COMPASS DIRECT
Global News from the Frontlines
May 2006
(Released June 1, 2006)
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 is acknowledged as the source of the material.
Copyright 2006 Compass Direct
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IN THIS ISSUE
EGYPT
Deadline Passes for Investigating Church Attacks
More than a month after Copts knifed in Alexandria, fact-finding team still unformed.
ERITREA
Police Arrest Mother of Dying Baby
In Asmara, 50 evangelical students given harsh military punishment.
Three More Orthodox Church Leaders Jailed ***
Co-opted synod excommunicates 65 Medhane Alem members for ‘heresy.’
INDIA
EMI President Released on Interim Bail
Rev. Dr. Samuel Thomas to re-appear in Rajasthan High Court on August 1.
Police Collude with Extremists to Charge Christian
Also in Madhya Pradesh state, Hindu fundamentalists strike 60-year-old pastor.
Police Investigate Easter Attack on Church in Punjab
Officials to arrange ‘compromise’ meeting between Christians and extremists.
Woman Accuses Family of Attempted Forced Conversion
Extremists issue death threats to Assemblies of God pastor in Uttar Pradesh state.
Study Says State Involved in Attacks on Christians
Madhya Pradesh state commission notes evidence of collusion in assaults, discrimination.
Church Attacked, Pastor Arrested in Madhya Pradesh
At least 15 similar incidents have occurred so far this year, say local Christians.
Religious Freedom Panel Disappoints Christians §
State-backed, Hindu extremist violence fails to earn nation recommendation as ‘CPC.’
State Governor in India Rejects Anti-Conversion Bill
BJP assembly in Rajasthan calls refusal unconstitutional, will continue push for passage.
Family in India Driven from Village for Embracing Christ
Christian’s parents join thousands in ostracizing believers in hamlet in Jharkhand state.
State in India Secretly Surveys Churches, Missions
Police ask illegal questions about ‘ideology’ and character of clergy, institution heads.
INDONESIA
Radical Muslims Stop Church Services
Mobs call for ban on Protestant and Catholic worship in three areas.
Islamic Militants Confess to Beheading Three Girls
Five of seven suspects arrested last week; they also are tied to murders of other Christians.
IRAN
Secret Police Arrest Long-Time Convert ***
Christian held under interrogation in northern Iran for past three weeks.
NIGERIA
Animists in Southwest Attack Anglican Church
Two priests nearly beaten to death after “making gods angry” by church services.
SRI LANKA
Three Churches Attacked
Anti-conversion bill continues slow passage through parliament.
SUDAN
Church Damaged by Arson Attacks ***
In one Nuba Mountains town, the only safe church is a half-built church.
Priest Arrested for ‘Kidnapping’ Missing Woman § ***
Muslim says her father beat her for her interest in Christianity.
Priest Suspected of Kidnapping ‘Apostate’Released ***
Missing woman returns to family that beat her for converting to Christianity.
TURKMENISTAN
Police Break Up Church Meeting
Scathing U.S. report calls independent religious activity ‘impossible.’
UZBEKISTAN
Police Raid Protestant Pastor’s Home
Christians in capital city also arrested – while visiting children’s hospital.
VIETNAM
Officials Resort to Force in Civil Dispute ***
Even after securing building permit, Rev. Quang and 10 others are taken into custody.
***Indicates an article-related photo is available electronically. Contact Compass Direct for pricing and transmittal.
§ Indicates that a correction was made to the story after its release.
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Deadline Passes for Investigating Church Attacks in Egypt
More than a month after Copts knifed in Alexandria, fact-finding team still unformed.
by Peter Lamprecht
ISTANBUL, May 22 (Compass Direct) – With Cairo reeling from two weeks of clashes between thousands of police and demonstrators over the trial of two judges, Egypt appears to have forgotten its promises to investigate the April 14 stabbing of Christians in Alexandria.
Egyptian leaders were quick to condemn the church knife attacks that left one Christian dead and more than a dozen wounded on April 14. In an effort to quell the ensuing two days of violent clashes, Egypt’s parliament announced the formation of a fact-finding committee, headed by Deputy Speaker of the People’s Assembly Dr. Zeinab Radwan.
The panel was charged with investigating the cause of the attacks and reporting its findings within 30 days. More than one month later, with 68 of those arrested during the Alexandria violence still imprisoned without charges, the committee has yet to be formed.
Many Copts are skeptical that the matter will be fully investigated.
“Even if a committee does meet, and even if they come out with a report, that report will not see the light of day,” Coptic Orthodox Metropolitan Wissa (ordained Copts use only their first names) told Compass.
Christians are also skeptical of government claims that a mentally unstable knife-wielder, Mahmoud Salahedin Abdul-Razik, had single-handedly attacked three churches on opposite sides of town all in the same morning. This version of events contradicted earlier police reports that three men involved in the attacks had been arrested.
“I don’t believe this for a second,” Metropolitan Wissa told Compass. “It was all pre-planned with cooperation of the security police.”
The guard who was supposed to be protecting the church allowed the assailant to escape from the scene of the crime by firing bullets into the air to stop the Copts from catching him, he added.
Eyewitnesses of the April 14 attack on Noshi Atta Girgis, who died after being stabbed as he was exiting the main gate of Al-Quidissin Church, said that the attacker yelled, “There is no God but Allah,” and called the Christians “infidels.”
Other church leaders, though more hesitant to criticize the government, were equally skeptical. “How did he [Abdul-Razik] go from one church to another with a knife and blood-soiled clothes?” Coptic Archbishop Anba Mussa asked in a recent interview with Agence France-Presse.
Violence erupted at Girgis’ funeral the next day when crowds of Muslims began throwing stones at the funeral procession and Christians responded in kind.
Chants of “with our blood, with our soul, we will sacrifice for you, Christ,” as well as the cross that the procession was carrying, were said to have provoked the Muslim attack.
“When the Muslim youths saw the cross in the sky, the animosity in their hearts became evident,” a Copt named Talat Megala told the New York Sun.
Coptic Bystanders Arrested
Feelings of anger against the government also extend to the way that officials handled security during the two days of violence in Alexandria’s Asafra district.
According to eyewitnesses, police indiscriminately arrested Coptic bystanders who happened to be in the area during the violent clashes.
“I panicked and ran towards the policemen for protection, since on the other side I could see a crowd of Muslims ready to attack,” one Coptic young man who was on his way to church on April 15 told Compass. “There were three other people near me, and the policemen caught us and started beating us cruelly.”
Requesting anonymity for security reasons, the Christian said that he was loaded onto a police truck with other Copts. He heard an officer ask, “Are these 75? We need 75 people.”
“They were just catching anyone they could lay their hands upon,” the young man commented.
According to reports, police arrested 101 people over the course of the weekend, 54 Christians and 47 Muslims.
“It’s the policy of keeping the balances,” Metropolitan Wissa commented. He said that no matter who is actually responsible for the violence, “the government always arrests an equal number of Christians and Muslims.”
Many of the 33 released over the following two weeks reported mistreatment at the hands of Egypt’s security police.
One young man, whom police had grabbed and beaten as he was leaving church, said that he was blindfolded at the police station and asked why he had been arrested. “When I answered that I’d done nothing, I was told that I was lying,” the man said. “They threatened to electrocute me, burn me, and get my mother in to insult her.”
“They took off my shirt and poured water over me telling me it was kerosene.”
“You take your mother to church for the priest to [violate] her,” police told another man as they whipped him.
Late on the night of April 15, after Girgis’ funeral, unknown vandals attacked Asafra’s Virgin Mary Church. The intruders set fire to the church office, destroying the ante-room used for baptisms and completely burning the church’s records.
Church staff confirmed to Compass that they immediately called the fire department, but that firefighters refused to come when they found out that a church was burning.
“When it burns down with you inside, we shall come,” fire department officials allegedly told church members over the phone.
History of Failed Justice
On the surface, the knife attack appeared to be no more than a new episode in an ongoing series of religiously motivated attacks against Egypt’s Coptic Christians.
Last October, three people died as thousands of Muslims in Alexandria demonstrated against a DVD of a play that they felt insulted Islam. In January this year, one Copt was killed when Muslims attacked a church in Luxor that was not officially registered with the government.
Disillusioned by the government’s failure to protect them last month, Copts are also aware that previous violence against them has often gone uninvestigated. Alexandria’s Christians are still waiting for the completion of a government investigation into last October’s violence; besides the three people killed, 150 others were injured.
After violence erupted between Christians, Muslims and police following the April 14 stabbings, politicians called for national unity in support of the country’s large Coptic Christian minority.
At least 39 Christian businesses were reportedly looted and one Muslim shop owner was killed while defending an employee during the clashes.
But the weekend violence was not a purely “Christian versus Muslim” affair. Copts said that members of Egypt’s fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, including 50 veiled women, joined the Christians for Girgis’ funeral.
Towards the end of the second day of riots, a group of 3,000 Muslims and Christians joined together in a government-sponsored demonstration renouncing the attacks, Egyptian weekly Watani reported. Muslims then entered the Al-Quidissin church to ask for forgiveness, the newspaper said.
Many Copts blamed the government more than religious extremists for the violence, saying that the Egyptian leadership did not care about their security.
“Hosni Mubarak, where are you?” read one Coptic protest banner outside Al-Quidissin church after the attacks, in a reference to Egypt’s president.
Over New Year’s weekend six years ago in Al-Kosheh, a predominantly Christian village in Egypt’s Sohag province, 21 Coptic Christians were murdered. Dozens more Christians were wounded and more than 100 of their homes and businesses totally plundered in the three-day rampage.
When the courts eventually acquitted all the Muslim murder suspects, the judge accused local Coptic clergy of failing to stop the riots.
According to Metropolitan Wissa, who was Bishop of Baliana in Sohag at the time of the Al-Kosheh attacks, most attempts to investigate injustices against Copts have met the same fate as recommendations made by the Oteifi Committee in 1972.
This parliamentary committee had called for equal citizenship rights for Copts, but was ignored by the government.
“The killers of Al-Kosheh were acquitted,” read one banner carried by Copts at Girgis’ funeral last month. “What can we expect from Alexandria’s deranged man?”
In light of past failures to obtain justice, the simplest response to last month’s violence may be to “forgive and forget.” But that message will not appeal to many, including the families of the 34 Christians and 34 Muslims who are still in police custody.
Since Egypt renewed its notorious emergency law on April 30, the police can indefinitely hold them without trial or hearings.
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Police in Eritrea Arrest Mother of Dying Baby
In Asmara, 50 evangelical students given harsh military punishment.
Special to Compass Direct
LOS ANGELES, May 19 (Compass Direct) – Two days after an evangelical Christian mother was arrested from her home and jailed by Eritrean police, her 6-month-old son has died on his sickbed in Nefasit, 10 miles east of Asmara.
Ghenet Gebremariam was arrested on May 8 with two other Protestant women, all members of Nefasit’s banned Full Gospel Church. They were detained on accusations of “actively witnessing about Christ” to the inhabitants of their town, local Christians confirmed to Compass today. All three were mothers forced to leave young children behind in their homes.
Two days later, Gebremariam’s baby, Hazaiel Daniel, died of unknown causes. When news of the baby’s death reached security police in Nefasit, they agreed to release his mother on bail.
The other two mothers, Meslale Abraham and Alganshe Tsagay, remain in police custody, still separated from their children.
Police gave no reason for the arrest of the three women, apart from their involvement in one of Eritrea’s outlawed Protestant churches.
Since May of 2002, the Eritrean government has banned all Christian churches independent of the Orthodox, Catholic and Lutheran communities.
Any violators caught worshipping or practicing their faith outside the three government-sanctioned churches are jailed for weeks, months or even years. Hundreds have been subjected to severe physical mistreatment over the past four years in an attempt to force them to recant their Protestant beliefs.
Christian Students Punished
In a separate crackdown two weeks ago, 50 evangelical Christian students were put under harsh military punishment at Mai Nefhee Educational Institution, a military service center in Asmara.
According to some of the students’ relatives, the 33 young women and 17 men were reported to the authorities during the first week of May to be “evangelical believers.” Their discovery was attributed to an intensive campaign mounted by the Defense Ministry and its military personnel to identify all students at the institution who were involved in “illegal” Protestant activities.
The pretext for punishing the students, however, was their alleged refusal to participate in a cultural show for the Independence Day celebrations slated for May 25, sources said.
“All these students are under military punishment during their exam time,” a source told Compass, “on the occasion that our nation is preparing to celebrate its Independence Day.”