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PAKISTAN: COURT GRANTS CUSTODY OF GIRLS TO KIDNAPPERS
Christian parents lose daughters because minors converted to Islam; appeal pending.
ISTANBUL, July 18 (Compass Direct News) – A Pakistani couple has appealed a court decision to award custody of their two daughters, 10 and 13, to the children’s alleged kidnappers. The court based its custody decision on the girls’ conversion to Islam.
Judge Main Naeem Sardar ruled Saturday (July 12) that Saba Masih, 13, and Aneela Masih, 10, had become Muslims, invalidating their Christian parents’ right to legal guardianship.
“He said that because the parents are Christians and because the girls told the court that they adopted Islam, their relationship has ceased,” lawyer Rashid Rehman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) told Compass. Under a common interpretation of Islamic law, a Christian cannot have custody of a Muslim.
The sisters appeared in a Muzaffargarh District and Sessions court in the company of 16 Muslim men and were given five minutes to testify that their conversion was genuine, human rights activist Ashfaq Fateh said. It was the first time that Younis Masih and his wife had seen their daughters since they disappeared on June 26 while traveling to their uncle’s nearby home in Sarwar Shaheed, 150 miles southwest of Lahore.
Saba Masih told the court that she and her younger sister had been inspired by Islam and had run away to Muhammed Arif Bajwa, whom the parents say kidnapped the children near their uncle’s home. Stating her age as 17, Saba Masih said she had changed her name to Fatma Bibi, a traditional Muslim name, and married a Muslim man, Amjad Ali. Under Pakistani law a woman can marry without the approval of legal guardians at the age of 16.
“The judge did not give me even a minute to speak with my daughters,” Younis Masih told rights activist Ashfaq Fateh. “My girls have been with these men for the last 20 days; they have pressured them to change their minds.”
The children’s parents were neither allowed to testify nor submit birth certificates and school records as evidence of the girls’ true ages.
“Will she herself determine what her age is?” said lawyer Rehman, who appealed the case to the Lahore High Court’s branch in Multan city.
Justice Saghir Ahmed today summoned the two children and Saba Masih’s new husband Ali to an initial appeal hearing set for July 29. Rehman said he believed the court would only take into consideration the fact that the girls are minors and therefore legally belong with their mother.
After his two daughters disappeared last month, Younis Masih was summoned to the local police station on June 28. Muhammad Arif Bajwa and Ali had registered a case with police for custody of Masih’s daughters based on their conversion to Islam.
Station House Officer Imtiaz Chagwani refused the father’s request to register a kidnapping case.
Muzaffargarh SP Investigation official Chaudry Tajeen said he was unable to comment on why Chagwani refused to file the complaint when Compass contacted him yesterday. He confirmed that Chagwani has since been replaced by Munawar Gulzar at the Sarwar Shaheed police station, but was unavailable when Compass called back for further details.
Younis Masih fears that his daughters’ new guardians have sexually abused them and claims that the men run a prostitution ring. Lawyer Rehman said that though there is no hard evidence to prove these claims, the father’s fears are legitimate.
“Contracting marriage with a minor girl could mean that they want to have control of her with the intention of child prostitution or something else…” the lawyer said.
According to the HRCP’s most recent annual report on human rights in Pakistan, “crime against children, especially kidnapping,” remains a serious problem. In Muzaffargarh district, where Aneela and Saba Masih lived, 24 children were freed in March 2007 from a “mini-jail” at an Islamic seminary, where they had been tortured and sodomized, the HRCP reported.
According to Rehman, religious minorities are an easy target for kidnappers both because they are typically underprivileged and because of religious bias against them.
“Local police and judges have their subconscious mindset that if you help Muslims [in such cases], it’s a very noble cause and a very religious cause,” the lawyer said.
Christians make up less than 2 percent of Pakistan’s 168 million citizens.
Report from Compass Direct News
ALGERIA: ACCUSER IN BLASPHEMY CASE LINKED TO ISLAMISTS
There is no proof of charges, defense asserts; forgiveness offered to accuser.
ISTANBUL, July 18 (Compass Direct News) – Three Algerian Christians fighting a blasphemy sentence arrived at court in northwestern Algeria on Tuesday (July 15) to find that their hearing was postponed until October 21 because the presiding judge was on vacation.
Rachid Muhammad Essaghir, Youssef Ourahmane and a third man were charged in February with “blaspheming the name of the Prophet [Muhammad] and Islam” and threatening the life of a man who claimed to have converted to Christianity but who “returned” to Islam when his Islamic fundamentalist ties were exposed.
The three are just a few of the Christians under legal heat in a wave of trials this year against Algerian Christians on religion-based charges. In most cases the Christians have been charged under a presidential decree from February 2006 that restricts religious worship to government approved buildings. The decree, known as Ordinance 06-03, also outlaws any attempt to convert Muslims to another faith.
The international community has been vocal about the Algerian government’s stance toward Christians. More recently, on June 6, some 30 U.S. congressmen sent a letter to Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika addressing the violations of human rights against Christians in Algeria and their concern toward the 2006 Decree on non-Muslim worship that has resulted in the closures of churches and criminal charges against Christians.
Essaghir, an evangelist and church elder for a small community of Muslim converts to Christianity in Tiaret, has been one of the most targeted Christians in Algeria. In the last year he has received three sentences; one for blasphemy and two for evangelism. He and the other two Christians were handed a three-year suspended sentence along with a 500-euro fine each.
The convert and plaintiff, Shamouma Al-Aid, had professed Christianity from July 2004 through July 2006 when he attended a church near Oran city. It was there that he met the Christians, against whom he later filed the blasphemy complaint.
When the three accused Christians met Al-Aid, he claimed that his family and especially his older brother were persecuting him.
“We believed him and took him in,” said Ourahmane. “We took care of him; we helped him to do his baccalaureate.”
But in 2006 the Christians learned that Al-Aid in fact had links with Islamic fundamentalists.
“He was in touch with fanatics while with us. He used us to get money and information,” said Ourahmane.
After excommunicating Al-Aid, in October 2007 the three Christians were summoned by police, and Al-Aid registered his complaint that they had insulted the prophet Mohammad and Islam and threatened his life.
But the lawyer of the three Christians told Compass that Al-Aid has failed to produce evidence of his claims and hopes to clear them in October.
“He has no proof,” said the lawyer.
Ourahmane said that Al-Aid had shown the police some text messages to support his claims but that police said the number had not been registered with telecommunications services.
Just over a month ago, Al-Aid went to the church where Essaghir is an elder.
“He was screaming and saying all sorts of things,” said Ourahmane. “We felt that maybe [fundamentalists] sent him expecting that we would be harsh and beat him up.”
Instead, the church called police, who came and took Al-Aid and Essaghir to the police station.
“I think it was planned,” said Ourahmane. “I think he’s a bit weak psychologically, so they use him.”
Asked about Al-Aid’s mental state, the lawyer told Compass, “I don’t think he is crazy, perhaps strange… perhaps there are others who are controlling him.”
The accuser told Compass by telephone that he was not ready to speak. “My story is long,” Al-Aid said.
Ourahmane said that before heading to court in Ain El-Turck west of Oran on Tuesday morning for the first scheduled appeal, he had spoken with Al-Aid, telling him that he was forgiven, that the accused still loved him and that he shouldn’t worry.
Constitutional Contradiction
The three accused men’s lawyer, who asked to be unnamed for security reasons, said that although Christians are protected by the country’s constitution to believe as they wish, the court can interpret the law based on Islamic laws.
“There is a contradiction there,” he said.
Though no Christian has yet served jail time on religious charges, several still on trial or appealing their convictions have said that negative publicity has damaged their businesses and family life. The government’s handing of suspended sentences also allows the government to save face before human rights advocates by showing its prison cells empty of Christian “convicts,” say experts on Algeria.
In response to criticism, government officials have said that Christians are subject to the same legal restrictions as those imposed on Muslims in the Muslim-majority nation.
They claimed last week that Protestant evangelists were seeking to divide Algeria by using conversions to create a new religious minority.
Report from Compass Direct News
INDONESIA: RELIGIOUS TENSIONS RISE IN WEST PAPUA
Authorities must act now to prevent Malukan-style conflict, report says.
DUBLIN, July 14 (Compass Direct News) – Authorities in West Papua, Indonesia, must move fast to prevent tension between Christian and Muslim communities escalating into a Malukan-style conflict, according to a recent report by the International Crisis Group (ICG).
The neighboring Maluku islands erupted into bitter sectarian warfare between 1999 and 2002, leaving thousands dead, injured or homeless.
While the conflict in West Papua dates back to Indonesia’s takeover of the region in 1963, several developments from the beginning of the decade have heightened tension in recent months, according to ICG’s June 16 report, “Communal Tensions in Papua.”
New, less tolerant strands of Islam and Christianity have gained influence since 2002, creating fissures within and between religious communities, the report claims. Also, faith issues have acquired a political dimension, since many Papuan Christians believe a Special Autonomy Law passed in 2001 was too limited, while Muslim migrants firmly support centralized rule from Jakarta and accuse Christians of separatism.
Most importantly, an influx of Muslim migrants, initially sponsored by the government, has changed demographics in the region, with Papuan Christians now fearing they will become a minority.
Indonesian troops and special police forces assigned to the region to quell independence movements have tortured and sometimes executed Christians suspected of involvement with the Free Papua Movement, according to other reports from local human rights organizations.
Manokwari: Trouble in ‘Gospel City’
Two incidents covered in the ICG report illustrate the potential for violence. In May, church leaders in the city of Manokwari – commonly referred to as “Gospel City” – circulated the second draft of a regulation designed to protect Christian values and traditions, drawing heavy criticism.
The “Regulation on Designating Villages for Mental Spiritual Guidance” came in response to a proposed mosque building project on Mansiman Island, considered the “birthplace” of Christianity in the region since the first two missionaries to West Papua landed there in 1855.
A local politician first proposed building a Grand Mosque and Islamic study center on the island in 2005. Uproar followed, with Christians asking whether Muslims would be offended if the most visible landmark in the deeply Islamic province of Aceh was a church.
The Manokwari District Interchurch Cooperation Board issued a statement decrying the “discriminatory and unjust” stance of the national government towards Christianity, pointing to a total of 991 attacks against Christians, churches and individuals throughout Indonesia dating back to 1949; trauma suffered by Christians in conflict areas such as the Malukus, and legal discrimination against churches under a 1969 Joint Ministerial Decree (SKB) regulating the establishment of places of worship.
Civil authorities then rejected the building proposal submitted by the mosque committee, citing objections from church leaders.
In response, Muslims claimed that Islam had come to Papua long before Christian missionaries arrived. One Muslim also told ICG that the rejection of a “house of Allah” provided grounds for jihad.
Jihadi groups outside Papua were quick to offer assistance. Three Javanese followers of the infamous Abu Bakar Ba’asyir traveled to Manokwari in December 2005 and drew up a hit list of 38 pastors leading the campaign against the Great Mosque. A similar group from the Malukus arrived in January 2006, but local Muslims turned both groups away.
The Evangelical Christian Church (GKI) of Papua decided in February 2006 that a regulation should be adopted to preserve Manokwari’s status as the Gospel City. In March the GKI circulated a first draft of the “Regulation on Implementing Mental Spiritual Guidance.” Muslims believed the draft law referred to the proselytizing and conversion of Muslims, which further inflamed tensions.
Both Muslim and Christian leaders denounced the draft regulation, but it became a national issue, with major Muslim newspapers portraying it as an attack on Islam. Another jihadi group, the Laskar Jundullah in South Sulawesi, briefly discussed launching a new jihad in Manokwari, spreading rumors that the draft regulation was a foreign plot to combine Maluku and Papua into a single independent Christian state.
On the contrary, Christians fear they will be increasingly marginalized in the region, according to John Barr, general secretary for the international mission wing of the Uniting Church in Australia.
“Christianity came to West Papua more than 100 years ago, and most Papuans eagerly adopted it to the point that Christianity reinforces and now underlines their identity,” he told Compass. “Where Papuan culture appears to be in the process of being eroded, Christianity serves to maintain local values and provide Papuans with a strong sense of who they are.”
Formally declaring Manokwari a Gospel City is an attempt to address this despair, he explained. “It’s an attempt to be proactive about the future.”
Kaimana’s Iron Christmas Tree
Tensions also erupted unexpectedly last year in Kaimana, a district historically known for religious tolerance, with Christians sitting on mosque development committees and Muslims assisting in the construction of churches, according to ICG.
In October 2007, during the Muslim celebration of Ramadan, the Protestant Church of Indonesia in Papua (GPI) scheduled a fund-raising concert at a school situated between two mosques. Muslims were incensed when plans for the concert emerged, but mosque leaders averted a clash by asking GPI to reschedule the event for 9 p.m., after evening prayers.
In December 2007, GPI leaders erected an iron Christmas tree crowned with a Star of David in a public park near the town center, claiming they had a permit to do so from the deputy district head. Local Muslims were furious, and a crowd quickly gathered. Rumors spread that Christian neighborhoods would be attacked and panic took hold, with some Christians fleeing into the jungle.
District head Hasan Achmad intervened and negotiated a compromise; the tree could remain in the park until January 21.
Tensions remained high, however, with GPI leaders calling an emergency meeting on December 28 following rumors of impending attacks on Christians. The rumors came to nothing, and on January 21 the GPI reluctantly complied with orders to remove the tree. By then, however, mutual trust and acceptance had been shattered.
Both Sides Aggrieved
ICG concludes that potential for communal conflict is high because both sides consider themselves aggrieved.
In some areas, local governments have controlled tensions by pairing a Papuan Christian district leader with a non-Papuan Muslim deputy. This has proved effective in some areas, but not all, the report stated.
ICG suggests that in areas where conflict is greatest, indigenous Papuan Muslim organizations such as the Papuan Muslim Council might play a bridging role.
Other West Papua observers such as Barr and Elizabeth Kendal of the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) believe ICG’s report is a useful analysis but somewhat biased toward the Muslim point of view.
In her analysis, Kendal remarked on ICG’s unquestioning acceptance of Muslim claims that Islam came first to West Papua, and that Christian colonialists then proceeded to obliterate all traces of Islam, despite no evidence that Islam ever became popular in the region. She also criticized the report for suggesting that the development of indigenous Muslim scholars and teachers was a realistic solution to the problem.
“The report forecasts that if Muslim-versus-Christian clashes do erupt, they will remain localized,” Kendal added. “I do not agree with that assessment. The jihadist groups, the pro-Indonesian militias and in particular the Indonesian military are looking for an excuse to unleash violent repression and ethnic-religious cleansing. Any clash therefore has incendiary potential.”
Outside Influences
According to ICG, there are multiple reasons for the breakdown in trust throughout West Papua.
New strands of Christianity and Islam began arriving in West Papua early this decade, bringing voices not necessarily in tune with the traditional tolerance of Papuans. Salafism, an ultra-Puritan method of practicing Islam, eventually made it to Papua after spreading rapidly through Indonesia in the 1990s. Some Papuan Muslims who had studied elsewhere in Indonesia or in the Middle East also returned with new, less tolerant interpretations of their faith.
Newer evangelical churches such as the Congregation of the Holy Way, Bethel and Bethany churches began to hold mass religious rallies, locally known as KKRs, in public places. Often these meetings featured testimonies from Muslim converts. Muslim residents objected to the KKRs and responded by publicly questioning basic tenets of the Christian faith, such as the divinity of Jesus, further compounding tensions.
An influx of both Christian and Muslim refugees from the neighboring Maluku islands brought its own problems, with refugees sharing personal accounts and video clips of bloody confrontations in Ambon and Seram. Video clips of beheadings in Iraq also circulated on cell phones, reinforcing negative images of Islam in some circles.
Human rights organizations began to report sightings of jihadi groups and training camps in West Papua. ICG’s report contends that most if not all of these “jihadis” were members of a non-violent Islamic missionary group, Jemaah Tabligh, active in Papua since 1988. Jemaah Tabligh members dress as the Moluccan Laskar Jihad members do, with men in white robes and turbans and women in full veils rather than headscarves.
Kendal, who analyzed ICG’s report for the WEA, noted that the source who rejected reports of jihadi sightings was identified in the footnotes as a “Muslim activist.”
Ja’far Umar Thalib, the leader of Laskar Jihad, admitted that some of his men arrived in Papua in late 2000 to assess “the needs of Muslims.” Thalib then sent approximately 200 men to Papua in 2001 to “crush” the Papuan independence movement, which he claimed was a Christian conspiracy to secede from Indonesia and form a Christian state.
Changing Demographics
The Indonesian government launched a migration program in 1975 that brought an influx of Muslim citizens into the mostly Christian territory of West Papua, sparking Papuan fears of a religious takeover. The program ended in 1985, but migration continued; of approximately 2.5 million inhabitants of West Papua today, 1 million are migrants.
Officially, Christians still make up about 56 percent of the total population and 95 percent of the indigenous population in West Papua, according to Jim Elmslie of the West Papua Project at the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney, Australia. But both communities dispute these figures. Christians claim the number of Muslim migrants is deliberately downplayed, while Muslims claim authorities have combined animist and Christian populations to project a Christian majority.
When the Indonesian government took control of the region in 1963, it passed a new law declaring all land and natural resources property of the Indonesian state. This measure gave migrants and multinational oil companies access to Papuan ancestral lands, sparking angry demonstrations from indigenous landowners, many of them Christians.
Toward a Solution
While potential for conflict is high, Barr said a church-sponsored human rights group, ELSHAM, is already conducting workshops in peace education and conflict resolution, and churches have worked hard to rectify abuses of both Muslim and Christian communities.
This has occasionally put Christians at risk. For example, Kendal reports that in January 2007, Indonesian police occupied the headquarters of the indigenous Kingmi church in Jayapura, accusing the Rev. Benny Giay and the Rev. Noakh Nawipa of engineering an attack on a gold and copper mine in August 2002 in support of the independence movement. Giay and Nawipa rejected the allegations and said they were targeted because of their non-violent work for peace and justice in West Papua.
“ICG’s report does raise critical questions,” Barr concluded. “Papua is part of Indonesia, and Christians need to live alongside Muslims in a harmonious society. The alternative is horrific, and the Malukus bear witness to this.”
Timeline of Events in West Papua, Indonesia
1419
An Indian trader brought Islam to Papua on this date, according to a Papuan Muslim preacher. Other scholars claim the Bacan sultanate in North Maluku brought Islam to Papua in 1569.
1855
Two German missionaries landed on Mansiman Island, off the coast of Manokwari in West Papua.
1963
Dutch colonialists handed the territory of West Papua (then known as West Irian Jaya) to the United Nations, which then gave it to Indonesia on condition that a referendum on integration be held by December 1969. Following the takeover, Indonesia passed a new law declaring all West Papuan land and natural resources as the property of the Indonesian state.
1969
Under the ”Act of Free Choice,” 1,025 hand-picked West Papuans voted unanimously – under great duress – for integration with Indonesia.
1975
Indonesia’s Suharto government launched a migration program that would last until 1985. Thousands of Indonesian Muslims migrated to West Papua, both under this program and through voluntary migration.
May 1998
The Suharto government collapsed, sparking independence demonstrations in Papua.
1999 – 2002
Violent conflict in the Maluku islands sparked a refugee influx into West Papua. Jihadi groups also established a limited presence in West Papua.
2001
Indonesia granted limited autonomy to West Papua with a Special Autonomy Law; today, many provisions of this law have yet to be implemented.
November 2001
Indonesian Special Forces abducted and murdered popular Papuan leader Theys Eluay.
December 2003
The Indonesian government appointed Timbul Silaen to head the police force in West Papua. U.N. prosecutors had previously indicted Silaen for his role in war crimes and crimes against humanity while he headed the Indonesian police force in East Timor in 1999.
September 2005
A politician in Manokwari promised Muslim voters that he would build a Grand Mosque and Islamic study center on Mansiman Island.
October 2005
Civic authorities rejected an application for the Grand Mosque building project.
November 2005
Christians in Manokwari demonstrated against the construction project.
December 2005
Jihadis from Java arrived in West Papua and draw up a hit list of 38 pastors who campaigned against the mosque project. Local Muslims rejected their offer of assistance.
January 2007
Police accused the indigenous Papuan Kingmi church of being the religious arm of the Free Papua Movement (OPM).
March 2007
Church leaders in Manokwari outlined a draft “Regulation on Implementing Mental Spiritual Guidance,” creating a national uproar.
December 2007
Christians in Kaimana erected an iron Christmas Tree topped with a Star of David in a public park, infuriating local Muslims.
January 2008
Christians removed the Christmas Tree from the park as agreed in a meeting with town leaders.
May 2008
Church leaders in Manokwari circulated a second draft of their “Regulation on Designating Villages for Mental Spiritual Guidance.”
April 2008
Christians celebrated the 100th anniversary of local Christianity. In the same month, Muslims held a seminar entitled “Awakening of Irian Muslims” to assert the prior arrival of Islam in West Papua.
Report from Compass Direct News
PAKISTAN: GIRLS KIDNAPPED, ALLEGEDLY FORCED TO CONVERT
Condition and whereabouts of two sisters, 12 and 10, unknown.
ISTANBUL, July 11 (Compass Direct News) – A Christian father in Pakistan is in a legal battle with kidnappers for the custody of his pre-teen daughters, who allegedly have been forced to convert to Islam.
Yesterday a judge in Pakistan’s Punjab province ordered further investigation into the kidnapping of Saba Younis, 12, and Aneela Younis, 10, who went missing on June 26 in the small town of Chowk Munda. The kidnappers filed for custody of the girls at the local police house on June 28, stating that the sisters had converted to Islam and their father no longer had jurisdiction over them.
When the father of the two girls, Younis Masih, was summoned to the police house to testify, police initially refused to file a case against the kidnappers – Muhammed Arif, Abjad Ali, taxi driver Muhammed Asraf and an unidentified fourth man – who are known to belong to a powerful human trafficking ring. Instead, human rights activists told Compass, Masih was told to “remain silent,” as the officers said the girls had embraced Islam in a written statement.
It was not until yesterday that, with the help of advocates and the Human Rights and Minorities Affairs Ministry, Masih filed an official complaint at the local police house.
The lawyer of the Christian family, Khalil Tahir, said that the kidnappers have likely raped and sold the two minors to a brothel. Local residents regard the men as serial kidnappers.
Many details about the condition and whereabouts of the girls remain unconfirmed, and the family has not had contact with them. Tahir said the perpetrators did not bring the kidnapped girls forward to the hearing yesterday.
“Perhaps they have been raped,” Tahir said. “We’ve had no contact with the girls.”
Tahir, a human rights activist as well as a lawyer, said that in Pakistan minors cannot be coerced into changing their faith. Also a member of the Provincial Assembly, Tahir said that if the District Police Officer (DPO) did not cooperate and file the case in his station, he would take immediate action.
“I’m trying to contact the District Police Officer about the registration of the criminal case,” said Tahir. “They have not yet registered the case. It is the duty of the DPO to register the case, but he’s failing to perform his duty, so I’m trying to contact him or else I’ll take it to the high court.”
Ashfaq Fateh, a Christian advocate who established contact with Masih this week, said that the girls’ Catholic family had not received threats for their faith. He asserted, however, that the kidnapping was a religious matter.
“Being weaker and belonging to the Christian community, the girls were kidnapped,” he said.
Saba and Aneela Younis, the youngest of eight children, were kidnapped while on their way to see their uncle.
“The kidnapping of my daughters has made me feel insecure in the country,” Masih told Fateh in a telephone conversation. “My Muslim countrymen think we [Christians] are not human beings. They think we do not have dignity.”
“This happens every day,” Tahir said of the kidnappings of Pakistani children and unjust treatment toward Christians, “because we are marginalized and downtrodden people.”
Report from Compass Direct News
IRAN: JAILED CHRISTIAN IN CRITICAL CONDITION
Authorities Launch New Wave of Arrests, Violence in Past 10 Days
ISTANBUL, July 30 (Compass Direct News) – A diabetic Iranian Christian jailed for two months is in critical condition due to lack of medical treatment, even as new reports of arrests against Christians surfaced this week.
The Iranian government has ratcheted up pressure in the last two weeks on underground churches in what seems to be a concerted effort to hound Christians and discourage their meetings throughout the country, sources told Compass.
At the same time, friends of imprisoned Christians Mahmood Matin, 52, and Arash Bandari, 44, a diabetic, are eagerly waiting for a phone call from authorities this week that would secure their release even if it means paying bail. Both prisoners have become frail from more than two months in prison, but the condition of Bandari is critical.
Converts to Christianity, Matin and Bandari were arrested on May 15 on suspicion of “apostasy,” or leaving Islam.
To complicate matters, a draft bill of an “apostasy law,” which would bind judges to sentence to death Muslim converts to Christianity, makes their immediate release crucial, say experts.
After two months of solitary confinement at a secret police detention center known by its address, Sepah Street 100, located in the center of Shiraz, Matin and Bandari were placed in a cell together around July 15, sources told Compass. The absence of any medical treatment, however, has taken its toll on Bandari.
Matin, who secured a few minutes of time with his wife on July 22 in order to get toiletries, said that Bandari’s health was declining rapidly with the lack of treatment and proper care.
“He is severely ill; he’s not doing well,” confirmed a source.
Matin has lost much weight and is said to look weak, though he was not allowed to talk about his condition and treatment in the prison, where he has been held with Bandari since their arrest.
On July 22 a lawyer agreed to take up Matin’s case and ask for his release. It is not clear yet if Bandari will receive legal counsel from the same lawyer. Matin’s lawyer expressed concern about the length of time the two prisoners have been held without charges and said that the clock is ticking against them.
“They have to get out as soon as possible, or else the case will be heavier, and it will be more difficult to get them out,” a friend of the family told Compass. Experts on Iran explained that it is crucial for the prisoners to be released before they appear in court. Lower level police often arrest Christians to extort money from them and release them with no charges. But if a case goes to court, charges are pressed against the Christians, who are then at the mercy of religious judges.
“Once the case is decided and the court has made a decision, it would be hard for them to get out,” said a source. The apostasy bill under discussion, if passed, would mean certain death if Bandari and Matin were charged with apostasy.
Christians in Iran are fasting and praying in hopes that the two men will be freed soon.
“We don’t know, in the first place, why they have been kept so long, we don’t know what the charges are,” said one friend of the family.
The friend called for the churches to pray that any false accusations be lifted, “and for protection, because we don’t know exactly what’s happening inside. We don’t know how they’re being treated.”
Most other imprisoned Christians in Iran have been released with bail. Bandari and Matin are two of three Christians known to be still held in prison.
The third, Mohsen Radfar, was arrested while traveling to Tehran on July 12. His whereabouts and condition are unknown. Radfar, from the province of Kerman in central Iran, is a well-known film director in the region and has worked as a theater and cinema critic.
News Wave of Arrests
The same day Radfar was arrested, police got word that 12 Christians would be traveling to Armenia via Tehran and arrested them at the Kerman airport in south-central Iran as they were trying to leave.
Although the 12 Christians were freed the same night, sources reported that their houses were searched and that police confiscated all Christian materials.
In the past 10 days, Iran’s Christians have reported a wave of arrests in four cities. Christians attending house churches in Bandar Abbas on the southern coast, in Isfahan 334 kilometers (207 miles) south of Tehran, and in Sanandaj and Kermanshah on the Iraqi border were arrested. Sources told Compass that Christians in these cities were held anywhere from one day to a week by the government.
“So that means maybe the government has started a mission again against Christian activity,” said a source. “They’ve started a new strategy probably. Because it is not just an accident that all this is happening in different cities at the same time; they had worked on it before, and they planned to move against house churches.”
On Saturday (July 26), secret police raided a service in Isfahan. Among 16 Christians arrested were six women and two children under the age of 18. They are being held in an undisclosed location, reported Farsi Christian News Network.
During the raid, police beat the elderly couple hosting the meeting so severely that they were taken to the Sharieti Hospital with injuries.
Report from Compass Direct News