The Protestant Church of Ouargla in eastern Algeria was vandalized by an unknown number of armed men late Wednesday evening, the Protestant Church of Algeria (EPA) told ICC. After breaking through the gate, the church was ransacked and the crucifix rising high above the premises was dismantled.

“We heard noises on the terrace, but we could not get out because the threat was real. They could kill us,” said Pastor Mourad, who was inside the building with his wife and children, according to a statement released by the EPA. Afraid to leave the church compound on Wednesday night, Pastor Mourad reported the incident to the local police the next morning.

The Church of Ouargla is the only church in the region and has been recognized by the government since its establishment in 1958. Mourad has been repeatedly threatened and attacked since being ordained as pastor in 2007. In the summer of 2009 his wife was beaten and seriously injured by a group of unknown men. Then, in late 2011, heaps of trash were thrown over the compound walls while an angry mob shouted death threats at Pastor Mourad.

Aidan Clay, ICC Regional Manager for the Middle East, said, “Whether under the harsh laws imposed on Christians by the government or at the hands of angry mobs, Christians and their places of worship continue to be discriminated against or outright attacked in Algeria. We urge officials in the Ouargla province of Algeria to conduct an immediate investigation and arrest those responsible.”

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The Hangzhou Intermediate People’s Court was scheduled to convene at 9 a.m. in the No. 10 courtroom to hear the case against Zhu for “inciting subversion of state power.” By about 12:30 p.m., Zhu’s family members said the hearing had ended and the court said it would announce the sentence “another day.”

The court described Tuesday’s proceedings as “an open trial.” However, none of the more than 20 people who attended the hearing were people known to Zhu’s family. Furthermore, Zhu’s family was given only two tickets to the proceedings, and none of Zhu’s friends – who were invited “to drink tea” [with police or other authorities] or were put under surveillance or warned not to go to the hearing – was able to make it to this “open trial.” Zhu’s wife and son were in the courtroom – the first time since Zhu was taken into custody on March 5, 2011, that the family has been able to see each other.

Zhu, a political dissident for more than three decades and a baptized Christian, was represented by the well-known Christian human rights lawyers Li Baiguang and Li Duiyong of the Beijing Gongxin Law Firm who gave a vigorous defense.

Zhu’s family said that the only thing Zhu had done was to use his writing to express some personal thoughts and positions, which is nothing more than an exercise of one’s civil rights and in no way constitutes a crime. In the courtroom, Zhu only admitted that he had used the name “zhuyufu89” online, but did not admit anything else. His family said that the prosecution’s case against Zhu was based on material taken out of context and on the presumption of guilt. They said that the poem posted online cannot be proved to be written by Zhu; it might have been re-posted from elsewhere. Furthermore, the poem posted online was irrelevant to the case and cannot be considered evidence of the crime of subversion.

Zhu reportedly appeared calm in court, and aside from looking tired due to his 11-month incarceration, he seemed to be in acceptable physical condition. He asked for permission to sit down during the proceedings. He reportedly described himself to the court as someone who always has a smile for others, is peaceful in his interactions, advocates non-violence, is opposed to violence and is not vengeful. When the prosecutor asked why he had some sharp words, Zhu replied that it was because of the many injustices he has experienced during his long incarceration for his political dissent. There was a reason for the words, but they were simply to express the injustice that he had experienced.

He also told the government prosecutor that “I am already 60. I can’t start anything.” Zhu does not regard the state as his enemy; his family members say that he does not want to be thrown back in prison at his age and that he’s not able instigate any trouble. He just wants to regain his freedom as quickly as possible.

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The church member, Jayadi Damanik, was named a suspect in an incident in October last year when Bambang Budiyanto, the chief of the Bogor administration’s Public Order Agency (Satpol PP), was allegedly knocked unconscious during a confrontation with worshippers.

Bona Sigalingging, spokesman for the GKI Yasmin church, told the Jakarta Globe on Monday that the church had reported Bambang to police for obstructing religious services twice.

The first incident was in April 2010 when Satpol PP sealed off the church for the first time, and the second in October last year when officers blocked the congregation from praying on the sidewalk in front of their illegally sealed church.

“Out of all of our reports, the West Java Police only followed up on one case,” Bona said, referring to the charges that were laid against Jayadi.

West Java Police chief Insp. Gen. Putut Eko Bayuseno denied that his officers were discriminating against the church and its congregation.

“We are processing both reports and not singling out anyone,” he said.

West Java Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Martinus Sitompul added that it was purely “by chance” that Bambang’s report was the one with the most sufficient evidence.

“There was enough evidence to name Jayadi a suspect,” the spokesman said.

Jayadi has been charged with unpleasant conduct and assault, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 15 years. Martinus said that since Jayadi had been cooperative with authorities he would not be detained.

He added that in the case against Bambang, police had questioned 14 witnesses.

“When we have enough evidence, we will also name Bambang a suspect,” Martinus said.

A copy of a letter from the Bogor Police in May 2010 stated it had found “sufficient preliminary evidence that a crime has occurred,” referring to the report against Bambang.

The letter, which was signed by Adj. Comr. Indra Gunawan, the general crimes unit chief, was in response to the first report of Satpol PP sealing the church’s complex.

The explanation did not satisfy Bona, who said it was another case of the victim being treated like the aggressor.

“This is what happened to Ahmadiyah,” Bona said, referring to a minority Islamic sect that has suffered ongoing intimidation by hard-line Muslims and government officials.

One of the Ahmadis who was attacked in February last year received a longer sentence than his attackers, who got off with five and a half months in jail.

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Lily Wahid, one of few politicians in support of GKI Yasmin’s plight, regretted West Java police’s move.

“Satpol PP was being aggressive, there was a lot of pushing and the guy fell. The police are just trying to find GKI Yasmin at fault,” Lily said.

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ICC Note

We welcome the arresting of the spokesman for Boko Haram. The radical Islamist group, which is responsible for killing of close to one thousand people, including many Christians, must be stopped from carrying out its attacks.

By Jon Gambrell

02/02/2012 Nigeria (AP)-The purported spokesman for a radical Islamist sect responsible for hundreds of killings in recent weeks in Nigeria has been arrested, an official with the country's secret police said Wednesday.

The official with Nigeria's State Security Service declined to give many details about the man known by the nom de guerre Abul-Qaqa, simply saying that officers are questioning him. If it is him, the spokesman's arrest could prove to be a boon for Nigeria's weak central government, which has remained unable to stop attacks by the sect known as Boko Haram.

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Ahmed Abdullahi, the Borno state director for the secret police agency, told The Associated Press on Wednesday night that officers tracked down the man through signals sent out by his mobile phone. The agency later flew him to Nigeria's capital Abuja for further questioning.

Abul-Qaqa served as the spokesman for the radical wing of the sect, often as a go-between between its leaders and trusted members of north Nigeria's media. He issued claims of responsibility typically the same day as attacks to journalists working for either the BBC's Hausa language service or The Daily Trust newspaper, the two most trusted sources of news in Nigeria's Muslim north.

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In November, the secret police claimed it made a major breakthrough in stopping the sect by arresting Ali Sanda Umar Konduga, a supposed Boko Haram spokesman who used the name al-Zawahiri. Konduga implicated a Nigerian senator in taking part in the group.

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Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is sacrilege" in the local Hausa language, is carrying out increasingly sophisticated and bloody attacks in its campaign to implement strict Islamic law and avenge Muslim killings in Nigeria, a multiethnic nation of more than 160 million people.

The sect was blamed for at least 510 killings last year alone, according to an Associated Press count. This year, it is blamed for killing at least 270 people in January alone. On Jan. 20, the sect carried out a coordinated assault on police stations and government agencies in the northern city of Kano that killed 185.

Boko Haram has splintered into three factions, with one wing increasingly willing to kill as it maintains contact with terrorist groups in North Africa and Somalia, diplomats and security sources say.

With that wing viewing a wide variety of people and institutions as potential targets, even politicians with ties to Boko Haram can no longer consider themselves safe.

Violence by Boko Haram has increasingly begun targeting Christians, inflaming longtime tensions in a nation largely divided into a Christian south and a Muslim north. Thousands have died in rioting sparked by ethnic and religious differences in the country since it became a democracy in 1999.

On Wednesday, about 2,000 mourners gathered at a Catholic church near Abuja for a mass burial of victims of a Boko Haram bombing there that killed at least 44 people, church officials said.

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In Chhattisgarh, Hindu extremists seriously injure a Pentecostal clergyman for screening a Jesus movie. In Gujarat, someone destroys tombs in a Christian cemetery. For Global Council of Indian Christian President Sajan George, “there is no respect” for the Christian community.

By Nirmala Carvalho

02/02/2012 India (AsiaNews)-“Repeated attacks against India’s Christian community are too much. There is no respect,” said Sajan K George, president of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), after more anti-Christian attacks occurred in late January in two different Indian states. In Chhattisgarh, a group of ultranationalist Hindu extremists attacked and seriously wounded a Pentecostal clergyman after accusing him of forced conversions. In Gujarat, someone desecrated a monumental Christian cemetery.

On Tuesday, nine activists from the Bajrang Dal, the youth wing of the Hindu ultranationalist Sangh Parivar, stormed the private home of Rev Rajendra Masih. The latter had screened a Hindi movie about Jesus, Dava Sagar, outside of the house.

After breaking his equipment, they beat and insult him and those present. The violence lasted for more than an hour. Rev Masih reported injuries to the face, particularly to his left eye.

At the end of their action, the attackers filed a complaint against the clergyman for proselytising and forced conversions.

On 26 January, unidentified people destroyed a number of tombs in the monumental Christian cemetery in Sabarmati, using a bulldozer.

According to local sources, Chanchalben Parmar, a local councillor with ultranationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, had incited them.

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“Chanchalben Parmar, her husband and local officials are directly responsible for what has happened. It was their moral duty to protect all believers and their places of worship,” he added.

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Recently, however, increasing sectarian violence and a rise in fundamentalist voices calling to establish Egypt as an Islamic state are dimming these hopes and isolating Christians. This new political shift combined with Islamist militant violence, opens a dark new chapter on Egypt's post revolution future.

Should Egypt become a full-fledged religious state governed by Shar'ia law, Egyptian Christians would confront a stark choice: submission to ever-greater religious persecution or emigration. The question facing the world's political leaders, however, is another: with Egyptian Christians numbering eight million, the risk of aggression begetting aggression could engender a spiral of sectarian violence destabilizing Egypt and the whole of the Middle East.

For Christians in the Middle East, the prophecy of Jesus Christ is lived out every day: 'If anyone wants to follow me, let him take up his Cross'. And this Cross is heavy, because it touches not only the individuals, but entire families.”

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They told their story at a service of prayer for Christian unity at the Coptic Orthodox Church of St. Mary and St. Mena, in Hope, Rhode Island, that took place on Sunday, Jan. 30, 2012.

The Rhode Island State Council of Churches, an umbrella organization of Christian churches in the Ocean State, sponsored the event. Pastors and clergy from a number of different denominations and faith traditions participated in the service at which the story of Coptic suffering and Christian martyrdom took center stage.

At this event, about 300 people heard testimony about the suffering endured by Coptic Christians in Egypt at the hands of Salafists and Islamists from the Muslim Brotherhood.

Rev. Fr. Marcos Girgis, who welcomed the audience to his church, provided a brief history of the Church in Egypt, reporting that many of Christianity’s doctrines were first enunciated by church fathers living in Egypt, which was also the birthplace of Christian monasticism.

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