COMPASS DIRECT NEWS
News from the Frontlines of Persecution
August 2007
(Released August 31, 2007)
Compass Direct is distributed to raise awareness of Christians worldwide who are persecuted for their faith. Articles may be reprinted or edited by active subscribers for use in other media, provided Compass Direct News is acknowledged as the source of the material.
Copyright 2007 Compass Direct News
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IN THIS ISSUE
AFGHANISTAN
Korean Killed Dedicated Life to Serving Others
Afghan convert to Christianity thanks the Korean Church for its sacrifice.
BANGLADESH
Muslims Force Converts Back to Islam
Villagers and foreigners haul newly baptized Christians to mosque and threaten them.
Islamic Militant Convicted of Another Murder ***
Crackdown begun under previous government leads to death sentences for extremists.
EGYPT
Muslim Sues for the Right to Convert to Christianity ***
Christian’s attorney facing death threats from Egyptian security police.
Convert in Hiding after Lawyer Backs Out ***
Attorney for former Muslim seeking Christian ID leaves amid threats, national uproar.
Christian Rights Advocates Detained ***
Group leader helped Christian convert, who has new lawyer for conversion case.
Government Extends Jail Time for Christian Rights Workers ***
Muslim scholars demand convert’s death.
ERITREA
Pastor Disappears, 10 Protestants Arrested
Catholic Church ordered to relinquish its network of humanitarian institutions.
INDIA
Christian Worker Beaten to Death in Assam
Hindu extremists suspected, but police have yet to identify culprits.
State Hurdles Past Veto of ‘Anti-Conversion’ Law
Gujarat governor refuses to sign bill, but government to implement older version.
Briefs 8/18/07: Recent Incidents of Persecution
Hindu Extremists Target Christian Dalits
Attack on hospital in Uttar Pradesh state reflects RSS’s top priority.
Pastor Kidnapped Twice, Nearly Killed
Hindu extremists in Karnataka state intended to crush his head with large stone.
Briefs 8/29/07: Recent Incidents of Persecution
Governor Objects to ‘Anti-Conversion’ Bill
Chhattisgarh chief questions religious double standard, excessive state control.
Hindu Extremists Allegedly Kill Pastor’s Brother
Authorities ignore attacks on Christian family, arrest of victims.
LAOS
Hmong Christians Killed, Imprisoned in Crackdown
Vietnamese, Lao forces searching rice paddies and mountains and shooting on sight.
MALAYSIA
Uproar over Claim of Country as ‘Islamic State’ Is Silenced
Government gags media discussion of minister’s claim.
PAKISTAN
Jail Officials Beat Christian, Halt Bible Classes ***
Prison superintendent denies banning pastor from visiting jail.
Religious Minorities Told to Convert or Die
Christians remain fearful after deadline passes for converting to Islam.
Missing Christian Girls Married Off to Muslims ***
Police stall efforts to recover children.
VIETNAM
School Denies Entry to Christian Boy
District announces new rule barring “students who follow a religion.”
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Korean Killed in Afghanistan Dedicated Life to Serving Others
Afghan convert to Christianity thanks the Korean Church for its sacrifice.
by Peter Lamprecht
ISTANBUL, August 2 (Compass Direct News) – A Korean Christian aid worker murdered by his Taliban captors on Monday (July 30) had sacrificed his time and job to help those less fortunate than himself, eventually losing his life while serving the needy in Afghanistan.
For Shim Sung Min, 29, traveling to Afghanistan with an aid group of 23 members of his home congregation in Korea reflected an active desire to live out his faith.
The former IT worker, a graduate of South Korea’s Gyeongsang National University, had volunteered his time to teach Sunday school classes to handicapped church-goers on a weekly basis at the Sammul Presbyterian church, a member of the church said.
Prompted by the needs of poor Korean farmers negatively affected by globalization, Shim had decided to quit his job and pursue a graduate degree in agriculture, the church member told Compass.
“He always wanted to help,” the church member said. “He was moved to go to Afghanistan in order to help people.”
Korean Internet news website Dong-A Ilbo reported that Shim’s family planned to carry out Shim’s request that his body be donated to Seoul National University Hospital.
Shim’s corpse was expected to arrive in South Korean today as negotiations for the release of 21 remaining Korean hostages from his church continue. The group’s leader, pastor Bae Hyung Kyu, was shot on July 25, his birthday.
Taliban spokesmen threatened to kill more hostages yesterday by 12 p.m. (local time) if the Afghan government continued to refuse to release Taliban prisoners. Taliban leaders later confirmed that no one had been hurt.
Relatives of five remaining male hostages are particularly concerned after the Taliban threatened to kill off first the group’s males (it was previously misreported that there were only five males in the original group of 23 aid workers).
“If the negotiations do not go well, [the militants] will kill the male hostages, and then it will be the female hostages’ turn,” purported Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi told Yonhap News Agency on Tuesday (July 31).
The 23 Koreans from Bandung’s Sammul Presbyterian church were on a 10-day service trip to Afghanistan when they were captured on July 19 while traveling by bus from Kabul through Afghanistan’s Ghazni province to Kandahar.
The kidnapping has aroused a storm of anti-Christian sentiment among Koreans online, who not only labeled the group’s trip to Afghanistan as naïve but also condemned the Christians for supposedly carrying out evangelistic work.
Both the Korean government and church leadership, as well as a member of the congregation speaking to Compass, confirmed that the group was carrying out service work in orphanages and hospitals.
But several Korean Internet users posted a video clip on Youtube.com with pictures and writings from the homepages of the victims, suggesting that the Korean hostages were conducting evangelistic activities in mosques, Korean daily Chosun reported.
“Several netizens [internet users] said they sent the pictures to the Taliban’s e-mail address and called for the Islamist militants to kill the hostages,” Chosun said. The daily reported that official websites of the Sammul Church and the Korea Foundation for World Aid have been closed due to a large number of attacks from hackers.
Despite such condemnations, there appears to be no evidence that the Taliban targeted the Koreans for being Christians.
One Taliban commander, who was released by the Afghan government earlier this year in exchange for an Italian journalist, told British TV that he had commanded all his fighters to kidnap foreigners to use as bargaining chips, the BBC reported on Friday (July 27).
An Afghan convert to Christianity told Compass that local Afghans were not able to differentiate between missionaries and non-governmental organization workers, automatically assuming that all foreigners were Christians.
“For an ordinary Afghan, anyone who is from Europe or America is a Christian,” the convert said. He said that before this incident most Afghans were not aware to which religion Koreans “belonged” but now would assume that all Koreans are Christians.
Responding to accusations that the group decided to travel to Afghanistan without heeding travel warnings, the convert said that the aid workers could have been more careful. The Koreans had decided to travel by bus along a dangerous stretch of road to Kandahar when no flights to the city were available.
But the convert said he supported the group’s decision to visit Afghanistan and that he hoped the Christian presence in the country would continue.
“During the Taliban regime, the main expatriate group in Afghanistan was Christians,” the Christian said. “They were here to help Afghanistan… no one else had the guts to come and help this war-torn country.”
He said that Christians were called to serve, at times at a very high cost.
“Thank you for coming to Afghanistan to serve my people,” the Afghan said, addressing the hostages and other Korean Christians who had served in Afghanistan. “Thank you for letting the world know, ‘Don’t forget Afghanistan.’ Your Afghan brothers in faith are praying for you daily.”
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Muslims Force Converts in Bangladesh Back to Islam
Villagers and foreigners haul newly baptized Christians to mosque and threaten them.
by Aenon Shalom
DHAKA, Bangladesh, August 21 (Compass Direct News) – Local Muslims in Nilphamari district and Islamist missionaries from abroad are hauling recently converted Christians to mosques and forcing them to return to Islam, area sources said.
Evangelist and pastor Sanjoy Roy said the Muslims have forced 27 recently baptized Christians to return to Islam. Another 14 recently converts are still facing incessant pressure to return to Islam from villagers and from Muslim missionaries called Tabligh Jamat.
“The Muslims are still threatening us and saying that they will change our faith," Roy told Compass. "We wanted secrutiy and police protection, but the district commissioner did not accept our application."
Police provided eight officers to protect area Christians on July 28 but left on August 5. Muslims in Durbachari village then began capturing and hauling all male converts to a mosque to return to Islam, forcing them to sign or provide fingerprint signatures on written or blank papers. As nearly all the converts cannot read, area sources said, they did not understand they were signing or giving fingerprint signatures to return to Islam.
Earlier, on July 26, a local source said, local Muslims and Tabligh Jamat missionaries gathered in a schoolyard near the homes of some of the Christians who had been baptized in a river on June 12. Using a microphone, the Muslims threatened violence if the converts did not come out.
Fearing for their lives, the Christians emerged and gathered. The source said the Muslims asked them why they had become Christians and, furious, told them that Bangladesh was a Muslim country “where you cannot change your faith by your own will.”
“They said, ‘How dare you become Christian in a Muslim country?’” the area source said. “After that incident, some believers went to the local police station seeking protection, but police did not respond.”
Most of the Christians are laborers who rely on new opportunities each day to feed their families, and the Muslim villagers are withholding work from them, Christian sources said. Local Muslims are also vandalizing their homes and taking their daily essentials.
“Some of them in fear of life left the village,” said one Christian source. “They cannot catch fish in the river and buy or sell anything in the markets under the pressure of neighbors.”
Threat of Laceration
Abul Hossen, 38, a fruit seller, told Compass that Muslims in the mosque threatened to hang him in a tree upside down and lacerate his body with a blade.
“Then he will understand what are the consequences of being a Christian,” the Muslims told him, Hossen said, adding that they always use “filthy language whenever they see the Christians.”
Hossen said the Muslims “do not allow us to net fish in the river” and offered him 5,000 taka (US$75) and a mobile phone handset if he returned to Islam.
“But I did not give up my faith, because I found Christ in my heart,” Hossen told Compass. “They threatened me with severe consequences if I do not go back to Islam. I said I am ready to offer up my life to Christ, but I won’t renounce my faith in Him.”
Hossen said that, at night, he and his wife take turns keeping vigil while the other sleeps. “We are always worried that something dangerous may happen anytime,” he said.
Day laborer Mohammad Ali, 55, told Compass that around 20 people came to his house and took him to the mosque.
“After [taking] me inside the mosque, they pressured me to recant my faith,” Ali said. “But I did not give up my faith.”
Ali said the local Muslims and Jamat missionaries continue to come to his house four or five times a day to pressure him to give up his faith. “They always tell me to meet their emir [chief cleric] whenever they see me,” he said.
Another day laborer identified only as 37-year-old Sultan said that when local Muslims took him to the mosque a few days ago, he won approval to go outside to perform ablutions [ritual washing] before prayer. Once he had washed his hands and legs, he said, he snuck away.
“Some 50 to 60 people surrounded my house, and some of them came to me with knife drawn,” he said. “When they dragged me to the mosque, they tore my shirt. They tried to change my faith, offering lots of financial incentives.”
Sultan said the Muslims have declined to hire him for any work, taken his cooking utensils, vandalized his house and threatened to burn it down.
“How will I live?” he said. “I am out of my mind with worry. Leaders in our locality threatened to cut my tendon. They say, ‘This is an Islamic country, why have you become Christian?’”
A laborer identified only as Motaleb, 38, said village Muslims came to his house with cooked rice and meat.
“They gave me sweetmeat,” he said. “They said, ‘What has Christ given you? We will give you many things, if you come back to Islam.’”
Motaleb said the Muslims pressured him into returning to Islam after they forcibly took him to the mosque. “They do not allow me to go to the local market to buy or sell anything,” he added. “I do not get any work. Whenever our little kids go to other peoples’ houses, neighbors beat them.”
On June 26, two weeks after the converts in Durbachari village were baptized, Muslim villagers attacked and severely beat them. On June 27, they gave the Christians a 24-hour deadline to leave the village or face further beatings and the destruction of their homes. Last-minute intervention from local officials provided temporary relief; officials also agreed to station a special police force in the village for three months, but the officers left after only a week.
Offering Money
Bangladeshi Christian leader Edward Ayub said he was gravely concerned about the tactics of the village Muslims and Tabligh Jamat missionaries, terming the actions “social and religious tyranny.”
“Some Christians changed their faith under social pressure, not from the bottom of their heart,” he told Compass. “Changing faith forcefully is not the way of preaching any religion. It is a flagrant abuse of religious rights and violation of the Bangladeshi constitution, where it is written that every citizen has the freedom to practice or change his or her religion.”