COMPASS DIRECTGlobal News from the Frontlines

August 12, 2004

Compass Direct is distributed monthly 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 2004 Compass Direct

****************************************************************************IN THIS ISSUE

BRAZIL

Court Drops ‘Hate Crime’ ChargesEvangelists win appeal of conviction for evangelizing spiritists.

CHINA

China Steps Up Attack on ‘Illegal’ Religious ActivityDetention of Samuel Lamb sparks wide concern.

Religious Movement is QuestionedMany believers say the “Three Grades of Servant” movement is a cult.

COLOMBIA

Rebels Release Kidnapped BishopMisael Vacca Ramírez freed unharmed after three days.

ERITREA

Pastors Still Jailed Without Charges***Two imprisoned Protestants escape from Military Center.

Police Halt Christian WeddingThirty evangelicals jailed in Senafe.

INDIA

Slapping in Maharashtra Leads to Outbreak of ViolenceTwo Catholics hospitalized; spotlight falls on extremist Hindu organizations.

Jailed Pastor Released on BailCourt magistrate studying first test case of Orissa anti-conversion law.

Hindu Mob Assaults Church Under ConstructionTensions rise in tribal village as attackers remain at large.

BJP Returns to Radical ‘Hindutva’ RootsHindu fundamentalists step up campaign against minority religions.

INDONESIA

Death Toll Rises in Sulawesi***Two Christian women shot, one stabbed to death in retaliation slayings.

Police Continue Search for Killers in Palu***Four teenagers still recovering from church shooting.

JORDAN

Child Custody Ruling Expected Within Days***Christian widow’s lawyer loses hope.

MALAYSIA

True Meaning of Religious Freedom DebatedMalay Muslims are denied permission to convert.

NIGERIA

Christian Leaders Seek Government’s Intervention Persecution of Christians intensifies in Islamic states.

SAUDI ARABIA

Officials Visit Jailed Indian Christian***Solution promised within 15 days.

SRI LANKA

Supreme Court Ponders Anti-Conversion LawThe number of petitions slightly favors the proposed legislation.

TURKEY

Deranged Turk Attacks Diyarbakir Church ***

Building’s zoning status still unclear.

VIETNAM

Pastor Remains in Police Custody***Wife of jailed Mennonite allowed first visit since June arrest.

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***********************************Brazilian Court Drops ‘Hate Crime’ ChargesEvangelists win appeal of conviction for evangelizing spiritists.by David Miller

MIAMI, July 16 (Compass) -- A court in Sao Paulo, Brazil, has ruled in favor of two Christian evangelists who appealed their conviction last year of violating Brazil’s “hate crime” law. The landmark case involving the distribution of gospel tracts to Afro-Brazilian spiritists is the first to test a federal law declaring it a crime to “practice, induce, or incite discrimination” against members of another religion.

Christians in Brazil hailed the decision as upholding freedom of speech and their right to conduct personal evangelism in public places.

“We can certainly continue evangelistic work on the beaches, in the streets, in plazas and through all communications media in Brazil,” Baptist pastor Joaquim de Andrade, one of the defendants in the case, told Compass by telephone from Los Angeles, where he learned of the decision.

“The judges’ ruling came out favorably toward us because we are not breaking the law of our country,” Andrade added. “There has been recognition that we have the right to give our testimony.”

Representatives of the Umbanda and Candomble spiritist groups brought criminal charges more than two years ago against Andrade and Aldo dos Santos of the Anglican Church. Andrade is the principal organizer of the “Coast for Christ Crusade” in which volunteer evangelists present Christianity to participants at the annual Iemanja festival held in the beach town of Praia Grande on the Atlantic coast.

Spiritists claimed that gospel tracts prepared by Dos Santos for the event disparaged Iemanja, an African deity they worship as “Goddess of the Sea.” They accused Adrade and Dos Santos of violating Federal Law number 9.459, which declares it a crime to “practice, induce, or incite discrimination or prejudice against race, color, ethnicity, religion or national origin.”

The law mandates one to three years in jail and a fine for offenders.

On April 16, 2003, Sao Paulo Judge Osvaldo Palotti, Jr. found Andrade and Dos Santos guilty of the charges and fined them each 1,000 reais (about $300). He warned the men to stop proselytizing at the spiritists’ festival, or face stiffer penalties next time.

Andrade and Dos Santos refused to pay the fine and filed an appeal of Palotti’s decision.

Their case received support from University of Sao Paulo law professor Dr. Davi Teixeira, who filed a motion asserting judicial irregularities in the case. Teixeira cited the absence of the district attorney during the hearing and the judge’s refusal to allow defendants to confer with their legal counsel, Dr. Cicero Duarte, as grounds for the appeal.

More importantly, Teixeira contended that the plaintiffs’ case was not sufficient to prove a violation of the law.

Three justices on the appeals panel, Dr. João Morengui, Dr. Figuereido Gonçalves and Dr. Deviene Ferraz, agreed with the defendants’ arguments that their evangelistic activities did not constitute a crime.

“The tribunal recognized (verbally in our discussions) that the right to testify and evangelize does exist, given that there is no intent to invade a place of worship -- as the law already forbids,” Andrade said.

“The arguments in the trial were, therefore, very positive in terms of guaranteeing expressions of one’s faith and the right to convey one’s religious convictions to others.”

Andrade, 42, co-directs a research and training ministry called the Agency of Religious Information, known by its Portuguese acronym AGIR. The group supplies information about the teachings of non-Christian religions and prepares interested individuals to share their faith with followers of non-orthodox cults and New Age adherents.

The case is not yet fully resolved -- the appeal decision has been remanded to Praia Grande officials for ratification -- but sources in Brazil expect complete dismissal of the charges in due time. However, given AGIR’s bold outreach agenda, Andrade expects to face more challenges in the days to come like that mounted by the Afro-Brazilian spiritists.

“The persecution is not going to end,” he said. “We have constitutionally guaranteed rights that affect those who worship idols, who practice witchcraft, and homosexuals.

“So they do what they can to impede evangelistic work. They are going to try to get us arrested and keep us from carrying out evangelization.”

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***********************************China Steps Up Attack on ‘Illegal’ Religious ActivityDetention of Samuel Lamb sparks wide concern.by Xu Mei

NANJING, China, July 19 (Compass) -- Chinese authorities detained and interrogated well-known house church leader Samuel Lamb, or Lin Xiangao as he is known within China, after worship services on Sunday, June 13. Ten of his younger co-workers were also detained and interrogated.

Taken to a local police station in Guangzhou, all were released by the following day. Pastor Lamb reported the unpleasant experience to an overseas visitor to his house church in the center of Guangzhou a few days later.

The significance of Pastor Lamb’s detention lies in the fact that this is the first time in 14 years that Chinese authorities have taken repressive steps against him. The last time he was detained was on February 22, 1990, when 60 Public Security Bureau (PSB) officers detained him overnight and confiscated large amounts of Christian literature.

Since then, apart from the occasional “friendly” visit to his house church, the PSB has left Lamb relatively undisturbed. The number of Christians and inquirers meeting openly at his new meeting place has grown to over 3,000 each week.

Lamb’s previous meeting-place at Damazhan was demolished as part of a city development plan a few years ago. He relocated to larger premises nearby.

These latest detentions, therefore, came as a complete surprise. Sources in China say it is no coincidence that just two days earlier, on June 11, authorities detained 100 leaders of the China Gospel Fellowship house church network in the central city of Wuhan. They, too, were later released after detailed interrogation.

Reliable reports out of China received at the end of June indicated that, prior to these recent incidents of repression, a high-level Politburo meeting convened and members issued a secret directive calling for a crackdown on all “illegal” religious activities, such as unregistered house church meetings.

Some observers think Chinese authorities may be over-reacting to high profile publicity concerning house churches and the “Back to Jerusalem Movement.” Reports on these topics circulated in Western media have focused attention on the spectacular growth of the Chinese church and could have prompted the recent crackdown.

Beijing was chosen to host the 2008 Olympics on the tacit understanding that China would continue to open her doors to the world and act as a civilized member of the world community.

Repression of religious believers and denial of basic human rights are a flagrant breach of both the Olympic spirit and the United Nations agreements to which China is a signatory. The international community will be watching the Chinese government closely over the next few years in the run-up to the Games.

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***********************************Chinese Religious Movement is QuestionedMany believers say the “Three Grades of Servant” movement is a cultby Xu Mei

NANJING, China, August 6 (Compass) -- Mr. Xu Shuangfu, leader of the controversial Three Grades of Servant (TGS) movement in China, was arrested along with 90 other co-workers and followers in April 2004. Some overseas reports immediately tagged the TGS movement as an orthodox Christian house church network, suffering persecution from Communist authorities. However, the evidence emerging since the arrest suggests otherwise.

According to sources familiar with the movement, the TGS was founded in the late 1980s in the largely rural province of Anhui. By the year 2000, it claimed a nationwide membership of over one million followers, with large numbers of disciples in Anhui, Sichuan and northeast China.

Xu Shuangfu, the founder of TGS, is aged somewhere in his sixties, although with his long beard he looks considerably older. He is also known as Xu Shengguang, a name which means “holy light.” The long hair and beard are more akin to traditional Daoist ideas of a divine sage than to Christianity.

Sources say Xu travels from place to place in the utmost secrecy. Wherever he stays overnight becomes a “Holy of Holies,” forbidden to ordinary sect-members. TGS evangelists sleep in “the Holy Place,” while ordinary believers hold their meetings in the so-called “Outer Court”.

Through these arrangements, Xu clearly claims divine status. The God of Israel in the Old Testament allowed only the high priest to approach Him (though only once a year) in the innermost sanctuary of the Jewish temple.

The cult also claims to be the only true church. According to Xu’s teachings, salvation can be gained only through membership in the TGS.

Xu uses Jesus’ parable of the talents in Matthew chapter 25 as the basis for the church to be divided into “three grades of servants.” Those in the highest grade are known as apostles. Xu has appointed himself as the “Great Servant,” and disobeying his commands is seen as disobedience to God himself.

Xu also claims absolute power as the only mediator between God and man. Believers are told not to confess their sins to God directly, but to Xu, thereby replacing Jesus Christ with a human deity.

TGS has a ruthless system of control over its followers. Again according to sources who prefer not to be identified, those who disobey Xu are beaten and those who dare to leave the cult may risk death. Xu and his sister have amassed much wealth from their followers through this tight system of control and allegiance.

There is no doubt that the Chinese government has on occasion wrongly labeled certain house-church movements as dangerous sects or cults. But there is also no doubt that such cults do exist in China.

TGS seems to be a case in point; both the unofficial house churches and the official ‘Three Self’ church in China have condemned the movement as a cult.

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***********************************Colombian Rebels Release Kidnapped BishopMisael Vacca Ramírez freed unharmed after three days.by Deann Alford

AUSTIN, Texas, July 28 (Compass) -- Guerrilla fighters of Colombia’s second-largest illegal armed group snatched a Roman Catholic bishop on July 24, but an immediate international outcry seems to have prompted the kidnappers to free the priest just three days later.

Guerrillas of the José David Suárez Front of the National Liberation Army (ELN) released 48-year-old Misael Vacca Ramírez yesterday. Bishop of Yopal in the department (state) of Casanare, Vacca was unharmed and in good health.

ELN militants kidnapped the bishop as he was traveling near the village of Morcote, Boyacá department, in the company of a government official, the official’s wife and two other priests. The area where Vacca Ramirez was abducted lies just over its border with neighboring Casanare in volatile eastern Colombia. The group was in Morcote working with an adult literacy program, according to a report posted on the website of Caritas Colombia.

Casanare department was an isolated and undeveloped savannah of farms and ranches until the 1980s, when huge oil reserves were discovered there. Soon after, the ELN moved unchallenged into Casanare and neighboring Arauca. In recent years, rival paramilitary groups began vying for control. During three weeks in November 2003, two priests were kidnapped and later found murdered in Arauca.

Soon after kidnapping Vacca, ELN said it planned to release him with a political message. Vacca told Colombian media that he believed he was freed because of national and international outrage at his abduction. The guerrillas had not given him any message to deliver as a condition for release.

The ELN has staged several famous kidnappings. In 1999, ELN guerrillas stormed a Roman Catholic mass in Cali, holding many of the 140 worshipers they captured as hostages for months.

Also that year, ELN hijacked an Avianca Airlines flight from Bogota to Bucaramanga with 46 people aboard. One hostage, Latin America Mission staff worker Grace Morillo, was freed 68 days later.

In 2002, ELN guerrillas stopped a pickup truck driven by Juan Carlos Villegas, assistant pastor of Medellín’s evangelical Family Christian Church as he was returning from a baptismal service at a retreat camp 20 miles from the city. They held Villegas hostage 12 days before freeing him.

The evangelical church now has an agreement with the ELN to respect its pastors and churches. Such arrangements notwithstanding, evangelical pastors and evangelists still run the risk of abduction.

“If they can do it with a high functionary of the Catholic Church, they can do it with a high functionary of the evangelical church,” said Ricardo Esquivia, who heads the Restoration, Life and Peace Commission of the Evangelical Council of Colombia (CEDECOL).

Catholic officials enjoy considerable power in Colombia, but not so with evangelicals,” Esquivia added. “In this sense, we could say there’s indeed danger.”

While he’s heard of a rumored guerrilla list of potential evangelical kidnap victims, Esquivia knows of no recent threats against evangelicals. The impact of guerrilla actions such as kidnapping the Yopal bishop is imposing fear and uncertainty, he said.

Compared to the larger, older Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), ELN holds a reputation for kidnapping not so much to collect cash ransoms as to make political statements. Hector Pardo, head of CEDECOL’s Religious Liberty Commission, said the ELN wants peace talks that are not mediated by the Colombian government. The administration of President Alvaro Uribe, however, refuses to allow another party to mediate talks.

Pardo said he knows of no new threats against evangelical pastors. “The situation remains the same. It hasn’t gotten better. It hasn’t gotten worse.

“We’ve always been prudent because you never know if a kidnapping involves common criminals or guerrillas. Nevertheless, the guerrillas are under financial pressure and it’s not out of the question for them to begin kidnapping people again to get money.”

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***********************************Eritrean Pastors Still Jailed Without ChargesTwo imprisoned Protestants escape from Military Center.Special to Compass Direct

LOS ANGELES, July 28 (Compass) -- Nine weeks after Eritrean police arrested three prominent Protestant pastors, the Asmara government continues to detain all three at separate police stations in the capital city. Families and church members of the jailed men have been refused any direct access to the prisoners.

Imprisoned since May 23, the Rev. Haile Naizgi and Dr. Kiflu Gebremeske are leading pastors in the Full Gospel Church. Pastor Tesfatsion Hagos of the Rema Evangelical Church was arrested on May 26. The men remain under arrest at Asmara’s No. 1, No. 6 and No. 4 police stations, respectively.

Although police authorities have allowed the pastors’ families to bring them food and clothing while under detention, face-to-face contact has been denied.

No reason has been given for their imprisonment, nor have they been charged with any legal offense. Under standard procedures, any Eritrean citizen arrested by the police or military forces is subjected to thorough interrogation within the first 24 hours of arrest. However, Compass has confirmed that the three pastors were not summoned for questioning by local authorities until mid-July, seven weeks after their arrest.

Family members reportedly petitioned two weeks ago that the government release the men on bail, thus requiring that they be charged formally before a court of law. But according to a source close to the pastors’ families, one of the church leaders has sent word out stating, “Don’t expect my release anytime soon.”

Meanwhile, another evangelical pastor has managed to escape from the Sawa Military Center, together with a well-known Christian musician also imprisoned there. After several months’ detention at Sawa, Pastor Mengse Tweldemedhane and singer Yonas Haile fled together across the Eritrean border into Sudan in late June.

The pastor of Asmara’s Hallelujah Church, Tweldemedhane had been locked in an underground cell at Adi-Abyto military camp after his arrest February 15 with 50 members of his congregation. He was later transferred to military confinement at the Sawa camp.

Haile, who was arrested in Asmara on March 19 for releasing a music video entitled “Jesus: the Solution to Man’s Problems,” had been incarcerated at Sawa since March 24.

But popular Christian singer Helen Berhane remains under severe confinement in a shipping container at the Mai Serwa military camp just north of Asmara, where she was arrested on May 13.

A Rema Church member, Berhane has refused to sign a document retracting her evangelical faith and promising to stop participating in local Protestant activities. A military commander reportedly told the 29-year-old woman, “You will be allowed no visitors, and you will rot here until you sign this paper.”

The Eritrean military frequently uses metal shipping containers as severe-confinement cells, jailing up to 12 or 13 prisoners together or putting some individuals into solitary confinement. The prisoners are allowed out twice a day under guard to relieve themselves, but otherwise are subjected to extreme temperatures day and night. “It’s like being stuck in an oven in the daytime, and then overnight it becomes a refrigerator,” recalled one evangelical after the experience.

One of Berhane’s guards recently reported her to the commander after he caught her listening to a Christian program on a small radio in her container. As punishment, the commander transferred her to an underground cell, where she was kept chained for two weeks.

Still another local Christian singer, Hamelmale Habtemichel of the Kale Kiwot Church, was arrested in Mendefera in the third week of June for issuing a new musical tape recording. She was taken into custody together with music shop owner Tsegay Abraha, who had recorded and displayed the singer’s tape for sale in her shop. Both were released from the Mendefera police station after nearly a month in custody.

Various Protestant Christians jailed in containers at Mai Serwa in recent months report that at least nine members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses faith are incarcerated there, including a 96-year-old man suffering from chronic diarrhea. National military service is obligatory for both men and women in Eritrea, which has criminalized the conscientious objector stance of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Imprisoned evangelicals have been told by their Mai Serwa interrogators that the Eritrean Ministry of Defense has issued secret orders to invade and stop all secret house meetings of the outlawed Protestant believers. The orders came shortly after Eritrean President Isaias Afewerki declared publicly on March 5 that the government would not tolerate religious groups which were “distracting from the unity of the Eritrean people and distorting the true meaning of religion.”

The July 5 arrest of four more Protestant believers has been confirmed in or near the capital of Asmara. Two women from the Full Gospel Church were arrested while sharing their faith along the Abashawelo road in Asmara. It was the second arrest for Meaza

Araya, 34, previously jailed for attending a secret worship meeting, but the first for Elsa Ghermay, 30, a single woman living with her elderly mother. Both were taken the same day to the Mai Serwa military prison, where they remain.

The same afternoon, two members of the Rema Church in Adi-Segdo were arrested from their homes without explanation by the military police. Dawit Mesghena and Tesafa Araya remain under detention at the Truck ‘B’ military camp near Asmara.

The Eritrean government closed down the nation’s independent Protestant churches in May 2002, forbidding the 20,000 members of 12 banned denominations to worship even in their homes. In addition to indigenous Pentecostal and charismatic congregations, the outlawed groups include Adventist, Presbyterian, Assemblies of God and Methodist-linked churches.

Although the evangelicals were ordered to apply to the Department of Religious Affairs for registration in order to become legal again, those who completed the involved application process are still waiting two years later for a government response.

The Eritrean Constitution guarantees freedom of religion for all citizens. But Afewerki’s government recognizes only Orthodox Christians, Catholics, Lutherans and Muslims as members of the nation’s historic, “official” religions.

***Photographs of the jailed Asmara pastors and singer Helen Berhane are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct for pricing and transmittal.

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***********************************Eritrean Police Halt Christian WeddingThirty evangelicals jailed in Senafe.Special to Compass Direct

LOS ANGELES, July 30 (Compass) -- Police disrupted a Christian marriage ceremony in the Eritrean town of Senafe on Sunday, July 25, arresting 30 guests and members of the wedding party and jailing them at the local police station.

Charging in and demanding a halt to the wedding, local police officials ordered everyone who was not a “Pente” to leave the place immediately. A derisive abbreviation for Pentecostals, “Pente” is used as a generic label for members of Eritrea’s outlawed evangelical churches.

Many of the guests left immediately, but the 30 evangelical Christians who remained were hauled off to a police station in Senafe, some 85 miles southeast of Asmara.

The jailed Protestants were from local Kale Hiwot and Full Gospel churches, as well as from various revival movements within the Orthodox Church in Senafe.

They included the bride’s father and his whole family, all members of the Kale Hiwot church. A Kale Hiwot evangelist identified by his first name Michel and another elderly man in his 80s, Teame Kibrom, were among the prisoners.

Commanders responsible for the arrest refused requests from relatives trying to visit or inquire about the detainees until yesterday, when all but two of the prisoners were released. The 28 evangelicals were set free after they signed a document promising not to participate in any evangelical Christian wedding in the future.

Police continue to hold in prison custody the Kale Hiwot evangelist Michel and church elder Kibrom, declaring the two responsible for a wedding that “violated Eritrean cultural traditions” and defied the government ban on evangelical church activities.

Meanwhile, National Security Agency officials have not yet responded to petitions to release on bail three prominent Protestant pastors jailed since late May in Asmara police stations. Imprisoned without charges, Rev. Haile Naizgi and Dr. Kiflu Gebremeske of the Full Gospel Church and Pastor Tesfatsion Hagos of the Rema Evangelical Church have been refused all contact with their families.

More than 400 evangelical Christians are currently jailed by the Eritrean government, which closed down the places of worship of 12 Protestant denominations in May 2002.

Many of those caught worshipping and praying in their homes or while completing their obligatory military service have been beaten, tortured and incarcerated for months in metal shipping containers, trying to force them to sign a promise to recant their faith and return to the dominant Orthodox Church.

Only the Orthodox, Catholic, Lutheran and Muslim faiths are recognized as “official” religions by the Eritrean government.

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***********************************Slapping in Maharashtra, India, Leads to Outbreak of ViolenceTwo Catholics hospitalized; spotlight falls on extremist Hindu organizations.by Vishal Arora

DELHI, July 13 (Compass) -- Violence broke out between Hindu and Catholic villagers on June 16 in a small village in Maharashtra, India. The incident was triggered when a member of the local Roman Catholic parish slapped the son of Anant Tari, a villager who belonged to the extremist Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP).

Simon Fernandes, a parish council member, told reporters that he slapped the Hindu youth only after the young man “abused and threatened” a Catholic layman for not widening a footpath near the church.

Two days later on June 16, a group of Hindus led an apparently coordinated attack on members of the Catholic church. “A group of 20 Hindus attacked me, hitting me all over and biting my finger till it bled,” Fernandes said. Fifteen Catholics who came to his rescue also received beatings.

Two members of St. Peter’s parish are still recovering from bone fractures. Speaking from his hospital bed, Juze Fernandes said he covered his head with both hands in a vain effort to protect himself.

Police arrested 15 people after the violence, 13 of them Catholics. Those arrested were held in police custody for a day and released with a warning not to cause further trouble.

Narayan Rane, former Chief Minister of Maharashtra and now opposition leader in the state assembly, held a meeting to appeal for peace on June 28. He said Hindus and Christians had co-existed peacefully in Devbag village for centuries. “This is the first time a minor clash broke out between them, and over such a petty issue,” he said.

Father Andrew De Mello of a neighboring parish said Hindu fundamentalists had used the issue to “whip up communal tension for the first time in the village.”

Simon Fernandes said the retaliation was “well-planned” since it happened two days after the Hindu youth was slapped.

The atmosphere in Devbag village remains tense. Police Superintendent Santosh Rastogi said five policemen have been posted in the parish area to prevent trouble.

For his part, Anant Tari denied any involvement of the VHP. “There was no provocation … people were angry and retaliated,” he insisted. He held the parish priest responsible for not allowing the footpath in front of the church to be widened for public use.

Nevertheless, church leaders remain skeptical of the VHP and its pro-Hindu agenda. Dr. John Dayal, general secretary of the All India Christian Council, said in a press release on June 14 that the VHP has announced plans to establish a presence in 30,000 tribal villages by 2006 -- an increase from the current level of 10,000 villages.

The VHP hopes to increase that number to 100,000 villages, or a quarter of all villages in India, by the year 2011.

“A large source of the VHP’s funding comes from non-resident Indians in the United Kingdom, United States and other countries, as well as official, government and church organizations who believe the money will go for programs for the welfare of widows and orphan children,” Dayal added.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s new government recently announced plans to investigate sources of funding for the VHP and a partner organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Recent news reports accuse both organizations of raising funds under false pretences in the United Kingdom and the U.S.

The VHP was founded in India in 1964 as a forum for uniting Hindus around the world. The group was then registered as a non-profit, tax-exempt organization in the U.S. in 1970 under the Internal Revenue Service Regulation 501-(C)-(3). The U.S. headquarters are in New York, with an additional 40 branch offices across the country.

The VHP is also registered as a non-profit charitable organization in the United Kingdom.

Meanwhile, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), closely allied to the VHP, is making every possible effort to prepare for state assembly elections in September 2004, despite losing the general elections in April and May 2004.

The right-wing BJP already rules the state governments of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. Except for Jharkhand, the BJP enjoys a four-year tenure in these central Indian states.

At its national conclave held in Mumbai (Bombay) from June 22 to 24, the BJP re-dedicated itself to Hindutva, the Hindu nationalist agenda. Some members claimed the BJP lost the general elections because they had diluted their core Hindutva ideology.

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***********************************Jailed Pastor in India Released on BailCourt magistrate studying first test case of Orissa anti-conversion law.by Vishal Arora

DELHI, July 16 (Compass) -- Pastor Subas Samal of Kilipal village in the state of Orissa, India, and his associate, Dhaneshwar Kandi, were released on bail July 14, after spending more than six weeks in jail for alleged violation of the state’s anti-conversion law.

Arrested on May 29, Samal and Kandi were charged with “conversion by inducement” under the Orissa Freedom of Religion Act (OFRA). Several other accusations were brought against them by Hindus from their village.

Justice A.S. Naidu granted conditional bail to the defendants on July 10, opening the way for their release.

“In the jail, I was taunted by other prisoners that I converted people from lower economic and social backgrounds by offering them money,” Samal told Compass. He said even some of the jail personnel ridiculed him.

“All the charges against me are false and fabricated,” he added. “I have been working for the last 10 years in the village and not even a single person who attends my prayer meetings and fellowships has ever complained to anyone about any allurement or force from my side.

“However, some of the relatives of those who have accepted Christianity have levied charges against me and others.”

“We are very happy that Pastor Samal and Dhaneshwar Kandi have been granted bail and are released,” said the Rev. Sonathan Mohanty, pastor of the Church on Mount Zion in Bhubaneswar. “Now, we are looking for (sponsors to post bail) for the five Christian women who were also accused along with them.”

Samal, Kandi and the Christian women were charged under three laws: OFRA, the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act, and Sections 298, 294, and 506 of the Indian Penal Code. Charges ranged from “harming the religious sensitivities of a person” to “obscene acts committed in a public place” and “criminal intimidation.”

On February 10, Hindu villagers forcibly shaved the heads of Samal and six local Christian women to mark their “re-conversion” to Hinduism. Six Hindu villagers were arrested in connection with the incident on May 3, prompting the arrest of Samal and Kandi in retaliation. (See Compass Direct, “Pastor Arrested, Charged Under ‘Freedom of Religion’ Act”, June 3, 2004.)

The High Court of Orissa granted anticipatory bail to the Christian women on June 1, thereby preventing their arrest. However, the magistrate of the Sub-Division Court insisted on carefully studying the case file on Samal and Kandi before granting their bail appeal because theirs is the first case brought under the anti-conversion law.

Orissa High Court lawyer Bibhu Prasad Tripathi is defending the accused Christians. “Pastor Samal and Kandi have been granted conditional bail,” Tripathi said. “The court order says they shall not indulge in any criminal or similar activities, and must appear in the police station each Saturday morning at 8:30 a.m. for two months, failing which their bail will be cancelled with immediate effect.”

Following the February 10 incident, the women who suffered the forced head-shaving fled Kilipal with their families and sought temporary shelter in the Church on Mount Zion in the state capital of Bhubaneswar. Christians there said the atmosphere in Kilipal village is no longer tense and expect Samal, Kandi and the Christian women to return to their homes in 10 to 12 days.

“We are making arrangements for sending the victims back to the village as the atmosphere in Kilipal seems relaxed now,” Mohanty said.

“However, we do not know what condition their houses are in and if a repair is needed,” he added. “And then they need money for living expenses, because they had no work while they were in the temporary accommodation in Bhubaneswar.”

Mohanty also said that after the victims return to Kilipal, they want to negotiate a peaceful solution to the conflict between Christians and Hindus in the village.

Meanwhile, Samal and Kandi said they are growing in their faith in Christ, despite the hardships they face.

“I would not be able to endure all this for a friend or a relative, but because Lord Jesus suffered for me much more than what I am going through, I am able to suffer for Him,” Samal said.

“My faith has grown after I suffered for Jesus,” Kandi added. “I will always be willing to suffer for Christ who suffered for me.”

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***********************************Hindu Mob in India Assaults Church Under ConstructionTensions rise in tribal village as attackers remain at large.by Joshua Newton

AHMEDABAD, India, July 23 (Compass) -- Tension has gripped Rohiyal Talal, a tiny tribal village in the northwest Indian state of Gujarat, after a band of local Hindu farmers desecrated a Christian church under construction in the hamlet.

In the early morning hours of Sunday, July 17, a mob of 15 men arrived at the church premises by jeep and motorcycle and began demolishing the half-completed structure with spades and axes, police said.

The attackers damaged rear walls, iron gratings and windowpanes of the independent Protestant church, according to Suresh Ada Varli, a resident of Rohiyal Talat village who was in charge of the construction.

Officials at the nearby Kaprada police station said some members of the mob were local leaders of the extremist Hindu organization Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP). Though the Kaprada police registered a complaint and the attackers were identified on Monday afternoon, no arrests have been made.

The investigating officer, sub-inspector R.J. Jhala, said the issue arose when two Hindu brothers turned against their younger brother who had converted to Christianity.

“The Hindu brothers were opposing the construction of the church because they claimed it was illegal,” Jhala said. “But when Suresh Varli went ahead with the construction, agitated Hindus went ahead with their assault.”

Jhala did not disclose the names of the three brothers. At press time, Samson Christian of the All India Christian Council (AICC) was attempting to verify details of the incident, but said that it is proving difficult because some people involved have gone into hiding.

The Gujarat state chapter of the AICC condemned the attack.

“This is the way they try to frighten independent churches and missions,” Samson Christian told Compass. “VHP and others now would try their best to let loose their activists and to create trouble for Christians and the Congress party government in the center,” he said.

Christian leaders said the VHP and other right-wing Hindu groups have encouraged their village cadres to assault churches and pastors in western and central Indian states.

When asked about VHP involvement, Jhala said, “Prabhudas Patel and others from Kaprada village are the local leaders of VHP, and they had apparently instigated the villagers into the attack.”

“The situation appears to be tense,” another senior police official in Surat said. “Till now we are successful in maintaining the law and order. There has been no untoward incident as the fallout of the act of desecration.”

Those involved in the demolition have been identified by police as Devji Natthu, Raya Dablu, Sita Lakshu, Mangal Lakshu, Hari Devji, Suresh Perda, Laxman Jania, Nanji Ade, Bharat Vedhu, Janu Situ, all residents of Rohiyal Talat village; Tulsi Ade, Janu Antu and Shanker Budha of the adjoining Khutli village; and Prabhudas Patel and Thona Nikalia of Kaprada village.

Attacks on Christian churches are a major issue of religious freedom in South Asia at present. Believers in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have suffered religious violence in recent years and dozens of places of worship have been damaged or destroyed.

Earlier this month, the AICC reported an attack on Pastor Mosa K. Chandran of the Assemblies of God church and two other Christians known as Baby John and Chellayyan in the South Indian town of Trivandrum. A corner of the church building was demolished by a militant gang that arrived at the scene on motorbikes.

In recent federal elections, the ruling pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party failed to consolidate power in India, but that has not stopped BJP militants from continuing their campaign against Christians. Thousands of anti-Christian pamphlets have been mailed to

or slipped under the doors of Hindu and Christian homes in western India. The pamphlets accuse Christians of forcibly converting impoverished Hindus to Christianity, a charge denied by Christian leaders.

Nevertheless, the campaign has raised fear of more attacks on Christians. One extremist pamphlet accuses Christians of destroying 200 Hindu temples in western Goa state. In these pamphlets, the groups called upon faithful Hindus to take revenge on the Christians by attacking churches and mission groups. Similar pamphlets were distributed in 1998, days before attacks by Hindu nationalists on Christian prayer halls in southern Gujarat.

In February, Hindu fundamentalists in Hubli, Karnataka state, entered a house where Christians met regularly for prayer and started beating up the worshippers. They threw bottles and broken bricks at the house and smashed vehicles parked nearby.

In September 2003, the Catholic community was shocked when a group of men on motorbikes belonging to the VHP and Bajrang Dal torched a Catholic church in the eastern state of Orissa. In March 2000, VHP militants destroyed two Catholic churches with bomb blasts in India’s southern Karnataka state.

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***********************************BJP Returns to Radical ‘Hindutva’ Roots in IndiaHindu fundamentalists step up campaign against minority religions.by Vishal Arora

DELHI, August 9 (Compass) -- Following the surprising defeat of the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in this year’s national elections, Hindu fundamentalists have pressured the BJP to return to its Hindu nationalist roots.

Activists from the radical Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) claim the BJP lost the elections in April because they betrayed “the cause of Hindus” during their six-year rule. The party had softened its policies in the lead-up to the elections in an effort to woo voters from moderate backgrounds or minority communities.

VHP working president Ashok Singhal said in a press conference in Nagpur on August 1, “It is good that the BJP-led government came to power and also lost it. The brand of secularism foisted by [former prime minister] Atal Behari Vajpayee on the party in place of Hindutva ideology was not acceptable to the people.”

VHP General Secretary Praveen Togadia also asserted during a press conference held in Kolkata in the first week of July that the VHP would not tolerate any compromise on the Hindutva issue. He said the BJP should stand exclusively for the cause of India’s “patriotic Hindus,” who make up 85 percent of the population.

Togadia said the VHP would support even the Congress Party if it worked for the cause of Hindu nationalism.

According to media reports, the BJP has begun to give in to these demands. The BJP itself is the political wing of the family of radical Hindu organizations united under the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The VHP and the Bajrang Dal are fellow members of the RSS.

In its national executive meeting held in Mumbai in June, the BJP announced that they would return to Hindutva, or Hindu nationalism. In a four-day brainstorming session held in Goa from July 30 to August 2, the party came up with a blueprint to implement the return to the same policies that were used to stir up communal violence and hatred during their six-year term in parliament.

However, Indian media reports claim the party has replaced the word “Hindutva” with “nationalism” to maintain the support of its secular allies in politics.

The BJP may face formidable opposition. India’s new government, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), was formed in mid May. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has publicly voiced the intention of the UPA to crack down on those responsible for stirring up communal hatred throughout India.

However, it seems fundamentalist Hindu groups have continued and in some cases stepped up their campaign against Christians and other religious minorities since the elections.

The VHP and its youth wing Bajrang Dal have announced plans to expand their influence, particularly in states where the BJP government still holds power in the local assembly.

On May 29, VHP activists kidnapped Manulaben Dinana, the wife of a Christian pastor in Dahod district, Gujarat. (See Compass Direct, “Hindu Extremists Kidnap Pastor’s Wife,” July 9). Two weeks later on June 16, activists from the same organization used the slapping of a teenage boy as a pretext to incite violence in Devbag village, Maharashtra state.

Father Andrew De Mello of a neighboring parish said Hindu fundamentalists had used a minor incident to “whip up communal tension for the first time in the village.”

On July 17, VHP activists attacked a Christian church that was still under construction in Gujarat state. (See Compass Direct, “Hindu Mob Assaults Church Under Construction,” July 23).

One week later on July 24, the mission organization “Gospel For Asia” reported the abduction of five Christian workers. The men were beaten and falsely accused by Hindu

fundamentalists in the Congress-ruled southern state of Karnataka. The abductors also tore apart Christian literature.

One of the workers, Mr. Ramesh, managed to escape the same day. The four remaining workers were rescued on July 27 after a complaint was lodged with the superintendent of police.

According to a report in the Hindi newspaper Dainik Bhaskar, activists of the VHP, Bajrang Dal, and Shiv Sena also vandalized a Christian rehabilitation center run by the Mukti Sadan Foundation in Haryana on July 26.

The center was attacked after a disgruntled patient approached the local branch of the VHP and falsely accused the Foundation of converting Hindus to Christianity.

The newspaper report claimed that, “Addicts are first admitted into the center for treatment, and once they are healed, they are taught the Bible, in the guise of giving them peace of mind ... When the Christians feel the inmates are finally ‘trapped,’ they lure them with offers of marriage and a job in order to convert them.”

However, staff at the center dismissed the report, saying the patient had made false claims in revenge after disciplinary measures were taken against him.

Besides attacking Christians, Hindu organizations such as the VHP are training members of the Hindu community to fight against conversions.

The VHP and the Bajrang Dal organized a series of training camps in the districts of Ferozpur, Gurdaspur and Amritsar in the northern state of Punjab from June 8 to 16. A similar camp was organized in the district of Pathankot from June 31 to July 8. Young recruits are taught to believe that Christianity and other minority religions such as Islam are a threat to the supremacy of Hinduism in India.

The international community has taken note of these trends. In a report issued in July, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) commented on the increasing incidence of religious violence in India.

Focusing on “Cultural Liberty in Today’s Diverse World,” the report expressed serious concern over the rise of communalism in India and the danger it posed to an otherwise “cohesive” nation.

“Modern India is facing a grave challenge to its constitutional commitment to multiple and complementary identities with the rise of groups that seek to impose a singular Hindu identity on the country,” the report said.

It remains to be seen whether the BJP’s decision to return to Hindutva will be supported or rejected by moderate Hindus throughout India.

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***********************************Death Toll Rises in Sulawesi, IndonesiaTwo Christian women shot, one stabbed to death in retaliation slayings.by Sarah Page

Jakarta, July 22 (Compass) -- Christians from many church backgrounds in Palu, Indonesia, attended a funeral on July 20 for Rev. Susianty Tinulele, age 26. She was a victim of a drive-by shooting that occurred at the Efatah Central Sulawesi Christian Church (GKST) on Sunday, July 18.

Tinulele had just finished preaching to the congregation of the GKST church on that Sunday evening when a man wearing a black mask appeared at the door and sprayed the congregation with machine gun fire.

Tinulele was killed instantly.

Desrianti Tengkede, 17, received a bullet in the forehead that passed through her right eye and into her brain. Four other worshipers were also hit. Kris Midianto, aged 18, was shot in his right thigh. Farid Mehingko, 15, was hit in his left knee and a female choir member known as Lustiani, also 15, was shot in her left thigh.

The victims were immediately taken to the hospital. Tengkede remained in a critical condition for several hours. (Compass formerly reported that she had died in the early hours of Monday morning, July 19, but that proved incorrect).

Eyewitnesses said three other men accompanied the man responsible for the shooting, and waited on motorbikes outside the church. Initial accounts are unclear as to whether any of them joined in the shooting, although witnesses said at least two of them carried machine guns. All four wore black masks, and all fled the scene immediately after the shooting.

Tinulele, or Susi as she was known, was recently ordained as a minister in the GKST church. In a press release issued July 19, Ian Freestone of the Australian organization Cry Indonesia said Tinulele was an active supporter of Rev. Rinaldy Damanik, another GKST minister who is currently imprisoned on what many believe are false charges.

Damanik is a key signatory of the Malino Peace Accord, signed by Christian and Muslim representatives in December 2001 as an effort to end sectarian violence that began in Sulawesi in 1998.

Tinulele had visited Damanik in prison July 16, two days before she was shot.

Ferry Silalahi, a Christian lawyer who defended Damanik in court, was also shot and killed on May 25, 2004, as he and his wife left a house church meeting.

Many local Christians believe the Efatah shooting was directly related to the July 16 murder of a young Muslim motorcyclist.

The body of 25-year-old Melky was discovered in Pandiri Atas village, approximately 18 Km. from Poso city, at around 6.30 p.m. that day. Melky had been stabbed many times on his torso, hands, neck and head.

Melky frequently carried passengers from Poso to Tentena. At approximately 1 p.m. that Friday, eyewitnesses saw Melky driving toward Tentena on his motorbike carrying a Christian passenger named Yonatan, 23.

Other witnesses reported seeing Yonatan driving the motorbike alone about half an hour later.

Based on this report, police arrested Yonatan on July 18 and charged him with killing Melky and hiding the body. They believe Yonatan drove back to Kawua and from there to Pancasila village, although there are no witnesses to support these claims.

On July 17, a 35-year-old Christian woman was stabbed to death in what sources believe was an initial act of retaliation for Melky’s death.

Mrs. Helmy Tombiling and her husband James Harimisa ran a small business in front of their home in Poso, selling gasoline. The couple was known for their Christian beliefs.

According to eyewitnesses, Tombiling emerged from her house Saturday as two men driving motorbikes with Palu license plates pulled up outside the house. She approached them assuming they were looking to purchase gasoline, but the men immediately turned on Tombiling and stabbed her to death, according to witnesses.

Descriptions of the murderers closely resemble the description of those involved in the Efatah church shooting the following day.

Sources say the timing and modus operandi of the attackers show that they were well-trained professionals who have waited for the right moment -- and the right pretext -- to attack the Christian community.

The killings are the latest in a series of violent incidents in Central and North Sulawesi committed over the past few months.

On March 30, Pastor Freddy Wuisan from the town of Membuke was shot and killed after answering a knock on his front door. That same day, the Christian dean of the School of Law at Sintuwu Moroso University in Poso was fatally shot.

On Easter weekend, masked gunmen on motorbikes shot and seriously injured seven people at the Tabernacle church in Kilo, near Poso township.

Meanwhile, Christians mourning the deaths of Tinulele and Tengkede have asked the international community to pray for peace.

***Photographs the Efatah church, the senior pastor, and bullet holes in the church door are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct for pricing and transmittal.

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***********************************Indonesian Police Continue Search for Killers in PaluFour teenagers still recovering from church shooting.by Sarah Page

JAKARTA, August 11 (Compass) -- Police are still searching for the killers of Rev. Susianty Tinulele, a 26-year-old pastor who was shot on July 18 at Efatah church in Palu, Central Sulawesi, Indonesia.

Rev. Susi, as she was affectionately known by friends and family, was ordained two weeks prior to the shooting but had not yet been appointed as pastor to a specific church. She was simply a guest speaker at Efatah church that morning.

A suspect arrested by officers of the Palu police force on July 29 was released after providing a solid alibi. Bambang, who was shot and wounded by police officers during the arrest, was with friends at a house in Betua sub-district at the time of the shooting.

Commander Ricky Naldo, who led several officers in the search for the murderers, was demoted on August 4 for his involvement in Bambang’s wrongful arrest.

Two weeks after the shooting, Rev. Susi’s name was still visible on a blackboard outlining the order of service for July 18. Blood spatters and bullet holes were grim reminders of the tragedy, and a police guard was installed at the front door of the church -- although the senior pastor felt the police presence was pointless, a case of “too little, too late.”

When asked if they had put any other security measures in place, church staff told Compass they had moved the time of the evening service from 6 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Low light at 6 p.m. had made it easier for the attackers to escape without being identified by the janitor and several young people who were sitting outside the church at the time of the attack.

Several of those injured were teenagers. Fifteen-year-old Lustiani, who was shot through the thigh, was sent to a local Muslim hospital under police guard for treatment. Doctors say Lustiani was “lucky” as the bullet passed through muscle and missed the bone in her thigh.

Compass initially reported the death of another teenager, 17-year-old Desrianti Tengkede, who was shot through the eye. A friend at the hospital reported Tengkede’s death after she lapsed into a coma, but Tengkede revived shortly afterwards and is still receiving treatment.

President Megawati Sukarnoputri promised Christian leaders on July 20, the day of Rev. Susi’s funeral, that police would capture the gunmen. She also sent Religious Affairs Minister Said Agil Munawar to Palu to visit the victims and provide financial assistance.

Vice President Hamzah Haz also expressed concern over the shooting. “There is a provocateur wanting to pit one religious group against another in an effort to divide the nation ahead of the presidential election,” he told reporters in Jakarta.

Hamzah urged police to remain alert in conflict areas to prevent violence from spreading across the country.

Meanwhile, President Megawati met with a German church leader, Nikolaus Schneider, on August 2. Schneider had flown to Indonesia to meet with the president and with Christian and Muslim leaders to discuss the problem of religious violence.

According to the German evangelical news agency idea, Megawati assured Schneider that there were no genuine “religious tensions” in Indonesia.

Nathan Setiabudi, chairman of the Indonesian Communion of Churches, also met with Megawati after the shooting. He told media representatives that the church shootings were a purely criminal matter and not religiously motivated.

However, Central Sulawesi is no stranger to religious violence. The attack on July 18 was the fifth shooting incident this year. In one of those attacks, masked gunmen drove up outside the Kilo Tabernacle church in Poso on Easter weekend and sprayed the congregation with gunfire, wounding seven church members.

A total of 17 similar incidents have occurred since an outbreak of violence in Poso and Morowali districts in October 2003. An overwhelming majority of the victims are Christians.

An estimated 2,000 people were killed in clashes between Muslims and Christians on the island of Sulawesi prior to the signing of the first Malino peace accord in December 2001.

The clashes were a side-effect of sectarian violence in the nearby Maluku islands, where approximately 8,000 people were killed in a four-year period from 1999 to 2002.

Despite a second Malino peace agreement signed in the Malukus in February 2002, sporadic violence continues to erupt in Ambon and other parts of the so-called “spice islands” of Indonesia.

***Photographs the Efatah church, the senior pastor, and bullet holes in the church door are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct for pricing and transmittal.

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***********************************Jordanian Child Custody Ruling Expected Within DaysChristian widow’s lawyer loses hope.by Barbara G. Baker

ISTANBUL, August 4 (Compass) -- A lawyer who has fought for the past year for Christian widow Siham Qandah to retain custody of her two children expects the Supreme Islamic Court of Jordan to rule against her in the next few days.

After filing a final appeal on July 18, attorney Rateb al-Dhaher has told Qandah that her legal options have been exhausted. The veteran Amman lawyer said he is now forced to expect Jordan’s highest court to rubberstamp a lower Islamic court ruling in June supporting the children’s Muslim guardian. Allowing the customary 20 days for deliberation, a final decision could be handed down by August 7.

If Qandah loses the appeal, she will be ordered by the court to surrender her daughter Rawan, 15, and son Fadi, 14, to their Muslim guardian, Abdullah al-Muhtadi. If she refuses to do so, the children will be taken from her forcibly, and she will be jailed for contempt of court for 30 days.

Although al-Muhtadi is the children’s maternal uncle, he has been estranged from them and the rest of his Christian family since he converted to Islam as a teenager. He was named their legal guardian in 1995 at his sister’s request, after her late husband’s alleged “conversion” certificate was produced in an Islamic court. According to the document, Qandah’s Christian husband had secretly converted to Islam three years before his death.

But the uncle soon began to appropriate the children’s monthly orphan benefits, and in 1998 he filed a case to take custody of them away from his Christian sister, so that he could raise them as Muslims.

Although baptized and raised as Christians, the children are considered Muslims under Jordanian law until age 18 because of their father’s alleged “conversion.” Their Christian mother is not allowed by Islamic law to handle their financial affairs.

Despite documented proof that al-Muhtadi has withdrawn nearly 12,000 Jordanian dinars [$17,650] of the children’s U.N.-allocated trust funds for unsubstantiated uses,

Judge Mahmud Zghul of the Al-Abdali Sharia Court has refused to investigate the apparent embezzlement. Instead, he declared the cash withdrawals legal because they had been authorized over the signature of various Islamic court judges, including that of the chief justice.

Zghul also ignored Islamic law procedures for the defendant to be summoned to court, where he must swear under oath that as a “faithful Muslim” he was a responsible guardian and had used the children’s funds for their benefit. The judge even admitted that he had met privately with al-Muhtadi, who denied all charges of misconduct.

According to a copy of al-Muhtadi’s withdrawals from the Widows and Orphans Fund of the Jordanian army obtained this week by Compass, the guardian purchased a refrigerator for his niece and nephew in May 1996. Subsequently, three more withdrawals in August and September of 1997 and September of 2002 totaled 11,190 JD, allegedly to pay lawyers’ fees in his lawsuit for custody of the children, opened in 1998.

“My brother is not a fit guardian for my children,” Qandah told Compass yesterday. “He has never visited my children, this refrigerator he claims to have bought for them eight years ago is not in my house, he withheld many of their monthly payments, and he has stolen this huge amount of money from their trust funds, claiming he paid it all to his lawyers!”

In a desperate search for some legal solution, Qandah went last week to several family law experts, as well as lawyers at the Center for Human Rights in Amman. Before explaining the details of her case, she asked each office the going rate on lawyers’ fees in child custody cases. Quotes ranged from 100 JD to 200 JD in Irbid, near Qandah’s hometown of Husn in northern Jordan, to a “maximum 500 JD” figure cited by a prominent Amman lawyer.

Then she produced a copy of al-Muhtadi’s financial withdrawals, revealing that he had paid out more than 11,000 JD to lawyers handling his child custody case. In three separate law offices, lawyers told her, “This is impossible. No such case could cost this much.”

Qandah’s last inquiry was at the Irbid offices of attorney Bashir al-Hazaymeh, who had been recommended to her as a competent family-law expert in the city. But as she began to explain her case, producing key documents from the past six years of litigation between herself as a Christian mother with her children’s Muslim guardian, the lawyer’s demeanor changed swiftly, and he began to pepper her with questions.

“So, do you send your son to the mosque? Is your daughter wearing the ‘hijab’ [Islamic head covering]?  Have you taught them the Quran?” he demanded.

“No,” she said, explaining that both she and her children were Christians. Her answer seemed to infuriate him, she said, and he started pounding on his desk and shouting at her.

“So, you are not a good mother at all. You are not a fit person to raise your children!” he declared. “If you were a good mother, you would have become a Muslim. And you would have married again, to a Muslim husband,” he said. “We cannot say that their Muslim guardian is not an honest man. Anyway, he is a Muslim, and he will teach your children Islam.

“Now go and fill out the papers to become a Muslim, and bring them to me,” he ordered her. “Then I will take your case, and you will not lose your children.”

Qandah said she was blinded by her tears as she left his office. “I don’t understand why he attacked me like that,” Qandah said. “I felt like he was stabbing me with knives, when he kept insulting me and saying I was a bad mother,” she said.

“I could never become a Muslim,” Qandah told Compass. “I am a Christian, and I don’t want to become a Muslim. I just want my very small right, here in my country, to raise my children,” Qandah said. “But I cannot. Is this a crime, to try to save my kids?  How am I being unfaithful?”

***Photographs of Siham Qandah and her children are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct for pricing and transmittal.

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***********************************Malaysians Debate True Meaning of Religious FreedomMalay Muslims are denied permission to convert.by Sarah Page

DUBLIN, August 11 (Compass) -- Religious freedom has become a hot topic in Malaysia in recent weeks, sparked by a decision made in the Kelantan Sharia Court in late July.

The four Malay Muslims at the center of the debate first applied to change their religion in 1992. Since the Malay constitution defines all Malays as Muslims, all four were arrested and given a 20-month prison sentence.

The would-be converts were Mrs. Kamariah Ali, her husband Mohamad Ya who died in October 2003, Daud Mamat and Mad Yacob Ismail.

In August 1998, the four formally renounced Islam before a commissioner of oaths, attempting to sidestep the sharia (Islamic law) court system. However, according to a report by the World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission, the Kelantan Sharia Court then charged them with contempt in the year 2000 for refusing to attend “repentance” classes which were part of their original sentence.

The four were then sentenced to three years at an Islamic rehabilitation camp. Appeals to the Kelantan High Court were rejected. A retired federal court judge, Justice Mod Noor Ahmad, said although the four had renounced their faith in 1998, they could still be brought before the sharia court in 2000 because the contempt offence occurred while they were still Muslims.

Through this ruling, the court successfully avoided setting any precedent on the issue of apostasy, or conversion out of Islam.

Haris Mohamed Ibrahim, lawyer for the four, told reporters from the Asia Times, “We hoped the courts would resolve problems individuals are facing, but the court declined to answer this landmark issue.”

Since the ruling, Malaysians have debated the issue in public forums and newspaper editorials. Writers have questioned whether a Malay Muslim has the right under the constitution to choose his or her own religion.

The jurisdiction of sharia courts as opposed to civil courts has also come under the spotlight.

One letter posted on the Malaysiakini website on July 29 said that, “The issue of the sharia court losing its jurisdiction is just one of the many smokescreens. Muslims in Malaysia are slightly more than half of the population, unlike in Indonesia where they are the overwhelming majority. Apostasy or conversions among Malays are therefore seen as a threat to the political power that Islam now has over the Malay community.”

Another writer on July 28 commented that, “Our federal constitution under Article 11 guarantees and affords its citizens the right to chose and practice the religion of his or her choice. But the sharia court doesn’t seem to think that this right of choice extends to Malay Muslims.”

Under the provisions of sharia law and the Quran, an apostate could be sentenced to death. This makes it almost impossible for Malay Muslims to convert, since they must first apply to the sharia court for permission to change their religion.

Courts are reluctant to grant this permission, since ethnic Malays are considered Muslims from birth. The same does not apply to other ethnic groups, for example ethnic groups in the states of Sarawak and Sabah, who are predominantly Christian.

Shad Salem Faruq, professor of law at the University of Technology MARA, believes the government is most worried about Christian proselytizing. Malaysia is 60 percent Muslim, 20 percent Buddhist, 9 percent Christian and 6 percent Hindu. However, “Hinduism and Buddhism historically have had less of a tradition of proselytizing than Christianity,” Faruq told the Asia Times.

A pastor who spoke anonymously to the Asia Times said he believed there was an average of 100 Muslims per month converting to Christianity throughout Malaysia. One Christian group estimated there were 30,000 Malay converts in total. Official figures are much lower, but many Malays convert secretly in order to avoid harassment.

Some converts report having gates rattled at midnight and phones tapped by the police. Others report visits from security police requesting them to stop all Christian activities -- including social work.

Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi recently addressed a meeting of the World Council of Churches, the first time he had spoken to an all-Christian audience. According to a report in the Australian Financial Review on August 4, Badawi gave an emotional appeal for Christians and Muslims to work together for the sake of peace and justice.

“In the eyes of many Muslims, events [since September 11, 2001] seem to lend credence to the view that the Christian West is, once again, at war with the Muslim world,” he told church representatives. He added that there was “less trust and goodwill between Islam and Christianity than there was a few years ago.”

That lack of trust seemed evident in a decision by Malaysia’s Film Censorship Board regarding the screening of Mel Gibson’s film, The Passion of the Christ. The National Christian Evangelical Fellowship of Malaysia lobbied for four months for the right to view the film. The Censorship Board eventually gave in; however the film was released for viewing by non-Muslims only.

Tickets are available through limited outlets, and identity cards -- showing the religion of the cardholder -- will be checked before patrons can see the film. Private screenings of the film began on August 11, although Reuters reported that pirate copies of the film were already circulating freely.

Some Muslim observers say the decision of the censors reflects a lack of confidence. “The ban implies that Malaysian Muslims’ devotion to Islam is tenuous and shallow; that we are easily seduced by religious beliefs,” wrote Rose Ismail, a columnist in the New Straits Times.

It seems Malaysia still has a long way to go on the road towards true religious freedom.

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***********************************Nigeria’s Christian Leaders Seek Government’s Intervention Persecution of Christians intensifies in Islamic states.by Obed Minchakpu

GUSAU, Nigeria, (Compass) -- Governor Alhaji Ahmed Sani of Zamfara state, who first introduced the Islamic legal system in Nigeria four years ago, is being accused by Zamfara’s Christians of religious persecution.

Christian leaders accuse the Zamfara state Islamic government of demolishing churches, forcing the Islamic dress code on Christians, closing Christian businesses during Muslim prayer periods, and charging exorbitant and discriminatory tuition fees in schools for Christian children. Also, some Christians have been imprisoned under claims of violating Islamic laws.

Recently, the Zamfara government said it would demolish all churches it marked as illegal structures in Gusau, the state capital, and other urban towns. Rev. Simon Bala, the Anglican bishop of Gusau and the chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Zamfara state, accused the government of Zamfara state of working to eliminate the Christian presence in the state. “It is our belief that sharia [Islamic law] is aimed at targeting churches in the state,” he explained. The bishop, who spoke with Compass on August 9, dismissed claims by the government that its decision to demolish churches was a way of correcting the Gusau township master plan.

“When was this master-plan drawn? When was it made public? What were the government regulatory bodies doing, when this master-plan was allegedly perverted?

“To us, by insisting that they would demolish churches that are legally built around the township and calling them illegal structures, the government is giving the impression that Christians who built these churches are lawless. It is an attempt to justify the persecution of the church,” he told Compass.

“What about the mosques that are dotted all over the town, some even in residential buildings? Will the sharia implementation committee demolish such mosques as illegal structures?” Bishop Bala asked.

Mr. Saidu Dogo, the secretary general of the Christian Association of Nigeria, northern Nigerian chapter, also feels that the implementation of the Islamic legal system in Zamfara and other northern states is targeted at eliminating Christians and their religion. He told Compass on August 10 in Kaduna that the Nigerian government needs to caution Muslim governors of the dangers of promoting religious fundamentalism.

“We are afraid. Many of our churches are already targets of the sharia policy. Many churches have already been demolished, and many more have been marked out to be pulled down by the government,” Dogo said.

On July 30, Mr. Emma Fred, a Christian businessman in Gusau town, was convicted of being in possession of alcohol. He was arrested by the Hisbah, a state Islamic agency in charge of enforcing Islamic tenets. An Islamic court forced him to pay a “massive fine” of 400,000 naira ($4,000) to avoid a six year jail term. Muslims convicted for the same offense face 80 strokes of the cane.

Nigerian Christian leadership has condemned the judgment, arguing that sharia law should apply only to Muslims. The Islamic law is being imposed on Christians despite initial claims by the twelve Islamic states in northern Nigeria that the law applies only to Muslims.

Also confronting Christians in the state is the imposition of an Islamic dress code. Alleging a series of complaints about indecent dress, the Zamfara state governor, Ahmed Sani, announced a dress code for Christian women. Sani said he called the Christian leadership to counsel Christian women to comply with the Islamic dress code, noting that Christianity encourages decent dressing. He stressed, “All what we are trying to do is to inculcate moral values among women.”

The Zamfara state government has formulated a new educational policy which discriminates against Christians, charging them higher tuition and fees. Information Commissioner Alhaji Ibrahim Danmaliki told journalists that 5,000 naira (about $50) were charged Christian primary school pupils per term. Christian girls in female primary schools will pay N10,000 (about $100) per term. Also, Christian students in government boarding secondary schools will pay N25,000 (about $250) per term while those in day secondary schools will pay N10,000 per term. Muslim students do not pay tuition fees in the state.

Danmaliki stated that primary school headmasters and principals of secondary schools were directed to enforce the new fee administration.

“We are calling on the federal government of Nigeria not to be indifferent … The government must act now to stop this wave of religious madness on the part of the Zamfara government,” Dogo pleaded.

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***********************************Officials in Saudi Arabia Visit Jailed Indian ChristianSolution promised within 15 days.by Barbara G. Baker

ISTANBUL, July 30 (Compass) -- Four months after he was tortured and jailed for “spreading Christianity” in Saudi Arabia, Indian Christian Brian O’Connor received his first official prison visits this week from the Indian Embassy and Saudi officials.

O’Connor, 36, was lured out of his home in Riyadh on March 25 and arrested by a group of Saudi muttawa (religious police), who beat him severely and then turned him over to the police, claiming he was dealing in drugs, alcohol and the spread of Christianity. He has been jailed ever since, without trial or any evidence of the accusations against him.

The Indian national acknowledged that he had led Bible studies among expatriate Christians in his home, but he refused attempts to persuade him to convert to Islam or sign a confession that he had been selling alcohol.

This week two representatives of O’Connor’s embassy came to visit him at Riyadh’s Al-Hair Jail, followed the next day by an official who said he represented the office of Prince Salman, governor of Riyadh.

On July 25, staff members who identified themselves as Mr. Narayan and Mr. Unni from the Indian Embassy’s Community Welfare Wing spent a half hour with O’Connor. The men asked the Indian national a few formal questions regarding his case, allowing him only a partial glance at his file they were carrying.

It was the Indian Embassy’s first meeting with O’Connor since he was transferred from police custody to Al-Hair Jail on April 4. When O’Connor asked why embassy staff had refused to meet with his friends who had gone to the embassy on his behalf, the officials declared they were unable to do otherwise because the embassy had to “go by the laws of the land.”

The following day, a Saudi national who declined to give his name visited O’Connor in his cell, questioning him in English about his case and taking pages of notes in Arabic. After asking what O’Connor expected from the Saudi government and his employer at this time, the visitor inquired whether any visible marks of torture remained on his body.

O’Connor told the visitor that the whip marks on his back and heavy bruises on his knuckles were no longer visible. He also stated that he did not want anything from the Saudi government, and that he was aware his company could do nothing for him.

“I have forgiven all who hurt and beat me,” he reportedly told the visitor. “I have forgiven even the muttawa who have put a false case of liquor against me and imprisoned me.”

After the Saudi had written down O’Connor’s comments in Arabic, he tried to get the Indian Christian to sign each page with his thumbprint. O’Connor started to do so but then refused, declaring that the muttawa had done the same thing, forcing him to sign a document which he couldn’t read and then sending him to jail instead of releasing him as they had promised.

Eventually, the visitor admitted that he had been sent by the office of Prince Salman, governor of Riyadh, to interview O’Connor and take his testimony.

At the end of the one-hour interview, the visitor told O’Connor that within 10 to 15 days’ time, he would either be sent back to his job or deported to India.

Employed by El Khereji Corporation as a cargo agent for Saudia Airlines, O’Connor has worked in the strict Gulf kingdom for the past six years. Two weeks ago his company

confirmed that they had handed over O’Connor’s passport, a return ticket for him to India and all other required documents and payments to the Saudi police in late March, right after his arrest.

A company executive also declared that O’Connor was not arrested for alleged sale of liquor. “The liquor case is a mere cover-up for what he has been taken in for,” the official said.

The prison visits came two weeks after the death on July 17 of O’Connor’s elderly father in Hubli, in the Karnataka State of India. Saudi authorities did not respond to the Indian prisoner’s request to expedite his release so he could attend his father’s funeral.

Just three days later, O’Connor was surprised when a member of the religious police came to his cell to inform him that a letter had come for him. The man proceeded to shove one letter after another under the door of the cell, until O’Connor had a stack of 150 letters and cards postmarked from the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States and China.

Although the letters were all addressed to him by name, O’Connor sent word out that he did not know any of these people who had written to tell him they were praying for him.

O’Connor told friends that he was shocked but “so happy” to get so many letters all in one day. None of his cellmates had ever gotten a letter while in prison, he said. One commented to him, “You have broken Al-Hair records.”

“I am confident that the Lord will turn this mess into a message and my test into a testimony,” O’Connor told a visitor last week.

Although Saudi government officials claim to exercise “practical tolerance” toward non-Muslims who worship privately in their homes, in legal terms freedom of religion does not exist within the kingdom.

***Photographs of Brian O’Connor and the Al-Hair Jail in Riyadh are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct for pricing and transmittal.

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***********************************Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court Ponders Anti-Conversion LawThe number of petitions slightly favors the proposed legislation.by Sarah Page

DUBLIN, August 10 (Compass) -- Religious tensions in Sri Lanka are running high as the Supreme Court considers a final verdict on the “constitutionality” of new laws

proposed to ban or restrict religious conversions. The court plans to release their judgment to the Sri Lankan Parliament by August 12.

Two separate laws have been proposed, one by the Buddhist Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU or National Heritage Party), and one by Ratnasiri Wickremanayake, the Minister of Buddhist Affairs. However, only one bill, the “Prohibition of Forcible Conversion of Religion Act” proposed by the JHU, has so far been tabled for debate in Parliament.

The JHU bill was tabled on July 21, giving opponents just seven days to formally present their concerns to the Supreme Court.

The draft anti-conversion bill proposed by the JHU states that, “No person shall convert or attempt to convert, either directly or otherwise, any person from one religion to another by the use of force or by allurement or by any fraudulent means, nor shall any person aid or abet any such conversions.”

Those found guilty under the terms of this Act would be subject to a maximum of seven years imprisonment and a maximum fine of 500,000 rupees ($5,027).

Objectors say the terms of the bill are too loosely defined. An article in the Sunday Leader on August 1 pointed out that a similar law adopted in Tamil Nadu, India, was dropped in May 2004. The Tamil Nadu law was widely criticized for its loose definition of terms such as “allurement” and “forced conversion” which allowed abuse of the law to settle personal vendettas.

Representatives from Christian, Buddhist and Hindu communities attended the Supreme Court sessions on Friday, August 6, and Monday, August 9, to present their petitions. According to reports in the Sunday Leader and the Lakbima, 22 petitions were filed by various groups and individuals against the bill, while 25 petitions were filed in support of it.

Those opposing the bill included Catholic and Anglican priests and bishops, Hindu organizations, civil societies and ordinary citizens.

One of the objectors was the Center for Policy Alternatives (CPA). Research Associate Asanga Welikala told the Sunday Leader that the new bill was unconstitutional. “The reason articles relating to freedom of thought and religious freedom are enshrined in any democratic bill of rights, like the Sri Lankan Constitution, is to protect the individual from any state machinations,” said Welikala, “particularly those that curtail his fundamental right to practice or propagate a religion of his choice.”

Other objectors agreed that the bill was unconstitutional and demanded that the Supreme Court clarify this issue before proceeding any further with the bill. If the bill was declared unconstitutional, a special parliamentary majority of 75 percent would be required for the bill to pass into law.

The debate centers around Article 9 of the constitution, in which the government of Sri Lanka is required to give Buddhism “the foremost place.” However, the same article says that while the state must protect and foster Buddhism, it must also assure “to all religions the rights granted by Articles 10 and 14(1)e.”

Article 10 states that, “Every person is entitled to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, including the freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice.”

Article 14(1)e reiterates those basic rights, saying that, “Every citizen is entitled to the freedom, either by himself or in association with others and either in public or in private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching.”

Petitioners on both sides of the debate have referred to these three articles in support of their arguments for and against the bill. They have also cited the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) which Sri Lanka signed in 1980. The ICCPR guarantees the right to freedom of religious belief and association.

Buddhists who presented petitions in support of the bill said conversions violated the right to freedom of thought and religion as guaranteed under Articles 10 and 14.

However, Christian groups, including the Catholic Bishops’ Conference, the National Council of Churches (representing mainline Protestant churches), and the National Christian Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka (NCEASL), have condemned and denied any involvement in forced conversions.

The NCEASL has also worked tirelessly to log a growing tally of violent attacks by Buddhist mobs against Christians on the island. By May 2004, the tally had climbed to over 150 attacks against churches and individuals since December 2003. A few of those attacks were directed against Catholic and other mainline churches.

Godfrey Yogarajah, general secretary of the NCEASL, says the proposed law is a violation of basic human rights, including religious expression. Under the terms of the bill, “all Christian social projects and humanitarian work can be considered inducement … The words ‘allurement,’ ‘fraudulent,’ and ‘force’ are very widely defined in the bill, and any ministry activity can be falsely categorized under one or more of the above words.”

Yogarajah also pleaded with those who support the bill to reconsider their position. “We are already fragmented racially,” he explained. “Do we need religious fragmentation as well?”

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***********************************Deranged Turk Attacks Diyarbakir Church Building’s zoning status still unclear.

by Barbara G. Baker

ISTANBUL, August 9 (Compass) -- An apparently deranged young Turk barricaded himself inside the Diyarbakir Evangelical Church in southeast Turkey on July 19, breaking windows and setting fire to curtains, Bibles and cassette tapes until dense smoke finally forced him to surrender to the police.

Identified as Medet Arslan, 27, the young man had stopped by the Protestant church that afternoon in Diyarbakir’s Lalebey district, where some of the church members offered him tea. As he sat and talked with them, he began to intersperse his conversation with loud quotes of Quranic verses, saying several times that he wanted to become a martyr.

Raising his voice, Arslan began shouting against the mistreatment of Muslims in Iraq, declaring he wanted to kill people and vowing to go to America and fight. Quickly one of the church staff left the fireside room where they were sitting and called the police.

Moments later the visitor pulled a long butcher knife out from under his coat and chased after a youth who dashed out of the room, managing to hold the door shut until keys were found to lock the man inside.

After several more telephone calls, local police arrived a half-hour later. Arslan barricaded the door, and the police proved unable to reason with him. Cursing loudly, the man began burning up New Testaments, bookshelves, curtains and whatever else he could find in the room. He also smashed and broke out all the windows in the room.

A fire truck finally came to the scene, where more than 20 police officers had gathered along with local press, but even hosing down Arslan through the windows failed to dissuade him from his standoff. It was only three hours later, when heavy smoke from burning cassette tapes and CDs filled the room, that the attacker begged to be let out of the room and allowed himself to be led away by the police.

“After the smoke cleared a little, we went in to find the fireside room charred and burnt books lying around in the water,” American Jerry Mattix told Compass. “The walls were black with soot and the stench stifling.”

According to Pastor Ahmet Guvener, who was not at the church building during the incident, police authorities later informed him that Arslan had been transferred to a mental hospital in Elazig shortly after the attack. The attacker reportedly had a history of mental problems, officials said.

The church sustained some $1,500 in damages from the attack, requiring them to replace the destroyed furnishings and books, repaint the room and install new windows.

Meanwhile, Diyarbakir’s first Protestant church in the history of the Turkish Republic continues to await a formal decision from Turkish authorities regarding its legal zoning status in the city.

Guvener won a landmark court decision in May, when the Diyarbakir courts dropped all charges against the pastor for opening an “illegal” church and confirmed the congregation’s constitutional right to conduct public and private worship.

But a local committee of the Turkish Ministry of Culture promptly rejected the church’s zoning application, informing the church verbally that their decision had been sent to Ankara for formal ratification.

Last week, the chairman of the Committee for the Preservation of Culture and Historical Sites in Diyarbakir told Guvener that his church’s zoning application had been approved by Ankara. “She read me the approval decision over the telephone,” Guvener said, “but then she said this approval was still awaiting ratification by the Ministry of Culture.” The church has yet to receive any written decision either denying or confirming its zoning status.

Although initial blueprints for the church were approved in 2001, the construction and approvals process has been dogged by various legal hurdles ever since. With a congregation of more than 50, the church has functioned openly since the building was completed in April 2003.

***Photographs of the July 19 siege and damage inflicted on the Diyarbakir Evangelical Church are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct for pricing and transmittal.

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***********************************Vietnam Pastor Remains in Police CustodyWife of jailed Mennonite allowed first visit since June arrest.Special to Compass Direct

HO CHI MINH CITY, July 30 (Compass) -- Seven weeks after his arrest during a police raid on his home in Ho Chi Minh City, Mennonite pastor Nguyen Hong Quang has been allowed his first visitors.

The unexpected visit occurred after Quang’s wife Le Thi Phu Quang wrote a letter to senior Vietnamese officials seeking permission to see her husband. Mrs. Quang, a university student and mother of three small children, explained that the confiscation of all the family’s money in the June 8 police raid has placed her in very difficult straits.

Citing a Vietnamese law that mandates family visitation within the first month of detention, Mrs. Quang appealed to the “humanitarian hearts” of the officials, asking them to grant her permission to visit and care for her husband. Mrs. Quang said she is

particularly concerned because her husband had been suffering from arthritis prior to his arrest.

On the same day her letter was posted, public security police and local officials came to the Quang home and searched the premises from 10:50 p.m. until after midnight. They also ordered six Mennonite workers evicted from the residence quarters in the building, which also houses church offices.

The following day, summonses for police interrogation arrived for Mrs. Quang, Mennonite evangelist Nguyen Thanh Tam and Mennonite missionary Truong Tri Hien.  Mrs. Quang refused to accept the latter summons because she does not know the whereabouts of Hien.

On the morning of July 28, Tam accompanied Mrs. Quang to the city police station at 3 Phan Dang Luu Street in Binh Thanh District. Upon arrival, officers asked them to authorize the opening of sealed pouches containing items from the Quang home and Mennonite church office confiscated in the June 8 raid. When Mrs. Quang requested to meet with her husband to get instructions on what she should do, the police took her and Tam -- to their surprise -- to Pastor Quang’s cell.

They said Pastor Quang looked thin and sickly and had an “ill color.” Tam and Mrs. Quang were unable to converse privately with him, due to the presence of several police officers. When police pressed the issue of opening the sealed pouches, Pastor Quang replied that only the one who signed the seals could witness their opening.

Because the missing Hien had signed most of the seals, the Quangs’ refused to authorize their opening. After the brief visit with her husband, Mrs. Quang returned home.

At 2 p.m. the same day, police again summoned Mrs. Quang and Tam to the station and pressed them to witness the opening of the seals.

The procedure would have allowed the police to examine all of Pastor Quang’s confiscated documents. Sources in Vietnam say that authorities are trying to build a case against Quang for possessing and distributing materials harmful to the state.  This crime, if classified as severe, carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

Meanwhile, four Mennonite evangelists arrested on March 2 have not been allowed visitors in nearly five months of detention. One of the evangelists who was badly beaten at the time of his arrest may have died of his injuries, some fear, and that may be the reason police have kept the prisoners incommunicado.

Mennonite Christians in several areas of Vietnam remain under extreme pressure. As the result of a campaign that began in December 2003 to expel ethnic minorities from the highlands of Kontum Province, the number of highlanders identifying themselves as Mennonite Christians has fallen from 11,386 to only 3,116.

In one location, at least 100 government cadres are squatting uncontested on land owned by Mennonites. “They are trying to drive all of us Christians away,” reports area overseer, Pastor Nguyen Cong Chinh.

On July 29, authorities declared illegal a simple thatch-roof structure long used for worship and are taking legal action against the congregation that uses the building.

Meanwhile, in an unusual move, the Vietnamese Mennonite Church in Philadelphia, acting on authority of the Lancaster Mennonite Conference of the Mennonite Church, U.S.A., ordained Nguyen Hong Quang in absentia on June 18. Though recognized for some time in his role as a Mennonite church leader, Quang -- like many house church leaders -- had not been formally ordained.

Mennonites around the world are beginning to engage various embassies in discussions about Quang and the fate of their fellow Mennonites in Vietnam. So far, they have made little progress. Vietnam’s foreign ministry representatives typically respond, they say, by simply repeating to them the official propaganda against Quang.

In September, the Mennonite Central Committee, an internationally respected relief and development organization, will mark 50 years of service to the Vietnamese people. Unfortunately, the fate of the Mennonite church in Vietnam could spoil that celebration.

***A photograph of Quang taken in July 2003 is available. Contact Compass Direct for pricing and transmittal.

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**********************************************************************COMPASS DIRECTGlobal News from the Frontlines

David Miller, Managing EditorGail Wahlquist, Editorial AssistantSuzi Quinones, Design

Bureau Chiefs:Barbara Baker, Middle EastSarah Page, Asia

For subscription information, contact:

Compass DirectP.O. Box 27250Santa Ana, CA 92799

USAPhone: 949-862-0314FAX: 949-752-6536E-mail: info@compassdirect.orgwww.compassdirect.org<p>