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News
On Christian
Persecution
7/1/04 Colombia (Compass)
Colombian Evangelical Freed After Three-Month Captivity
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
(FARC) freed evangelical government worker Luis Carlos Herrera on June 23,
more than three months after they snatched him from a community center
near the town of Caicedo. Herrera, 56, kidnapped March 17 along with
Christian agronomist Ahimer Velasquez, was released after the Antioquia
state government agreed to launch a development project in a FARC-controlled
area. During his captivity, Herrera marched almost constantly with his
guerrilla captors in mountain and jungle territory, sleeping in abandoned
houses, in tents or in the open air. Herrera said that he is in good
physical health, “but mentally, bad; psychologically very affected, and
very sad for the situation in Colombia.”
7/1/04 Haiti (ANS)
American Missionary Attacked in Her Haiti Home
Margaret Joanna Hodges, 81, was attacked in
her home in Limbe, Haiti, on June 15th around 10 o'clock p.m. At least
seven armed men invaded her home and violently attacked her and her
guardian. Mrs. Hodges is the widow of Dr. William Hodges, the founder of
Bon Samaritain (Good Samaritan Hospital) in Limbe, a small town just ten
miles from Cap Haitian, Haiti's second largest city. After beating Mrs.
Hodges' assistant, they turned on her, using a stick with a nail on the
end. Hodges was left with a broken left wrist and a broken right arm. The
invaders stole all the cash they could find in the house and threatened to
kill Mrs. Hodges and her maid if they didn't give them what they wanted.
Following their brutal attack on elderly Hodges, they ransacked the home,
fleeing in a Suzuki Sidekick belonging to the hospital. According to
witness, the attackers stopped the vehicle less than half a mile from the
house and fired several shots into the air before fleeing on National
Highway One towards Cap-Haitian where the vehicle was later found
abandoned. Family members, hospital staff and neighbors, rushed to Mrs.
Hodges' aid. They tried to telephone the police in Cap Haitian without
success. They tried calling the National Police in Port-au-Prince, the
capital city 160 miles away but didn't get any help. Finally, around three
o'clock a.m., they were able to reach the American Embassy. The Embassy
returned their call about ten o'clock and a day later sent a
representative to interview Mrs. Hodges and others. The Hodges founded
Good Samaritan Hospital almost 50 years ago. The hospital was operated
under the auspices of the American Baptist Convention until recent years.
Today the hospital, along with the University of the North, are
independent. The Hodges family have always considered Haiti their home.
According to HAITI OBSERVATEUR, a Haitian newspaper published in New York,
"in light of this new aggression against Margaret Hodges, her helper and
residence, witnesses are discovering a 'new phase' of insecurity in Haiti.
7/1/04 Vietnam (Reuters)
Diplomats Deny Praising Vietnam's Human Rights
Australian embassy officials deny its
diplomats have made public remarks about a visit to Vietnam's restive
Central Highlands to assess human rights conditions. The Vietnam News
Agency reported on Saturday that Australian Foreign Ministry officials
"acknowledged that there were no signs of violation of human rights and
discrimination in Gia Lai [province]". The report added the officials had
said "genuine equality reigns among the community of ethnic groups". An
embassy official says a group of seven embassy and visiting officials
visited Gia Lai and Daklak provinces on the weekend. "We have made no
public comment and have given no interviews," the official said. It is the
second time this year diplomats have openly disagreed with state media
reports on visits to the communist country's coffee-growing highlands.
Travel to the area by envoys and foreign media is restricted and tightly
supervised. Four ambassadors who went to the region in May disavowed
comments attributed to them that praised the development in Daklak
province. The two provinces saw an outbreak of demonstrations in April by
hill tribe minorities known loosely as Montagnards, many of whom practise
Protestantism. Human rights groups say the unrest was over land and
religious rights, and were a repeat of larger protests in February 2001
that the Vietnamese Government quelled with military forces. The
Vietnamese Government blames overseas groups for instigating the unrest.
Some of the minority tribes accuse the Government of seizing ancestral
lands and of discrimination against them in favour of the majority Kinh
population. The region is among the poorest in Vietnam.
7/1/04 North Korea (ENI)
Harsh Persecution of Christians Rife in Asia, Says Catholic Report
Countries in Asia are the worst violators of religious
freedom, with Saudi Arabia, North Korea and Laos topping the list,
according to the "2004 Report on Religious Freedom" published in Rome by
the Italian section of Aid to the Church in Need (ACN). The sixth edition
of the report published on 25 June by ACN, an international aid
organization of the Roman Catholic Church, looks at 183 countries,
detailing abuse, discrimination and persecution linked to religious
freedom suffered by various denominations. An ACN press statement released
on Monday spoke of "the already complex situation in the Asian continent -
where Islam and Hinduism, Christianity and Buddhism meet". The AsiaNews
agency, whose director Father Bernardo Cervellera co-presented the report,
said: "The Wahhabi Kingdom (in Saudi Arabia) is at the bottom of the world
ranking as far as freedom of worship is concerned."
Of North Korea, it said: "The situation concerning religious groups is
shrouded in mystery in a country that is totally impenetrable and isolated
from the rest of the world. The news that manages to leak out tells of
brutal persecutions and strict control by the government." It stated there
are no longer any priests and nuns in the communist country, and currently
about 100 000 Christians are detained in work camps. The equally secretive
and closed Southeast Asian country of Laos "is one of the few nations in
which the government has specifically declared its intent to eliminate
Christianity, considering it a violation of Laotian customs and 'a foreign
imperialist religion' supported by Western political interests". The ACN
release noted: "In a number of (Eastern) European states, for example
Bulgaria, laws have been promulgated that make missionary activities
difficult. Among former social-communist countries, Byelorussia stands out
for its repressive legislation as regards to religious minorities."
Cervellera said in the statement: "Destroying schools is an element of
persecution that is now almost a trend in China, Hong Kong, Indonesia,
Nepal, India, and Pakistan. In this case it is not only a community's
faith they wish to silence, but also all possible social influence
exercised by religions, and in particular the Christian one."
6/30/04 Egypt (Barnabas Fund)
Police Conspire with Muslim Abductors in Kidnap of Christian Girl
A 17-year old Christian girl has
disappeared from her family for a second time two months after she was
abducted and held overnight by Muslim men, whilst local police blocked her
return to her family. On Tuesday 2 June a Christian girl (name withheld)
disappeared in Egypt. Her family, who have endured a horrific ordeal since
she was abducted in April are now completely devastated. The family were
from a district of Cairo and their local police had not only refused to
protect her on previous occasions but are also believed to have aided her
abductors. During her initial abduction she reports that she was sexually
abused and drugged in order to manipulate her. A cross tattoo on her hand
was forcibly removed. Her abductors tried to force her to convert to
Islam, and one now claims to be her husband. Egyptian law specifically
forbids the marriage of a girl under 21 without her parents' consent. It
is also illegal to convert a Christian girl under the age of 18. Despite
these facts, the local police have supported her abductors and intimidated
her family, blocking their every effort to get her back.
This case shows an unbelievable disregard for the rights of children and
the institution of the family. It also shows a complete disregard for law
by some Egyptian police and the prejudice with which they treat
minorities, particularly Christians. However, it is not an isolated case.
This case highlights a very serious issue in Egypt. Unfortunately, the
forced conversion of young Christian girls in Egypt is a recurring theme.
Many methods are used, from intimidation and pressure to a quick underage
marriage as the 'honorable' conclusion to a rape for which no one is
charged. Typically, almost as soon as she is away from her family and in
the hands of a Muslim man, a Christian girl is treated as though she has
officially converted and needs to be protected from her parents. An
official conversion may not have been registered, since it is illegal to
convert a child under 18, but she is kept from her family nevertheless.
Christians who have gone to the police to report a missing girl or to
receive information about her are then treated as criminals themselves.
They are considered second-class citizens who would try to harm her or
force her to reconvert to Christianity. Under Egyptian law it is illegal
to marry a girl under the age of 21 without her parents' consent. Yet
marriage following a rape is seen to "legitimize" an underage marriage, no
matter that the rapist and the groom are usually one and the same person.
Police in Egypt would be very quick to prosecute a man who had abducted a
Muslim girl under 18. Yet time and time again members of the Egyptian
police have overlooked and sometimes even aided Muslim men in stealing
Christian girls from their families and abusing them in the name of Islam.
6/30/04 Azerbaijan (Forum 18)
Police Storm Mosque, Expelling & Beating-up Muslims for Speaking Out for
Christians
Police today have twice forcibly expelled
Muslims from a 1,000 year old Baku mosque that the authorities want to
turn into a carpet museum, and tried to impose a new Imam on the
community. However, community members were allowed back into the mosque
for afternoon prayers, before being expelled again. The police attack was
observed by Ambassador Steinar Gil of the Royal Norwegian Embassy, as well
as diplomats from the British and US embassies, as well as the OSCE.
Ambassador Gil told Forum 18 that the Muslims "behaved very calmly and
with restraint, doing nothing to provoke further violence", and other
witnesses told Forum 18 News Service that the police beat some community
members up. The authorities' attempt to impose their own imam on the
mosque community failed. The current imam, Ilgar Ibrahimoglu, is strongly
disliked by the authorities for his religious freedom and human rights
campaigning for Christians and Muslims.
6/30/04 Egypt (FrontPageMagazine.com)
Textbook Jihad in Egypt
A "mock beheading" video located at radical Sheikh
Abu Hamza's website (www.shareeah.org
), which featured three young Muslim boys who pretended to behead a fourth
1, has elicited the appropriate public revulsion. But little
fanfare, let alone outrage, has accompanied the release of a detailed
study of Egyptian children's textbooks, whose inculcation of anti-infidel
hatred is potentially far more damaging. 2 For example,
explicit sanctioning for jihad-related beheadings is provided in a
seemingly pedestrian manner,
"Studies
in Theology: Tradition and Morals, Grade 11, (2001) pp. 291-92 ...This
noble [Qur'anic] Surah [Surat Muhammad]... deals with questions of which
the most important are as follows: 'Encouraging the faithful to perform
jihad in God's cause, to behead the infidels, take them prisoner, break
their power, and make their souls humble - all that in a style which
contains the highest examples of urging to fight. You see that in His
words: "When you meet the unbelievers in the battlefield strike off their
heads and, when you have laid them low, bind your captives firmly. Then
grant them their freedom or take a ransom from them, until war shall lay
down its burdens.'"
"Commentary on the Surahs of Muhammad, Al-Fath, Al-Hujurat and Qaf, Grade
11, (2002) p. 9 …When you meet them in order to fight [them], do not be
seized by compassion [towards them] but strike the[ir] necks
powerfully.... Striking the neck means fighting, because killing a person
is often done by striking off his head. Thus, it has become an expression
for killing even if the fighter strikes him elsewhere. This expression
contains a harshness and emphasis that are not found in the word "kill",
because it describes killing in the ugliest manner, i.e., cutting the neck
and making the organ - the head of the body - fly off [the body].'" Although
chilling to our modern sensibilities, particularly when being taught to
children, these are merely classical interpretations of the rules for
jihad war, based on over a millennium of Muslim theology and
jurisprudence.3 And the context of these teachings is
unambiguous, as the translator makes clear:
"[the]
concept of jihad is
interpreted in the Egyptian school curriculum almost exclusively as a
military endeavor… it is war against God's enemies, i.e., the infidels… it
is war against the homeland's enemies and a means to strengthening the
Muslim states in the world. In both cases, jihad is encouraged, and
those who refrain from participating in it are denounced."
Teaching Egyptian school children anti-infidel jihad hatred is
clearly a long, ongoing , and ignoble tradition even within the modern
era.
6/30/04 Iran (Compass)
Two Iranian Evangelicals Still Jailed in Isolation
More than five weeks after their arrest,
Iranian Christian pastor Khosroo Yusefi and another church leader remain
imprisoned in an unknown jail. Yusefi and a fellow Christian from Chalous
are believed to be held in the vicinity of Sari, a city near the Caspian
seacoast. But since June 8, when other church leaders jailed with them
were released, local Christians have been unable to make contact with the
two remaining prisoners. “Nobody can visit them yet,” an Iranian Christian
told Compass, “and they have not been allowed to see a lawyer.” Yusefi had
been arrested and imprisoned on May 23 with his wife Nasrin and two
teenage children. A week later, his family was released and allowed to
return home. Converted from the Baha’i religion nearly 20 years ago,
Yusefi was overseeing a number of unregistered Assemblies of God house
churches at the time of his arrest. The families of the church leaders
arrested in May now have no means of regular financial support.
6/29/04 Sri Lanka (ColomboPage)
Catholic and Christian Leaders Protest Against Proposed Anti-Conversion
Bill
Issuing a joint statement,
Catholic and Christian leaders in Sri Lanka today expressed their
dissatisfaction over the anti-conversion bill that will be presented by
the Freedom Alliance government shortly in parliament. “Having carefully
studied these drafts, we wish to state that if they are enacted into
legislation, the freedom of thought, conscience and religion of all Sri
Lankans will be seriously eroded. We are also of the opinion that these
drafts contravene the fundamental human rights of our people enshrined in
our Constitution as well as accepted prevailing international conventions
and norms,” the statement issued jointly by the Catholic Bishops and the
National Christian Council said. The minority government promised to
introduce an anti-conversion law in parliament to satisfy extreme
Buddhists elements in Sri Lanka. The Jathika Hela Urumaya and the JVP, a
coalition partner of the minority government led by President Chandrika
Kumaratunga, promised to introduce the controversial law during their
election campaign in April this year. However, the election pledge has now
brought on more social turmoil after Catholic and Christian leaders
officially opposed the government’s move, a political expert told
ColomboPage. “The fact that missionaries are being sent out from Sri Lanka
to propagate religion in other countries demonstrates our appreciation and
our exercise of that fundamental right in other countries. Therefore, we
see no reason why a fundamental right enjoyed by us in other countries
should be denied in our own. We affirm our commitment to protecting the
individual’s freedom to have or adopt any religion or belief of his or her
free choice,” the statement said.
6/29/04 China (Compass)
Church Leader Xu Guoxing Released from Labor Camp
Philip Xu Guoxing, a prominent leader of an
unregistered house church movement based in Shanghai, was released June 7
from labor camp in Jiangsu province. Xu had served 18 months in the camp
for setting up unregistered house churches in East China. According to a
close relative, he has now returned to Shanghai to be with his wife and
little daughter. First arrested in March 1980, Xu was again arrested and
jailed in 1989 and 1997. He performed hard labor and suffered beatings
during more than six years in “re-education thru labor” camps, punishment
for his refusal to join the government-controlled Three Self Patriotic
Movement. Even though Xu’s fourth imprisonment has taken its toll on his
health, he has consistently refused to leave China, believing God has
called him to stay to build up the church.
6/29/04 Asia (AsiaNews / Zenit.org)
A Trend to Destroy Catholic Schools
The destruction of Catholic
schools has become a new trend to suppress religious freedom in Asia,
warns a priest-journalist. Father Bernardo Cervellera, director of
AsiaNews, described this problem when presenting the "2004 Report on
Religious Freedom," written by the pontifical association Aid to the
Church in Need, of which he is a collaborator. "In Communist areas and
those influenced by religious fundamentalism, they are no longer content
with suppressing individuals; they destroy all objects and buildings
linked to freedom of worship," Father Cervellera said. "Of course,
churches are destroyed, as happens in Indonesia, China and India, " he
said. "But they also destroy the homes of Christians and above all their
schools. Destroying schools is an element of persecution that is now
almost a trend in China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Nepal, India and Pakistan,"
the priest said. "In this case it is not only a community's faith they
wish to silence, but also all possible social influence exercised by
religions, and in particular the Christian one," he said. "Destruction is
used not only to kill the faith, but also to impoverish, to frustrate
populations, to have fewer social prospects." "The Hindus who fight
against Catholic and Protestant schools wish to keep the pariahs in
conditions of controllable slaves," Father Cervellera said. The pariahs
are members of one of the lowest social castes in India. In Indonesia, he
continued, "the Muslims who burned down the university in Ambon do not
want Christians to work and want the Moluccas to be prey to external
policies." Father Cervellera also said the Hong Kong government, pressured
by Beijing, is causing difficulties for the autonomy of Christian schools.
6/29/04 Cote D'Ivoire (Associated Press)
U.N. Security Council Envoys Travel to West Africa, Seeking Ivory Coast
Peace
A diplomat leading a visiting U.N. mission
said international action was helping bring a "new beginning" to
battle-scarred West Africa, as the team began work to salvage peace in
war-divided Ivory Coast. British U.N. Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry led
other U.N. Security Council envoys in talks Tuesday with Ghana's President
John Kufuor, current head of a West African leaders' bloc that has played
a central role in ushering Ivory Coast's neighbors, Liberia and Sierra
Leone, out of their own civil wars. The 15-member delegation also was
expected to visit Ivory Coast, scene of two years of conflict between
northern rebels and government loyalists in the south. The country, the
world's largest cocoa producer and a regional hub, has been unable to make
good on its own September 2003 peace accord. The protracted conflict
threatens to further destabilize the region. Parry condemned recent
violence in Ivory Coast, including a deadly flare-up Monday in rebel-held
zones and killings of opposition demonstrators by government forces in
March. "Any breach of the peace agreement should be condemned, and I urge
all sides to collaborate with regional leaders to bring peace to the
region," Parry told reporters in Ghana's capital, Accra. He noted U.N.
Security Council estimates that it was spending up to 60 percent of its
time on African issues, and most of that for West Africa. "While it is
regrettable that the U.N. has had to spend much more time now trying to
intervene in the conflict of the West Africa region, it's also a sign of
hope that its efforts are helping to chart a new beginning," Parry said.
Tens of thousands of U.N. peacekeepers are on patrol in Ivory Coast,
Liberia and Sierra Leone, whose intertwined conflicts have spread guns and
refugees across West Africa since fighting began in Liberia in 1989. Ivory
Coast's civil war broke out with a failed September 2002 attempt to oust
Gbagbo. Insurgents quickly captured the country's north and much of the
west. A U.N. force is gradually building up to 6,240 troops. Both help
patrol buffer zones between north and south. Ivory Coast had been a
regional success story, both prosperous and peaceful, until its first-ever
coup in 1999. The overthrow ushered in five years of violence and
military uprisings, unleashing ethnic and regional tensions that pit the
largely Christian and animist south against predominantly Muslim
northerners and immigrants.
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