LAHORE, Pakistan, May 18 (CDN) — A court acquitted a Christian couple of “blasphemy” charges yesterday, overturning their life sentences, their lawyer said.


Chaudhry Naeem Shakir told Compass that Justice Mazhar Ali Akbar Naqvi of the Lahore High Court accepted the couple’s appeal because prosecutors failed to prove allegations that 32-year-old Munir Masih and his wife Ruqayya defiled the Quran or insulted Muhammad on Dec. 8, 2008.


The allegations by Muhammad Nawaz in Mustafabad, Kasur district, came under sections 295-B and 295-C respectively of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, which are routinely employed to exact revenge on Christians over personal disputes; in this case, the Christian couple’s children had fought with the family of Muhammad Yousaf, who directed his driver, Nawaz, to file the blasphemy charges.


Shakir said that the First Information Report (FIR) indicated Nawaz initially accused Ruqayya Masih of using the Quran for exorcism. He accused her of touching the Quran without ablution and said that her husband was equally culpable since he remained a silent spectator. The complainant also claimed that the couple insulted Muhammad.


A trial court had exonerated them from charges of blasphemy against Muhammad in 2010 but sentenced them to life imprisonment (25 years in Pakistan) for allegedly defiling the Quran. The couple then filed an appeal in the Lahore High Court pleading not guilty.


“During the trial, not a single witness spoke against the couple regarding the allegations of blasphemy,” Shakir said. “Therefore, [Kasur Additional Session] Judge Muhammad Ajmal Hussain on March 2, 2010 acquitted the couple in 295-C but awarded them life imprisonment under Section 295-B.”


During the course of hearings, Shakir asserted that Yousaf, along with his brother Muhammad Ilyas, implicated the couple through their driver, Nawaz, who filed the FIR against the couple. Shakir told the court that the motive behind this move was a fight between the children of the Christian couple and Yousaf’s family.


When the prosecutor argued that no one could touch the Quran without ablution, Shakir said, “Justice Naqvi told the prosecutor that no one bothers to do that before reading the Quran or the Bible in libraries around the world.”


He said that the Lahore High Court had released Munir Masih on bail because the charges against him were weak.


“Witnesses had claimed that Munir was sitting outside his home when Ruqayya was allegedly defiling the Quran,” he said, adding that the Christian woman has been languishing in Sahiwal Jail and will not be freed until Monday (May 21). The couple has four daughters and two sons.


Shakir said that Mustafabad police had named eight witnesses in the FIR, of whom three were named as eyewitnesses, while the others were classified as “recovery witnesses” – those supposedly present when police recovered the Quran from the couple’s house.


“Of the five ‘recovery witnesses,’ two completely denied being at the alleged crime scene,” Shakir said. “One told the court that he had reached the place after the police had made the recovery, while the other said that he had testified under duress, making the case quite clear.”
 

The couple’s attorney said that Ruqayya Masih had admitted keeping the Quran in her house.


“She told me that the Quran was given to her by a Muslim neighbor named Muhammad Faisal, and she had kept it safely with her, although she did not say why,” he said, adding that police had informed the court that they had found the Quran wrapped in a piece of cloth and placed in a cupboard.



END

Compass Direct News

MOYALE, Ethiopia, May 17 (CDN) — His wife died shortly before he was falsely accused of desecrating the Quran, and by the time he was released from prison in southern Ethiopia, his two children, ages 6 and 15, were missing.


Tamirat Woldegorgis walked out of prison in Jijiga on April 25, limping, after spending nearly two years in custody, including months in a small cell with 50 other inmates that left one leg paralyzed.


“I have been trying to locate my children, but all in vain,” Woldegorgis told Compass. “My life is ruined – I have lost my house, my children, my health. I am now homeless, and I am limping.”


Muslims in his native Hagarmariam village may have taken his children to further discourage him from having any influence in the area, said Woldegorgis, now staying with a friend in an undisclosed town. A member of the Full Gospel Church, Woldegorgis was arrested in August 2010 after a Muslim co-worker in the clothes-making business the two operated out of a rented home discovered he had inscribed “Jesus is Lord” on some cloth, area Christians said.


His business partner later accused him of writing “Jesus is Lord” in a copy of the Quran, although no evidence of that ever surfaced. Angry sheikhs from area mosques had Woldegorgis arrested for desecrating the Quran, though sources said Muslims also accused him of writing “Jesus is Lord” on a piece of wood, on a minibus and then on the wall of a house.


Woldegorgis was sentenced to three years in prison on Nov. 18, 2010, and eventually he was transferred to a prison in Jijiga, capital of Ethiopia’s Somali Region Zone Five, which is governed by Islamic principles. In Ethiopia’s system of largely autonomous state administrations, most of those holding government positions in Somali Region Zone Five are Muslims. Ethiopia’s population is 34.1 percent Muslim and 60.7 percent Christian, according to Operation World.


Preaching non-Muslim faiths is not allowed in Zone Five, in spite of provisions for religious freedom in Ethiopia’s constitution. Hostility toward those spreading faiths different from Islam is a common occurrence in predominantly Muslim areas of Ethiopia and neighboring countries, sources said, with Christians often subject to harassment and intimidation.


While he was in prison, authorities sometimes beat him in efforts to force him to recant his faith and become Muslim, but he refused, he said.


“Life in Jijiga prison was very harsh,” Woldegorgis said. “About 50 prisoners were locked in one small room. It was really very congested. Surviving a harsh jail in Jijiga was by the grace of God. Some of the inmates died.”


Two days after Woldegorgis was arrested, two friends inquired about him at the Moyale police station; authorities responded by jailing them for two weeks.


Only twice were visitors allowed to see Woldegorgis in prison, he said. A lawyer visited him a few months before his release after serving less than two years of a three-year sentence. His release without being given his official documents – his national ID card and a letter of release – may have indicated official concern about the lack of evidence for his prison term.


When he arrived home, he found that area Muslims had taken over his land and partly demolished his house. There was no sign of what had happened to his children.
 

He wrote a letter of complaint to Moyale police about the occupation of his house, but to date no reply has been received.
 

He began receiving threatening messages soon after his return. “We do not want to see you around here,” one read. “You risk losing your life.” He fled to a Christian friend’s house.


Zamatar Abdi, a Moyale official, was said to have bought the plot where Woldegorgis’s house was located, Woldegorgis said. A tailoring machine, 4,000 birr (US$ 225 dollars) and all household items have vanished. The partly demolished house is uninhabitable, he said.


His complaints having gone unheeded, on May 7 he made an appeal to federal officials in Addis Ababa, copying a letter to the Moyale head of police, Moyale City Council, Moyale District Magistrate, Federal Government, District Commissioner’s Office-Moyale, and the Reconciliation Committee for Zone Four and Zone Five. Moyale, located on Ethiopia’s border with Kenya, is divided between the predominantly Muslim Zone Five and Zone Four, which is populated mainly by ethnic Oromo, with each zone having distinct administrative and judiciary systems.



END


Compass Direct News

JAKARTA, Indonesia, May 16 (CDN) — The election of a hard-line Islamic governor in Indonesia’s Aceh Province last month appears to have opened the way for a crack-down on the minority Christian community, which saw 17 churches sealed shut in early May.


Emboldened by the April 9 election of Zaini Abdullah of the militant Aceh Party (Partai Aceh, or PA), hundreds of Islamists demonstrated in front of the office of Aceh Singkil regency on April 30, demanding area church buildings be not only sealed but demolished.


Christian leaders told Compass that, besides the usual pretext of lack of church permits – applications for which local authorities routinely deny or delay – the demands were based on a controversial agreement that Christians were reportedly forced to sign in 2001 stipulating that there be only one church and four chapels in the regency.


The number of churches in the regency had grown to 22, and the Diakonia Secretary of the Indonesian Fellowship of Churches, Jeirry Simampow, said that the demonstrators were upset with the Interfaith Harmony Forum for allowing the growth of churches in the area.


“The number of Christians has reached 12,000,” Simampow said, adding that the church growth has not been accompanied by building permits. “Some houses are forced to function as churches, and some buildings are only semi-permanent.”


He noted that there is a strong, systematic movement to close churches in Aceh Singkil based on the selective enforcement of building permit requirements, which are otherwise rarely invoked in Indonesia.


“This is the same thing that happened in Bekasi, where four churches were closed,” he said.


Of the 17 churches closed, 11 belong to the Protestant Christian Church of Pakpak Dairi, or GKPPD. The Rev. Elson Lingga, GKPPD district superintendent, told Compass that the mob clamored for the demolition of the church buildings, and that on May 2 a new acting regent had agreed to the demand.


“This position was supported by the police chief, who said that the time for dialog was past – all he wanted was a schedule of the church demolitions,” Lingga said. “It’s not that Christians do not want to apply for permits, but it is extremely difficult to secure permission even though we have put forth our maximal efforts.”


The church closures, which took place May 1-3, included three Catholic buildings, one Huria Kristen Indonesia (Indonesian Christian Church, or HKI), and two chapels.


Police accompanied by demonstrators, who were reportedly organized by the hard-line Islamic Defenders Front, undertook the sealing of the churches, reportedly padlocking the front gate and posting a sign stating, “In 3 x 24 hours, the regency government must tear down this church building.”


Aceh Singkil Police Chief Bambang Syafrianto, after listening to the demonstrators on April 30, had suggested that the Christians be given three days to tear down their church buildings, and that an enforcement team would be formed to demolish them if they failed to do so, Lingga said.


“The mob received this suggestion by clapping their hands,” he said.


When the enforcement team along with Muslim demonstrators went to the GKPPD church in Siatas the next day, however, dozens of wailing women met them; one woman fainted during the protest, Lingga said. Encountering this resistance, the team relented and ordered church elders to meet with the regent on May 2.


The enforcement team then went to Paris Lake district, where they were able to close three churches: the Biskang GKPPD church in Napagaluh, the Biskang Catholic church in Napagaluh, and the Catholic church in Sikoran.


On May 2, Lingga and the Rev. Erde Berutu, along with some members from the GKPPD Siatas, met Acting Regent H. Razali, who said the eventual destruction of the church buildings was “not open to question,” Lingga said.


The regent told them that he was not trying to destroy churches but enforce rules regarding the construction of houses of worship, he added.


The next day, May 3, more churches were sealed, including the GKPPD in Siatas, the GKPPD in Siompin, and the GKPPD in Mandumpang.


END

Compass Direct News

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, May 15 (CDN) — Muhammad Kamran isn’t sure who sent the men to beat him after his Muslim wife told both her family and his that he had become a Christian.
 

The 34-year-old native of Karachi said his wife’s brothers had begun coming to his office to threaten him before unidentified assailants attacked him as he was returning home two years ago.


“I don’t know who sent those men,” Kamran said. “It could have been my family or hers. They beat me up mercilessly, the effects of which I’m suffering even today. My pelvic area and groin were badly injured by their kicks and punches, and still today I’m suffering from pain.”


Two years later, he still has a pelvis injury from the beating that requires treatment. But even help from a local politician has not been able to procure medical treatment funding for a convert from Islam in Pakistan’s current religious climate.


“The biggest hurdle I’m facing is his name,” said the politician, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Being a minorities leader, I can only recommend government funds for people belonging to minority communities, but seeking money for a man with Muhammad in his name and ‘Christian’ in the religion column of an official form is a recipe for disaster, and frankly the situation in Pakistan is not such where anyone will be willing to take such a big risk.”


Raised in an ultra-conservative Muslim family, Kamran was baptized in September 2009 and began his life as a covert Christian, though he continued to openly question Islam.


“In 2010, my family started trying to force me to marry, hoping that marriage would keep me from questioning ‘the faith of my forefathers,’” he said. “I gave in to their constant prodding and was married to a girl from a Sunni Syed family.”


At first he had hoped that he would be able to bring his wife to Christianity, he said.


“After some days of our wedding, I shared my faith with her and was delighted when she told me that she would stand by me,” he said. “But my hope was dashed the very next day, when she told both of our families that I had turned away from Islam and had become a ‘murtad’ [apostate deserving death].”


Kamran said his wife’s revelation angered both families.


“Every other day, I was threatened either by my family or hers that if I ever renounce Islam I would be killed, and that I should mend my ways,” he said.


Quarrels with his wife over religion became commonplace, he added.


“After a couple of months of continuous fights, I asked my wife to leave me if she could not live with someone who was having a conflict with faith,” he said. “She refused, and instead told both families that I wanted a divorce.”


Kamran said the dilemma quickly reached a crisis point.


“No one was willing to let me live the life I wanted – they say Islam is not a religion of compulsion, but no one has been able to tell me why Muslims who don’t find satisfaction in the religion become liable to be killed.”


After the torturous beating, Kamran said, he decided he would no longer remain in Karachi. He told the pastor who baptized him, whose name is withheld for security reasons, that his predicament had become unbearable. The pastor arranged a visitor’s visa to Dubai for him. Upon reaching Dubai, he contacted his family and told them that he would not be returning to Pakistan.


“In the next few days, my wife’s family sent me divorce papers, to which I readily agreed, and hence my marriage ended after nearly four months,” Kamran said.


After the expiration of his one-month visa, however, Kamran returned to Karachi.


“The kind pastor sent me to another pastor in Faisalabad, in Punjab Province,” he said. “He said that it would be safer for me to stay out of Karachi for some time because news of my conversion might put the community at risk.”


Kamran returned to Karachi in 2011.


“After some months, the pastor married me to a Christian woman,” he said. “For a few months everything went fine, and we were living a very peaceful life, but one day a cousin of mine saw us in a market and followed us to our home. He then informed my family that I was in Karachi and had a Christian wife. My father came to my house and demanded that I leave my wife and return home, but I refused. He made a lot of hue and cry and cursed me for ‘bringing disgrace to the family.’”


As soon as Kamran’s father left, the couple gathered their belongings and moved, Kamran said.


His family members found out where his wife worked, however, and have been threatening them ever since, he said. Kamran and his wife Asha, now eight months pregnant, have changed residences four times to avoid his family.


His wife told Compass they are living in constant fear.


“Every other day, we receive threatening phone calls,” she said. “They just won’t leave us alone. A few days ago Kamran’s family came to know that I was expecting our first child. They are now asking him to abandon us and renounce Christianity, threatening that they will kill me and our child.”


Identity Issue
Unable to work because of his injured pelvis, Kamran said the couple is unable to make ends meet on his wife’s pay as a teacher.


“She cannot change her workplace because it’s very difficult to find a decent job, but she is trying nevertheless,” he said. “The other big problem I am facing is my medical treatment. We don’t have the finances to get my operation done from a good hospital which will enable me to start sharing the financial burden with my wife.”


Another major issue Kamran and other converts from Islam face in Pakistan is a new computerized national identity card.


“I want to change my name and amend the religion column in my record, but the National Database and Registration Authority has set the system in such a way that no Muslim can amend the religion column,” he said. “I want to be identified as a Christian, but there’s nothing I can do about it but lament the fact that I was born a Muslim!”


Path to Faith
Born into family belonging to the Ahle Sunnat Barelvi sect of Islam, Kamran said he began to see his religion as “based on worshipping of graves and seeking forgiveness for our sins from the dead.”


“My family is very religious and strongly believes in shrines and saints as a means to seek Allah’s mercy and blessings,” he said. “Even though I was brought up in such an environment, I could not help questioning the fundamentals of Islam, where people have to approach God through dead people.”


The youngest among four siblings – he has two sisters and a brother – Kamran’s urge to calm the spiritual battle within him led him to some Christian acquaintances “who were seemingly very much satisfied with their faith.”


He asked Christian colleagues and friends at a bank where he worked about the Christian way of life.


“They told me how they worshiped God, sang hymns in His praise and, most importantly, how Christianity was based around the principle of love for one another,” he said. “Although I knew about Jesus Christ as a revered prophet in Islam, their depiction of Him developed a thirst in me to know Him better.”


Kamran asked a Christian friend to take him to church, and he took him to a Tuesday service, where not many people were present.


“The satisfaction and peace that I felt in my heart listening to the hymns and the Scripture and just being in that environment was overwhelming,” he said. “My spiritual experience was so good that I started attending the Tuesday service at the church regularly. I would take off early from the bank, and would go to church before heading home. One day a relative saw me entering the church, and that is when my period of tribulation began.”


When he returned home that day, his father and older brother confronted him, he said.


“I did not deny it and instead asked them why they wanted me to worship graves,” Kamran said. “Instead of answering me, both of them pounced on me and started beating me up. ‘The devil’s gotten into him,’ my father said as he kicked and slapped me … I was warned not to go near a church again and was told that they would kill my Christian associates if I was seen in their company in future.”


Kamran still longed to know more about Christ, however, and after some time he resumed his trips to the church, managing to evade his family’s surveillance.


“I exercised extreme caution, which led my family to believe that their beating had ‘poured some sense into me,’” he said.


Kamran’s pastor said he has shown exceptional resolve in his faith in Christ despite the hardships.


“I have been in regular contact with Kamran from the day he professed his interest in Christianity,” he said. “I find it very encouraging to see how he has suffered at the hands of his family, yet he has not once regretted his decision of accepting Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.”



END

Compass Direct News

JUBA, South Sudan, May 14 (CDN) — Security agents in Sudan’s South Darfur state have closed down the Nyala offices of the Sudan Council of Churches (SCC) and relief group Sudan Aid, sources said.


Agents from the Sudanese National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) arrived at the organizations’ compound in Nyala at 8 a.m. on April 22, ordered SCC staff members to hand over keys of offices and vehicles and, without explanation, ordered them to leave immediately, an SCC staff worker said.


“They came early in the morning to our office and took all the keys of the offices, chasing us out of the compound with no reason given to us,” the SCC staff worker told Compass by phone.
 

Three staff members from Sudan Aid were arrested in the course of the closure and were taken to an undisclosed location, the source said.


“Their families are living in agony due to the uncertainty of their fate,” the worker said.


NISS agents also closed down a church clinic that was serving the needy in the area.


The actions came as Christianity is increasingly regarded as a foreign faith to be excised from Sudan, which has begun transporting ethnic South Sudanese to South Sudan following the latter’s secession last year. An estimated 350,000 ethnic South Sudanese, many of them Christian, remain in the Islamic north, with many having never lived anywhere else.


The day after the closure of the SCC and Sudan Aid offices, staff members reported to work only to find more than a dozen security personnel, some carrying arms, cordoning off the compound. The security agents told the employees the offices were closed and to go home.


The agents took the keys of five cars and drove them away, according to an SCC press statement. Three motorbikes were also taken.


“We do not know the whereabouts of the cars,” the SCC officials say in the statement.


On April 24, Sudan’s federal Humanitarian Aid Commission froze the bank accounts of the SCC in Nyala.


The security agents also took four cars and five motorbikes from Sudan Aid, sources said. Five staff members were arrested, though two were later released.


Sources told Compass the incident left churches in South Darfur, one of five states that makes up the Darfur region, deeply disturbed and frightened.


Nuba Crisis
At the same time, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, sought by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity in Darfur, has vowed to rid the Nuba Mountains of Christians and those he claims are agents of the West.


On April 20 he ordered the Sudanese military to rid South Kordofan state’s Nuba Mountains of everyone who opposes his Islamic rule, and the past several weeks he has repeatedly declared jihad against the ethnic Nuba peoples, which include many Christians.


The government has declared jihad against Christians in the Nuba Mountains, Blue Nile state and in South Sudan. State-owned TV and radio play songs urging Muslims to “fight the infidels” and “cleanse the land” of their presence, increasing the fears of ethnic South Sudanese Christians trapped in the hostile north.


Humanitarian agencies consider the Islamic government’s targeting of civilians in the Nuba Mountains an “ethnic cleansing” against non-Arab peoples in the multi-ethnic state, with the added incentive of ridding the area of Christians. Additionally, as military conflict escalated between Sudan and South Sudan last month, Bashir vowed to liberate South Sudan from what he described as “insects.”


“We do want to see these insects making our pure land unclean,” he said to cheers in Port Sudan on April 20.


The hostile speeches by Bashir and other Sudanese officials are aimed at mobilizing Muslims abroad to fund military operations in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states, sources said. Muslim religious leaders in Sudan, said to have ties with hard-line Muslim Salafists, have asserted that there should no longer be room for churches and Christians following South Sudan’s secession on July 9, 2011.


Sudanese aerial forces bombed a Sudanese Church of Christ building on March 28 in the al-Buram area of South Kordofan state, eyewitnesses from the area told Compass by phone. The sources added that life is becoming more difficult for Christians in South Kordofan as the Sudan government mobilizes Arab tribes, arming them with guns to kill the ethnic Nuba people.


END

Compass Direct News

ISTANBUL, May 11 (CDN) — Leaders of the Assemblies of God’s (AOG) Central Church of Tehran told their congregation on Sunday (May 6) that authorities have demanded a list of names and identification numbers of church members, a major risk to converts from Islam.


Church leaders then asked members in attendance to volunteer their information. The AOG church holds two Sunday services, both conducted in Farsi. It is the only church remaining in Tehran that offers Farsi-language worship on Sundays.


“This [government move] is basically to make sure the church is not taking in new members and to make it difficult and risky for non-Christians to attend,” Monsour Borji, an Iranian Christian and advocacy officer for rights initiative Article 18, told Compass. “It is an effort to limit the church, basically.”


Article 18 is a London-based initiative of the United Council of Iranian Churches (Hamgaam), which seeks to defend and promote religious freedoms in Iran. Hamgaam is composed of Iranian Christian churches in Europe.


The result of the most recent demand, according to Borji, is that as members of the Central AOG church consider whether they are willing to turn over their names and identification numbers, some are faced with the ethical dilemma of whether they would be denying Christ by declining to reveal themselves in this way.


“It has created an ethical dilemma for some church members who are not sure what to do, because giving their information feels suicidal,” Borji said.
 

The announcement indicates an intensification of government efforts to control official churches in Iran that meet in church buildings. The Central Church of Tehran was forced to shut down its Friday Farsi-speaking services in 2009. Since then the number of Christians at Sunday services has significantly increased, according to sources.
 

In February, authorities also forced the last two official churches offering Friday Farsi-speaking services, Emmanuel Protestant Church and St. Peter’s Evangelical Church, to discontinue Friday services.


Sources told Compass that if authorities have a list of the members of the AOG church, in essence they will be able to control and follow church members and also monitor if the church has been taking in new converts from Islam, which authorities have forbidden.


“For a long time there has been surveillance, but this new requirement is another sign that they are seeking to control and limit attendance of those who come from non-Christian backgrounds and to keep the Muslims away,” said an expert on the region who requested anonymity.


Borji said that authorities have exercised aggressive pressure on the Central AOG church, and their newest tactics aim also to limit the number of public meetings. Church leaders and their families are under constant watch, and occasionally members are summoned for interrogation. Authorities have also “cut the supply line” for church members by restricting the publication of Christian materials, including Bibles, Borji said.


The church is regularly monitored by authorities, who 20 years ago had also demanded a list of all Christians in regular attendance, though church leaders refused. There are no baptisms taking place at the Central AOG church, nor at other official churches.


“It is a meticulous and organized effort to make sure nothing in the church goes unnoticed,” Borji said. “The leaders are under a lot of pressure.”
 

As an Islamic republic, Iran views Christians and especially Christian converts as enemies of the state and pawns of the West out to undermine the government. Borji explained that the Iranian government has never come to accept the concept of “Farsi-speaking church,” and that authorities associate Christianity with some ethnic minorities in Iran – that is, Armenians and Assyrians – and the West.


“So accepting the notion of a church that worships in Farsi is a threat to a regime that demands religious monopoly,” Borji said.


END

Compass Direct News

ISTANBUL, May 9 (CDN) — A judge in Upper Egypt has dismissed all charges against a group of Salafi Muslims who cut off the ear of a Christian in a knife attack and tried to force him to convert.


The Salafists, who say they base their religion on the practices of the first three generations of Muslims after Muhammad, had falsely accused 46-year-old Ayman Anwar Metry of having an affair with a Muslim woman, the Christian told Compass. On April 22 the judge exonerated the assailants only after Metry, under intense pressure in a “reconciliation meeting,” agreed to drop charges, said his attorney, Asphoure Wahieb Hekouky.


“Him dropping the case and accepting the reconciliation meeting is shameful,” Hekouky said of the Egyptian justice system.


The same Salafi Muslims who attacked Metry terrorized him and his family for a year, Hekouky said.


The Attack
On the afternoon of March 20, 2011, in Qena, in the province of the same name, a group of about 20 Salafi Muslims attacked Metry. Earlier that day, someone had set fire to an unoccupied rental apartment he owned in the city.


While waiting in another part of the city for workman to arrive to fix a metal door on the burned-out unit, two men approached Metry and convinced him that he needed to go back to the remains of his apartment. After his arrival, the Salafi Muslims pounced on him. They accused him of having an inappropriate relationship with one of his former female tenants and began beating him.


“I didn’t know that there were any more of them than the two who were talking nicely to me at the beginning, so I was shocked when I went with them to the flat,” Metry said. “There were 20 more waiting for me there, and they caught me and started beating me up.”


The men interrogated Metry as they beat him, demanding he “confess” to the affair and tell them where the woman was. Metry said he told them he didn’t do anything wrong and didn’t know where the woman was, but the Salafists were able to find her and brought her to the charred apartment.
 

They demanded that the woman admit to an affair of some sort, but, like Metry, she said they had never been romantically involved. Then the men broke into two groups; one set upon the woman, and the other began beating Metry. During the beating, the men restrained Metry, took a knife and began sawing open the back of his neck. They told the woman that they would kill him if she didn’t say she had had some type of affair with him. She did as they ordered.


Metry said his attackers demanded he say the Shahada, the Islamic creed for conversion, and that when he refused, they cut off his ear.


Covered with puddles of his blood, the apartment looked like a slaughterhouse, Metry said.


“If you saw how I looked then … My shirt, if you squeezed it, it dripped an unbelievable amount of blood. With all the blood that was on the floor, it looked like there was a sheep slaughtered there,” he said. “They thought that I was dead, so then they called the police and said, ‘We took our sharia [Islamic law] rights, now you come and take your civil rights from him.’”


The police came and took Metry and the woman to the hospital. The two, along with a Muslim friend of Metry’s who witnessed the attack and happens to be a police officer, were then taken into police custody.


“Officer Khaled was with me and worked hard to help me – he witnessed the whole thing and he testified at the police station,” Metry said. “Also, the girl came to the police and said that there was nothing between me and her. She said that the Salafi men forced her to say there was.”


Somehow the Salafists found out what the woman said to police, and when officers released the woman after questioning, the hard-line Muslims caught up with her, Metry said.


“Then when they heard that the girl didn’t say what they wanted her to say, they beat her up again and broke one of her fingers and threatened her and told her if she didn’t change what she said at the police station, they would kidnap her sister,” Metry said.


None of the Salafi Muslims who committed the attack were arrested.


Intimidation
Almost as soon as the police questioning ended, the assailants began pressuring him not to prosecute anyone, Metry said.


“They used all sorts of ways to persuade me to let it go and drop the case against them – they shot at us; about 500 Salafi gathered around the house trying to set it on fire. When they threatened to set the house on fire and kidnap my sisters, I had to drop the charges against them,” he said.
 

As the date for a hearing drew near three months ago, the Salafi Muslims shot at Metry’s house in Qena and at his brother’s car, he said.


“I went to see the police to get them to do something, and nothing at all was done to arrest anybody,” he said. “It seemed like they were the police and the controllers of the city, those Salafis.”


The attackers threatened all his family members, he said, including his brothers and sisters, to try to force him to drop the charges, he said.


“Some of my brothers and sisters emigrated and left the country – they went to Italy,” he said. “I tried to, but I wasn’t allowed to leave the airport.”


Metry said he informed criminal prosecutors what was happening, but his pleas fell on deaf ears.


“During the first reconciliation meeting, I told the attorney general everything and told him that I am dropping the charges under the Salafi threats,” he said. “After all that, I saw that the police did nothing to arrest any of them, and they are all free.”


A final factor was a request from Bishop Sharoubeem, the Coptic Orthodox bishop of Qena, who asked him to drop the case, according to Metry.


“He asked me to drop the case, but I insisted on not dropping the case at all. I insisted on getting my rights back,” he said. “But when a bishop comes and asks you to drop the case, what else could you do other than following his advice? He told me that they might try and attack or burn the local church if I didn’t drop the case.”


Metry said the bishop, speaking for the Coptic Orthodox Church, agreed to compensate him for the property he lost in the fire and attack. The bishop could not be reached for confirmation.


Still, Metry said he was robbed of justice.


“They are free in the street threatening us when we come or go,” he said. “Even when they shot at us, and we called the police and security forces thinking that they would arrest them, nothing was done at all.”


Emotionally ‘Below Zero’
The recovery for Metry and his family after the attack has been difficult, but he said it has brought him closer to God.


The Salafists were trying to beat him to death, Metry said, so they could “kill the facts” of the attack. In addition to slicing off his ear, they cut him all over his body and left bruises from a beating that “would have killed a camel,” he said.


In total, he had to have 35 stitches and two reconstructive surgical procedures where his ear once was. The ear was too badly damaged to be reattached.


“It took me three months to recover from all the injuries and the two plastic surgeries on my ear,” he said.


Metry and his immediate family spent most of the year after the attack fleeing from one part of Qena Province to another, making it impossible for his three children, ages 6 to 12, to attend school. Because his employer cannot or will not transfer him, he has had to take a year off from work and support himself with savings and what rental income he has left.


The attacks and the changes of residence have scarred his children, too, with his 6-year-old girl probably suffering the worst, he said.


“She shakes if she sees a bearded man walking down the street, because of what happened to me,” Metry said. “The little girl asked her mother to let her take a knife with her to her kindergarten class in case somebody attacks her, so she can defend herself.”


Metry’s wife, Thanaa Yakoub Gerges, concurred.


“We were living well, the children and us, but after what happened emotionally we are below zero,” she said. “It made us hate the house, the city and the whole country. Imagine when you lose your reputation and can’t move. We were destroyed gradually, this happened more than a year ago, and the children are being destroyed gradually. I am willing to die for Christ, but these are my children who are being attacked.”


Through it all, however, Metry said he found a glimmer of faith he previously had not known.


“I am not saying this to puff up my spirit, but at that moment when they were attacking me, I couldn’t believe the faith that was in me. I couldn’t believe that I actually had this faith, it was a testimony – I won, I didn’t lose,” he said. “They tried everything to convert me to Islam, but I didn’t care. I said they could do anything they wanted to me, I wouldn’t convert.”



END

Compass Direct News

ISTANBUL, May 8 (CDN) — The main defense lawyer for Iranian pastor Yousef Nadarkhani, who is appealing a death sentence, may be facing imminent imprisonment for defending the rights of Iranians, according to Amnesty International.
 
Mohammad Ali Dadkhah, a prominent human rights activist, had been sentenced in July to a nine-year prison sentence and a 10-year ban on legal practice and teaching, and he learned on April 28 that an appeals court had upheld the sentence. Charges against him included “membership of an association seeking the soft overthrow of the government” and “spreading propaganda against the system through interviews with foreign media,” according to a press statement by Amnesty International.
 
At press time it was not known whether he had been detained, but he has reportedly said he expected to be imprisoned.
 
Dadkhah is co-founder of Iran’s Center for Human Rights Defenders (CHRD). The CHRD was forcibly closed in 2008, and though its members have continued to carry out their work, they have faced harassment from authorities and some of them are serving prison sentences in Tehran’s Evin Prison.
 
An expert on Iran who requested anonymity said that Dadkhah had been Nadarkhani’s main lawyer, but that if he were imprisoned the effect on Nadarkhani’s fate would be unclear.

“What is clear is that this development is not good news,” the source said. “My sense is that the rule of law in Iran is abused, and the decisions of the Iranian courts are unpredictable and at the whim of the authorities. If Nadarkhani is hanged or released, it will not be primarily on the basis of the arguments of a good lawyer, but based on the whim of the authorities.”
 
As an Islamic republic, Iran views Christians and especially Christian converts as enemies of the state and pawns of the West out to undermine the government.
 
Most Christians who face charges are not able to afford legal defense. Those who can afford legal counsel have difficulty finding lawyers who are willing to defend them, because of how subversive Christianity is considered by the regime and the repercussions on lawyers.
 
“Many of the Christians who face court hearings do so without legal representation,” the source said. “Simply by taking on a case of which the government disapproves, a case which challenges the government, would be high risk for a lawyer. Dadkhah’s arrest has been coming for a long time, so it’s not a surprise. The surprise is that he’s been able to practice for such a long time.”
 
In September 2010, Nadarkhani was sentenced to death after a court of appeals in Rasht, 243 kilometers (151 miles) northwest of Tehran, found him guilty of leaving Islam. He has been in prison since October 2009.
 
At an appeal hearing in June, the Supreme Court of Iran upheld Nadarkhani’s sentence but asked the court in Rasht to determine if he was a practicing Muslim before his conversion. The court declared that Nadarkhani was not a practicing Muslim before his conversion, but that he was still guilty of apostasy due to his Muslim ancestry.

Nadarkhani’s case had been sent to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei for a decision on his death sentence, but legally the lower court still has the authority to issue an execution order. Khamenei may or may not make a decision, and if the court were to issue an execution order, Khameni would have the authority to block it. His case is essentially on hold.
 
In another significant case, the Iranian Revolutionary court sentenced Farshid Fathi, a Christian held in Tehran’s Evin Prison since December 2010, to six years in prison, Mohabat News reported last month. Though his trial was in January, details of the proceedings were not available until recently. Fathi was arrested and tried for “action against the regime’s security, being in contact with foreign organizations and religious propaganda,” according to Mohabat News.
 
Fathi’s lawyer plans to appeal the case, Mohabat News reported. Married and the father of two young children, Fathi is held in Ward 350 of Evin Prison.
 
More Arrests, Releases
Mohabat News reported on May 1 that several Christians who were arrested in Isfahan, south of Tehran, on Feb. 22 were released on bail, though the pastor of St. Paul Church of Isfahan, Hekmat Salimi, remains detained at Dastgerd prison.
 
On April 14, Iranian authorities simultaneously raided the homes of two Christian converts in the capital, Tehran, and arrested them. Mohabat News identified the Christians only as Ladan N., 26, and Hooman H., 27. The two were reportedly held in Evin Prison, and though charges against them are unknown, authorities have sent their parents letters of summons to appear in court to answer questions about the converts’ activities.
 
When authorities arrested Ladan, her mother asked them where they were taking her daughter. One responded, “Ask Jesus Christ to come and release her,” according to Mohabat News. Authorities confiscated many of her belongings, including her laptop, camera, books and photos.
 
Five Christians who were arrested on Feb. 8 in the southern city of Shiraz are still in prison at the Adel-Abad prison. The families of the five Christian converts have not been able to receive information about them and have been told that they could not be released on bail, according to Mohabat News. Their names are Fariba Nazemian, Mojtaba Hosseini, Homayoun Shokoohi, Mohamad-Reza Partoei and Vahid Hakkani.
 
Three other Christians arrested from the same group on Feb. 8 in Shiraz were released on bail after 36 days in police custody. They are awaiting a court date, according to Mohabat News.

The five Christians who are still in prison have reportedly been interrogated by an assistant prosecutor of the Revolutionary Court of Shiraz, but charges against them are unknown.
 
On April 11, Iranian authorities released Fariborz Arazm, 44, a Christian convert, from Evin Prison in Tehran. Arazm had been arrested at his residence in October in the area of Robat Karim, just south of Tehran. Authorities had ransacked Arazm’s house, confiscating Bibles, photos, CDs and his computer hard-drive among other items, according to Mohabat News.
 
Authorities reportedly charged him with being in contact with missionaries and of promoting the Christian faith among Iranian Muslims.
 
Arazm was held in Rajaei-Shahr prison in Karaj, where he was kept in solitary confinement for 21 days. He was later transferred to Evin’s Ward 350 for further interrogation. Arazm was held in Evin for six months, according to Mohabat News.
 
END



Compass Direct News

KAREN STATE, Burma, May 4 (CDN) — Amid global euphoria over reforms in Burman-majority parts of Burma, life has changed little for more than 3 million Christians and other minorities left to suffer from one of the world’s longest running civil wars.


Headlines around the world hailed the induction on Wednesday (May 2) of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi into parliament as the beginning of a new era in Burma, officially known as Myanmar. But for the 150,000 Internally Displaced People (IDP) living in eastern Karen state’s 4,000 IDP camps, life is still about landmine blasts, gun and mortar attacks, and the possibility of a final war between armed insurgents and the Burma army.


Burmese President Thein Sein, a former military general, has introduced political reforms – the release of hundreds of political prisoners, new laws allowing labor unions and strikes and a gradual easing of media restrictions – and has reportedly ordered troops to stop offensive in ethnic areas, but senior military officials have not heeded his orders.


As part of its reform initiatives, the Burmese government is trying to ink ceasefire agreements with armed ethnic groups, including the Karen National Union (KNU) and the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO). Karen rebels, however, believe the talks are a government strategy to buy time and prepare for a showdown.


“We have seen similar efforts by the government in 1949, 1963, 1996 and 2004, but each time talks broke down,” said Saw Htee Ler, a rebel leader with the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), the armed wing of the KNU, which has been fighting for autonomy for more than five decades.


The government strategy, he added, is to engage the KNU in peace talks so that the military can bring supplies – arms, ammunition and food – into KNU-controlled areas without clashes.


“They have been able to freely bring in supplies in huge quantities without our men attacking them due to the tentative peace agreement reached in January,” Ler said. “They seem to be getting ready for major military operations against us in the near future.”


Aw John Nay Moo, a Karen commando from the KNLA’s “Special Force,” said the KNLA was still recruiting and training people.


“Peace talks do not mean our struggle is over,” he said. “We need to be ready all the time for a possible clash.”


Christian Civilians Targeted
Most of Burma’s Christians are from the ethnic minority groups of Karen, Karenni, Kachin and Chin and are predominantly Baptist. It is estimated that roughly 1.4 million Karens and Karenni, 1.1 million Chins and 900,000 Kachins are Christian.


While it is largely a struggle for self-determination in all ethnic states and all civilians suffer in the crossfire, the Burman-Buddhist dominated Burmese troops are often accused of being harsher on Christian civilians than on their Buddhist counterparts.


Ler, who was guarding a base on a hill about 30 minutes from an IDP camp, said military personnel target civilians because they are seen as the strength of the KNU.


“And Christians are targeted simply because their [government troops’] religion is Buddhist,” he said.


Ler said he had seen pictures of burned churches and received reports of such incidents.


Moo, the KNLA commando, agreed that Christian civilians were attacked more than Buddhist civilians. He cited a 2007 incident in Pekey Der village in Papu District under the KNLA Brigade 5 area, where troops burned down a church and “defecated on the Bible.” Moo said he learned of the incident from the church pastor.


Ler and Moo, who said they are Christians, said that they joined the KNLA to protect their land and people.


Saw Tu Tu, head of the Karen Refugee Committee, said that while all civilians face attacks, troops will not kill a Buddhist monk. “Military personnel usually take shelter in Buddhist temples,” he added.


Some churches, however, are attacked out of misunderstanding, he said.


“KNLA soldiers run to hilltops – that’s where churches are normally built – to take a strategic position when military personnel launch attacks on them,” Tu said. “And troops think the bullets are being fired from the church, and they retaliate.”


Naw K’nyaw Paw, an executive member of the Karen Women Organization who just returned from a trip to several Karen villages, said many Christians install Buddhist statues and keep Buddhist pictures in their homes to prevent attacks.


“A Christian-majority village under the KNU Brigade 1 area has turned into a Buddhist village, and the church there has been converted into a Buddhist temple, just so that government troops will not attack them,” Paw said.


In “White” and “Brown Zones,” where the government has full or partial control respectively, the medium of instruction is Burmese and not the Karen language, she added.


“They don’t even teach Karen history,” Paw said. “The government is clearly seeking cultural uniformity. We fear that we will be assimilated into the Burman culture if we give up our struggle.”


Women suffer more, she said, noting that government soldiers force local people, including women, to work as their porters, and women are often harassed sexually.


Some cases of extortion by KNLA soldiers have also come to light, but most Karen people believe these are isolated cases and maintain that KNU’s policies strictly prohibit unethical practices.


The religious dimension of the conflict can also be seen in the origin of the KNU. On Christmas Eve of 1948, Burmese forces launched a mortar-and-gun attack on a church in Mergui in southern Tenasserim Division, author Ashley South writes in his book, “Ethnic Politics in Burma: States of Conflict.” Over 80 Karens were killed and several injured. This was followed by deployment of Burmese troops in Karen state in January 1949. The KNU was then formed, followed by the KNLA.


In 1961, then-Prime Minister U Nu’s government passed the State Religion Bill in a joint session of parliament, making Buddhism the state religion. This deepened the conviction of the ethnic minorities that the Union government was being used as a tool for Burmanization and “occupation” of their areas. This followed the formation of the KIO, comprising mainly Christians, and its armed wing, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) in Kachin state, bordering China.


In predominantly Christian Kachin state, government troops have attacked KIA soldiers and civilians since a 17-year ceasefire broke down in June last year. The fighting has displaced over 75,000 people since then, according to the Kachin Development Networking Group.


Most recently, Burmese troops fired mortar shells between Bhamo area and the city of Laiza on April 26 despite ongoing peace talks. The shelling killed two children and injured two civilian adults in Kone Law village, Kachin News Group reported. The same day, heavy fighting was reported near the northern town of Laiza, KIO’s main base, as rebels sought to block attempts by the Burma army to deliver reinforcements and supplies to a strategic army position.


Around 3,000 government forces have moved into locations around Laiza, according to Agence France-Presse.


“They are preparing to attack the KIA base in Laiza … they have reinforced a lot of troops and sent a lot of artillery but have not attacked yet,” an anonymous official was quoted as saying.


Some, however, are still hopeful of a peaceful resolution in ethnic states.


Nyo Ohn Myint, a senior member of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party, who is helping the government to establish peace with ethnic armed groups, said there was a deep-rooted mistrust between the two sides that was hindering peace talks. He hoped for a change in the relationship between the two sides by around 2020.
 

Little or No Change
Amid conflicting media reports on how reforms have impacted ethnic minority states along Burma’s borders, where most Christians live, Compass met the displaced civilians and rebels from the KNLA at an IDP camp on a hill surrounded by landmines. The 3,000 people in this camp live in a forest area that the Burma army has unofficially designated as a “Black Zone,” an area entirely under the control of rebels.


Government troops stationed not too far from the hill can shoot-on-sight not only at Karen rebels but also civilians.


“I have no idea about the reforms being introduced in ‘Burma Proper,’ said 59-year-old Pohla Win, a lay leader of a Baptist church in the camp. “I have just heard about it on BBC Burmese radio.”
 

Win was seated on the floor of his house, made of bamboo and dry leaves, overlooking the Salween River where Karen children were swimming.


“I and my family will be killed on the way if we attempt to go back to our village,” he said.


Win said he fled his village in 1985 after Burmese troops launched an offensive in the area. But he arrived in this camp 18 years later, running from one village to another, walking on terrain where landmines had been laid by both the military and the rebels. Most of the families here had similar stories of how they reached the camp.


There is relative peace in the state after a tentative agreement was reached between the KNU and the government in January.


“Government check-posts are now less strict, and there are fewer clashes between troops and Karen soldiers,” said Paw of the Karen Women Organization. But there is “absolutely no change” in Black Zones, she added.


In February, more than 1,100 new refugees, about 450 of them Christian, arrived at the seven refugee camps in Thailand, “which shows there were clashes between the troops and Karen soldiers after the January’s peace agreement,” said Tu of the Karen Refugee Committee. This is in addition to the existing 74,000 registered and 53,000 unregistered refugees in those camps.


The Karen are among six other non-Burman ethnic groups – including Karenni, Kachin, Chin, Mon and Shan – that do not see their land as part of Burma. During British rule, which ended in 1948, the states where ethnic people lived were collectively known as “Frontier Areas” and were administered separately by the British, as opposed to “Burma Proper,” which was, and is, home to ethnic Burmans, mostly Buddhist.


After independence – while ethnic minority leaders were discussing with their Burman counterparts conditions under which they could join the new Union of Burma – Frontier Areas were presumed to be part of the Union under the leadership of Prime Minister U Nu, a Burman nationalist. Civil wars erupted and continue today.


Burmese President Sein is from the Union Solidarity and Development Party, which won the majority of the seats in parliament in November 2010 elections, which were seen as rigged. A source close to the government said the split between moderates and hardliners in the military was real, and that the hardliners were perhaps trying to send a signal to the president that the military “old guard” is still in power.


The constitution of Burma gives more power to the military than the civilian president and reserves one-fourth of seats for military officials in legislative bodies at all levels.


The possibility of a full-fledged war cannot be ruled out even if it is against the will of President Sein. Ethnic armed groups say they are prepared to take on the military, which could lead to an unprecedented civilian toll.



END

Compass Direct News

NAIROBI, Kenya, April 30 (CDN) — A grenade explosion yesterday killed a 27-year-old university student at a church in Nairobi and injured 16 people, sources said.


Kelvin Walumba was killed after a man pretending to be a worshipper at God’s House of Miracles International Church in the Ngara area of Nairobi threw three grenades as the service was concluding; only one of the grenades exploded. A security guard said the assailant, who after running out into the street fired three pistol shots into the air, appeared to be of Somali origin.


Islamic extremists from al Shabaab rebels in Somalia have embarked on a series of attacks in Kenya after the Kenyan military invaded Somali territory last fall in an attempt to quell al Shabaab violence at Kenyan tourist destinations.


Speculation that the attack stemmed from a land dispute appeared to be untrue, as the dispute with the church was resolved in court last year, a church leader told Compass.


Another church security guard said that the assailant who arrived at the service was easily noticed because he sat in an area usually reserved for the church music team.


“As the worship was going on, he looked uncomfortable and always looked down,” said the guard, whose name was withheld for security reasons. “He threw three hand grenades and only one exploded. He took off, and he fired in the air three gunshots.”


Church leaders said four members of the church are in critical condition: Leonida Mbogo, Julia Mumbi, Ezekiel Muthini and Shalom Koronge. Mbogo sustained serious injuries to her leg, which was broken.


Joshua Mulinge, the senior pastor of the 500-member church, which has four pastors, was traveling in Zambia at the time of the blast. The preacher for the day was pastor Josephine Mwangale, who sustained slight injuries.


A Sunday school teacher said one of her students, a boy identified only as Jessy, was receiving hospital treatment for injuries and is in stable condition.


A choir member from the church today told Compass said she had just come back to the site to see the aftermath of the attack.


“Last night I did not sleep,” she said.


Commissioner of Police Eric Kiraithe reportedly said that some worshippers tried to pursue the assailant but he managed to get away. Kalonzo Musyoka, the vice president of Kenya, reportedly condemned the attack, saying worship places must be respected and that such an action was unacceptable. He termed it an act of terrorism.


The director of the Criminal Investigations Department, Ndegwa Muhoro, reportedly said that investigations had begun.


The explosion comes a week after the U.S. Embassy in Kenya issued a possible terror attack warning. It also comes less than a month after similar explosion took place in Mtwapa, claiming one life and injuring more than 30.



END


Compass Direct News