s Supreme Court

Evidence emerges that church workers endure severe torture.

Special to Compass Direct

LOS ANGELES, January 13 (Compass) -- Sources in Vietnam have informed Compass that the People’s Supreme Court in Ho Chi Minh City will hear the appeals of the Rev. Nguyen Hong Quang and evangelist Pham Ngoc Thach on February 2. This represents the final appeal option available to the defendants; however, the high court has virtually never reversed a lower court decision.

Mennonite leaders Quang and Thach received three-year and two-year sentences respectively -- the longest sentences among six Mennonite workers sentenced on November 12, 2004 -- for charges of “resisting persons doing official duty.” Both men are being held in the Chi Hoa Prison in Ho Chi Minh City.

While the Vietnamese government has maintained that the trial has nothing to do with religion, at least five raids on the Quang home and Mennonite church involving dozens of police officers in the days surrounding the November trial strongly belie that claim. The stated objective of the raids, some of which were recorded and video-taped, was to put an end to all “illegal religious activity.”

The higher court denied an appeal from evangelist Nguyen Van Phuong, scheduled for release on March 2. Phuong is serving the remainder of his sentence in Bo Vu Prison in Binh Phuoc Province.

An appeal was also denied Miss Le Thi Hong Lien, a children’s teacher, whose one-year sentence ends June 30. She is reportedly unfit to stand trial.

The torture and abuse that Lien, 21, suffered while imprisoned has led to her complete mental and physical breakdown, according to sources in Vietnam. A strong, bright and committed Christian worker when she was arrested June 30, 2004, Lien is now a mere shadow of her former self.

Authorities told her father that she is “wild” and needs to be tied hands-and-feet to her bed. They informed him also that she has no control over her bodily functions and that punishment for this does no good. They claim she has become the object of prurient interest by prisoners around the infirmary where she is held, because she removes her clothes and staggers around naked when she is unrestrained.

Prison officials told her father that she was given beatings recently because he had spoken to foreign journalists about her mistreatment.

When the egregious abuse of Miss Lien came to the attention of Amnesty International, that organization launched an “urgent action” appeal, asking its constituency to write letters to Vietnam’s top leaders on her behalf.

During the first months of her incarceration, Lien was denied family visits, supposedly guaranteed by law, because prison officials told her parents that she was “stubborn and uncooperative.” According to the testimony of co-defendants Nguyen Thanh Nhan and Nguyen Hieu Nghia, this meant she refused to lodge false accusations against Quang.

Nhan and Nghia received the lightest sentences of the six Mennonite prisoners and were released in early December.

The source who translated the two brothers’ written accounts, which outlined the severe abuse they suffered during their months of imprisonment, told Compass, “These accounts would do the Soviet gulags proud. They are heart-rending reports of non-stop beatings, deprivation and humiliation because of their Christian faith.

“A favored method of abuse was to entice hardened criminals with rewards of good food and cigarettes to beat the Mennonite prisoners. They enthusiastically complied. The brothers recall loud screams of pain under torture reverberating through the cell-block and fading to nothing as, one by one, the brothers and the other Mennonite prisoners were beaten into unconsciousness.

“Both brothers report that many times the torture was administered because they would not sign prepared false accusation documents against their leader, the Rev. Nguyen Hong Quang.”

The brothers, age 22 and 24, have had medical exams and are under treatment. Doctors were alarmed at what they found. Both had untreated broken noses. Nhan still has constant bouts of vomiting and Nghia a crippled leg. Both are unable to work.

Compass has learned that lawyers are preparing the appeals of Quang and Thach, but little hope exists that the attorneys will be allowed to vigorously defend the Mennonites.

To date, none of the six prisoners or their families has been provided a written copy of the People’s Court decision from the November 12 trial. Legal observers say that the original trial should have been considered a mistrial because defendant Lien showed every sign of having had a mental breakdown when she was brought to the court. She was unable to stand or speak, but the judge would not permit a medical examination or opinion. That is grounds for a mistrial--even in Vietnam.

A lawyer following the case told Compass, “Glaring illegal irregularities in the Vietnamese legal system are of no consequence when the judiciary and the government prosecutors are one and the same.

“The sentences are fixed on political grounds before the trial. This disheartening display of injustice toward the innocent Mennonite prisoners and their systematic abuse while in custody should give serious pause to anyone who says Vietnam is making progress toward rule of law.”

(Return to Index)

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COMPASS DIRECT

Global News from the Frontlines

David Miller, Managing Editor

Gail Wahlquist, Editorial Assistant

Bureau Chiefs:

Barbara Baker, Middle East

Sarah Page, Asia

For subscription information, contact:

Compass Direct

P.O. Box 27250

Santa Ana, CA 92799



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