COMPASS DIRECT NEWS
News from the Frontlines of Persecution
September 2007
(Released October 1, 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
**************************************
**************************************
IN THIS ISSUE
AFGHANISTAN
Korean Christians Critical of Missionary Ban
Development work suffers from loss of South Korean volunteers.
CHINA
House Church Leader Cai Zhuohua Released ***
Pastor is warned to stop practicing faith outside of government-sanctioned church.
EGYPT
Court Delays Ruling on ‘Reconversion’ ***
Tribunal to decide in November whether converts to Islam can return to Christianity.
Christian Twins in Egypt Forced to ‘Become’ Muslim ***
Hearing adjourned indefinitely; Baha’i children also struggling for religious freedom.
Government Rebuffs U.S. Religious Freedom Report ***
State Department highlights discrimination against Muslim converts to Christianity.
ERITREA
Christian Woman Tortured to Death
Fourth believer in one year is killed for refusing to recant faith.
INDIA
Briefs: Recent Incidents of Persecution
Persecution Called Worse than U.S. Report Indicates
State Department lauds federal government but notes criticisms of officials at all levels.
Hindu Extremists Plan Assaults in Karnataka, India ***
Increasing attacks prompt protest in Bangalore; pastor in “grave” danger.
False Charges Plague Christian Workers
Pastor and his sister cleared of rape, abortion accusations; such ordeals all too common.
Christian Worker Shot Dead for Preaching ***
Jharkhand state police say villagers had evangelist killed for converting tribal people.
MALAYSIA
Prime Minister Calls Country ‘Islamic State’
Minorities fear curbs to religious freedom amid apparently contradicting statements.
NIGERIA
Threats Force Church in North Underground ***
Converts from Islam in Borno state disperse – only to come together again.
PAKISTAN
Christian Unexpectedly Acquitted of ‘Blasphemy’ ***
Witnesses drop claim that teenager tore book containing verses of Quran.
Taliban Force Burqa on Christian Women’s School ***
Extremists violently enforce Islamization in unruly northern district.
TURKEY
Christians Face Ongoing Intimidation ***
Following April stabbing deaths in Malatya, church building in Izmit vandalized.
Judge Pressured to Withdraw from Christians’ Case ***
Ultranationalist lawyer requests resignation; state prosecutor is also replaced.
Alleged Instigators Named in Malatya Murders ***
Christians called to fast, pray ahead of trial; European parliamentarians demand justice.
*** Indicates an article-related photo is available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.
(Return to Index)
***********************************
***********************************
Korean Christians Critical of Missionary Ban in Afghanistan
Development work suffers from loss of South Korean volunteers.
by Peter Lamprecht
ISTANBUL, September 11 (Compass Direct News) – More than a week after the Taliban released Korean aid workers in Afghanistan, some South Korean Christians are critical of their government’s ban on missionary travel to the country.
South Korea agreed to withdraw troops and missionaries from Afghanistan last month in exchange for the release of the remaining 19 kidnapped Korean aid workers. The Taliban had already killed two of the group’s members and released two others after the Christian service team was captured on July 19.
Critics claim that South Korea’s ban on missionary travel to Afghanistan limits religious freedom and encourages extremist attacks on Christians around the globe.
A Taliban spokesman said last week that his group would continue kidnapping foreigners because they had found it to be an effective tactic, according to Agence France-Press (AFP).
Choi Han Eu, president of the Institute for Asian Culture and Development (IACD), told Compass that carrying out religious activities is a basic human right that must be protected.
“In Iraq, in Somalia or any other country where there is a dangerous situation, will Christians not be able to go there if it is a Muslim country?” said Choi, whose Protestant group carries out development work in more than a dozen Asian countries.
In effect, according to Christian sources, the ban has curtailed almost all development work by Koreans in Afghanistan.
“If a Christian does aid work in a Muslim country, they call that missionary work,” said Choi. “Koreans have not been doing overt evangelism in Afghanistan.”
A spokesman from the Korean presidential office said he was unable to give Compass a definition of “missionary work” banned by the government.
30 IACD staff members working at hospitals and schools in Afghanistan have been forced to leave, Choi told Compass.
According to non-governmental organization (NGO) workers in Afghanistan, between 200 and 300 Korean workers have returned to Korea.
“[Koreans] were dispersed throughout various NGOs, and there hasn’t been much time to fill the positions,” one foreign development worker said. “We are [already] understaffed.”
The Korean Army also withdrew its engineering and medical units, both heavily involved in reconstruction work.
Only a few Koreans with dual citizenship have been able to stay in Afghanistan, local NGO workers reported.
“The Afghan people will be the ones who are most harmed by this,” commented Choi.
Quiet Acceptance – For Now
The kidnapping of volunteer workers from a Korean church in July, in no way related to the IACD, renewed anger against Korean Christian development workers. Critics in Korea claimed that the church group was at fault for disregarding warnings against visiting Afghanistan.
Foreign NGO workers in Afghanistan said that the volunteers’ methods inside the country had caused problems.
“Anybody who tries to go to Kandahar is asking for trouble,” said one foreigner, referring to a southern Taliban stronghold to which the Koreans had been traveling when captured. “Being in a large group is also asking for trouble.”
Protestors in front of Bundang’s Sammul Presbyterian Church, which sent the volunteers, demanded Sunday (September 9) that the church pay government expenses incurred in the hostage negotiations.
Intense criticism has caused many Korean Christians to quietly accept the government’s ban on missionary activity to Afghanistan.
More than 100 Presbyterian pastors gathered in Seoul last week to pray and repent for the way that they had conducted missions in the past. The leaders confessed that their churches had at times wrongly emphasized quantity over quality.
“Normally the government and church should be separate, and the church should decide its own policy,” said Chae Ki Bomb, general secretary of the Christian Council of Korea, a mainstream evangelical umbrella organization. “But at this time, it’s alright that the government decided.”
Choi of the IACD agreed that the government had the responsibility to protect its citizens but that this should not overrule basic religious freedom. He said his group would wait for tensions to cool before deciding whether to challenge the missionary ban in court.
The Christian Council’s Chae agreed that the ban should not last indefinitely. “At this time we stopped, but we want to continue missions to Islamic areas in the future,” he said.
Protestant churches in Korea support more than 15,000 international missionaries, the second largest number of missionaries world-wide after those sent by U.S. churches.
Choi’s group came under harsh criticism last August for organizing an aborted “peace rally” in Kabul.
Citing security concerns, the South Korean government blocked its citizens’ entry to Afghanistan and deported others after 1,000 Koreans had already arrived for the event.
Local Christian NGO workers were also critical, saying the rally was not culturally appropriate in a Muslim country hypersensitive to Christian evangelism.
Beaten in Captivity
Little has appeared in English-language media regarding claims that hostages were beaten and killed for refusing to convert to Islam.
According to AFP, a Seoul doctor confirmed that Taliban captors had beaten hostages in captivity.
“They said they were beaten at first for refusing to take part in Islamic prayers or for rejecting a demand to convert,” the doctor said in the September 3 article.
Seoul-based Christian Today newspaper on September 5 quoted Sammul church head pastor Park Eun Jo as saying that Bae Hyung Kyu had been killed for refusing to convert. The Sammul church referred to Bae as a martyr at his funeral on Saturday (September 8).
(Return to Index)
***********************************
Chinese House Church Leader Cai Zhuohua Released
Pastor is warned to stop practicing faith outside of government-sanctioned church.
by Jeff M. Sellers
LOS ANGELES, September 18 (Compass Direct News) – Beijing house church leader Cai Zhuohua, jailed since 2004 for “illegal business practices” by distributing Christian literature, has been released with stern warnings to stop practicing his faith outside of the government-sanctioned church.
Bob Fu of China Aid Association (CAA) told Compass that on Thursday (September 13), three days after Cai’s release on September 10, officials of China’s Public Security Bureau (PSB) took the well-known Beijing house church pastor to their offices and tried to intimidate him with threats.
“They warned him to be careful – not to be interviewed, to obey the law and not attend religious activities,” Fu said.
Officials from the National Security Bureau – China’s equivalent of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency – on two occasions gave Cai similar warnings before he was released, Fu said. As an ex-convict whom the government is especially interested to control, Fu said, Cai must report to the PSB once a month.
Cai is now at home in Beijing with his wife and mother, who leads a church that meets in their house.
Deprived of his Bible while in prison, Cai was forced to make soccer balls for the 2008 Beijing Olympics for 10 to 12 hours a day, according to the CAA. Cai’s mother, Fu said, reported that the pastor was well and in good spirits.
Cai was sentenced to three years in prison on November 8, 2005 for “illegal business practices” and fined 150,000 yuan (then about US$18,500). His wife, Xiao Yunfei, was sentenced to two years and fined 120,000 yuan, and her brother Xiao Gaowen was given an 18-month sentence and a fine of 100,000 yuan. Both were released after serving out their sentences.
Having been arrested on September 11, 2004 at a bus stop by state security officers, Cai had been incarcerated for three years by last September 10 even though he was not convicted until November 2005. At the time of his arrest, authorities found more than 237,000 pieces of printed Christian literature, including Bibles, in a storage room he managed.
By law, only the government-sanctioned Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) church is allowed to print and distribute Bibles in China.
The U.S. State Department’s 2007 International Religious Freedom Report, released last week, noted that many unregistered evangelical Protestant groups refuse to register with TSPM due to theological differences, fear of adverse consequences if they reveal names and addresses of church leaders or members, or fear that it will control sermon content.
“Many evangelical house church groups also disagreed with the TSPM’s admonitions against proselytism, which they consider a central teaching of Christianity,” the report states.
Another house church leader, Zhou Heng in Xinjiang region, was arrested in August on the same charge as Cai, as he was caught receiving three tons of Bibles from another city, according to the CAA.
Crackdown on Christian Literature
Recently Chinese authorities have been trying house church leaders under Article 225 of China’s Criminal Law against “illegal acts in business operation,” according to Fu of the Midland, Texas-based CAA.
In 1998, the Supreme People’s Court issued a ruling that allows courts to use Article 225 to imprison anyone who “publishes, prints, copies, or distributes illegal publications.”
Cai’s defense lawyers had argued that the books were printed for free distribution throughout house church networks and should not be considered a “profit-making” venture as the government charged.
The judge rejected these arguments. Shortly after his conviction, a court clerk visited Cai at the Qinghe detention center and warned him that his sentence would be increased if he “annoyed” the judges with an appeal. Facing heavy pressure, Cai and his family agreed to drop the appeal.
After their arrest in September 2004, sources said, Cai and his relatives were tortured during interrogation.
CAA reported that the arrest of Zhou Heng on August 3 was not formally approved by Shayibake District People’s Procuratorate of Urumqi city until August 31, when notice was sent to his wife, Chen Jihong, by the Urumqi Municipal Public Security Bureau. CAA said Zhou is being held at Xishan Detention Center.
He was arrested after he went to a bus station to pick up three tons of donated Bibles intended for local believers free of charge. If convicted of the charges, he faces a 15-year prison sentence.
CAA investigators who spoke with a released inmate who shared a cell with Zhou reported that prison guards and other inmates severely beat Zhou.
Also a well-known house church leader, Zhou is manager of a registered bookstore called Yayi Christian Book Room, which is used to sell Christian literature published legally and officially inside China.
The bookstore has been forced to close following his arrest.
END
*** A photo of Cai Zhuohua is available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.
(Return to Index)
***********************************
Egyptian Court Delays Ruling on ‘Reconversion’
Tribunal to decide in November whether converts to Islam can return to Christianity.
by Peter Lamprecht
ISTANBUL, September 6 (Compass Direct News) – An Egyptian court has delayed ruling in the appeal of converts to Islam who wish to return Christianity.
At a hearing on Saturday (September 1), Egypt’s Supreme Administrative Court set the date for a ruling at November 17.
Much is at stake in conflicts over religious identity in Egypt, where religious status legally determines whom one can marry, custody of children, inheritance, the type of religious education required and where one can be buried.
The punishment for “apostasy” from Islam is death, according to most mainstream Egyptian interpretations of Islamic law, enshrined in Egypt’s constitution. No converts have been tried for “apostasy,” but conversion away from Islam remains difficult, while hundreds become Muslim every year.
In April, a lower court overturned previous rulings allowing converts to Islam to revert to their original faith, claiming the group of at least 12 was “manipulating” religion.
Interior Minister Habib al-Adly spoke out in support of the lower court ruling the following week, insisting that any Muslim who abandons his faith must be killed, according to Egyptian weekly Sout al Oma.