NO MORE POSTS OR UPDATES - GONE TO WORDPRESS
I will no longer be posting to this Blog site as I have permanently moved to my Wordpress site - it has been a while coming. All of my posts are now located there. Visit the new Blog site at:
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
BBBBRRRRRRRR ITS COLD
It has to be the coldest day this winter here on the Mid North coast of New South Wales, Australia. I know I felt extremely cold today and I don’t normally feel the cold all that much. It was truly winter today and that for the first time really in more than one winter season.
The high today at Tea Gardens was 9 degrees Celsius – the coldest day that I can remember in a long time. Not only that, there was also a cold wind blowing and a fair bit of rain around as well. A real blast of winter today, that’s for sure.
There was a fair bit of snow around the state today as well, with snow in the Barrington Tops and near Walcha, to just name a couple of areas.
More of the rain and winter weather tomorrow as well.
Still – I haven’t felt the need to stop wearing my work shorts at work yet. Perhaps I’m a glutton for punishment!
SONNY BILL WILLIAMS OUTRAGE
Finally the NRL is taking an extremely tough stand on players that breach their contracts. Sonny Bill Williams, as I mentioned in an earlier post today, has walked out on the Canterbury Bankstown Bulldogs to play rugby in France on a 2 year $3 million dollar contract.
The NRL is threatening to ban Williams for life if he takes up the Rugby Union contract in France and have also appealed to the Rugby Union authorities in France to not allow Williams to play union until such time as his current Rugby League contract runs its normal course.
Understandably his Canterbury team mates are in shock and extremely disappointed in Williams. They believe he has let them all down, especially since he left without any warning.
IRAN: TORTURED CHRISTIAN FLEES
'I have no doubt they wanted to kill me,' says former Muslim.
ANKARA, July 21 (Compass Direct News) – Days after his release from a month of interrogations and severe torture under secret police custody, Iranian Christian Mohsen Namvar has fled across the border into Turkey with his family.
Traveling by train, the badly beaten Christian arrived July 2 in eastern Turkey with his wife and son.
Namvar, 44, had been held incommunicado by a branch of Sepah (the Iranian Revolutionary Guards) from May 31 until June 26, when authorities told his family they were releasing him "temporarily."
Although the secret police demanded $43,000 in bail, officers refused to issue a court receipt for the family's cash payment.
At the time of his release, Namvar was experiencing fever, severe back pain, extremely high blood pressure, uncontrollable shaking of his limbs and recurring short-term memory loss.
"I have no doubt they wanted to kill me," Namvar told Compass.
According to Namvar, who converted from Islam to Christianity as a teenager, his severe physical mistreatment stemmed from his refusal to give the police any names or information about other converts and house church groups in Iran.
In the spring of 2007, he had been arrested and severely tortured with electrical shocks, allegedly for baptizing Muslims who had become Christians. Three months after back surgery for those injuries, he regained the ability to walk, but still suffered pain and discomfort.
Namvar presented himself last week to the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Ankara to apply for status as an asylum-seeker.
He and his family were assigned by the UNHCR to relocate in one of 30 designated satellite cities in Turkey, where he is required to sign in daily at the local police station. They must wait 11 months, until June 8, 2009, for a UNHCR interview in which they will detail their reasons for requesting asylum.
"We are tired in our minds, and very sad," Namvar's wife said after learning they must wait nearly a year in Turkey before even presenting her husband's case. "We were under so much pressure in Iran, and again we are facing it here."
While her husband was under arrest, she had been subjected to a second police ransacking of their home, repeated telephone calls filled with slander and death threats and one attempt to kidnap their son from his school.
Namvar said he was surprised that the interviewing officer at the UNHCR spent only six minutes registering information from their passports. Following standard UNHCR protocol, the official did not ask why they had fled from their country, nor did he collect copies of documents they had brought concerning his case.
Nearly 15,000 applications for refugee or asylum status are now in process at the Ankara office, which is the largest UNHCR center in Europe apart from the Geneva headquarters.
"But even if they have strong evidence for their case, at best it takes three to four years for someone to be resettled through our office," UNHCR external affairs officer Metin Corabatir told Compass.
Police Pressures
Although he earned his living as a miner, Namvar had been active in preaching and teaching the message of Christ across northern Iran since the early 1990s.
His first brush with the authorities came when he was caught in 2001 giving out Christian literature at a gas station. "I spent three days in jail," he recalled.
After that, local police demanded that he obtain permission each time he wanted to enter the city near his home, in effect banning him from the region.
"The police created a very bad atmosphere there against us," Namvar said, "so no one would even respond to our greetings on the street."
Because of this, Namvar moved his family to Tehran. But he was unable to find work, due to his police record and the requirement on all job applications to state his religion.
For the past seven years, he has supported himself by translating books from English into Farsi, while continuing to visit and minister among various house church groups.
"I never knew God until Jesus showed Himself to me in a dream," Namvar said, recalling his conversion to Christianity 29 years ago. "But ever since then, I have followed Jesus and told others about Him."
Under Iran's hardline Shiite government, a Muslim who converts to Christianity has committed apostasy, which is punishable by death.
Iranian Christians Mahmood Matin and Arash Bandari have been jailed since May 15 in Shiraz, where they were arrested on "suspicion" of apostasy.
Under a draft law under discussion this month in the Iranian parliament, the "optional" death penalty now in force for apostasy would become obligatory.
Report from Compass Direct News
IRAN: EX-MUSLIMS DETAINED FOR APOSTASY
Police interrogate converts to Christianity about faith, political activity.
ISTANBUL, July 9 (Compass Direct News) – Iranian authorities have detained two converts to Christianity in the southern city of Shiraz for eight weeks on suspicion of “apostasy,” or leaving Islam. In Iran, apostasy is a crime that can be punishable by death.
Mahmood Matin, 52, and Arash Bandari, 44, remain imprisoned in a secret police detention center known by its address, Sepah Street 100, located in the center of Shiraz since their arrest on May 15 (previously reported as May 13).
A draft penal code under discussion in Iran’s parliament this month may make the death penalty obligatory for those who leave Islam or use the Internet to encourage others to do so (see below).
During a visit on June 24, Matin’s wife was able to speak with him for five minutes as officials listened in, a source told Compass. Seated in a dimly lit room behind a glass window, the prisoner told his wife that there had been a misunderstanding and that he could not teach Christianity any more.
“They are pushing me to tell them that I am connected to a church outside [Iran] and that I am receiving a salary, but I told them that I am doing it on my own,” he told his wife, according to a source who requested anonymity for security reasons.
Despite Matin’s claims that he was being well treated, his wife told the source she believed otherwise.
“He was just trying to make me calm; that’s what I could see because he’s my husband and I know his face,” Matin’s wife said, according to the source. The source said that Matin was not even aware where he was being held until his wife told him during the visit.
The June 24 meeting was the first and only face-to-face contact Matin’s family has had with him since his arrest in May.
Matin and Bandari were detained with 13 other Muslim converts to Christianity while meeting together in a park in Shiraz. Police confiscated the group’s cell phones and “temporarily” released everyone except Matin and Bandari over the subsequent days.
According to the source, the 13 have been told they have an ongoing court case against them. They remain under house arrest and have been called in for questioning about alleged political activity and Christian faith.
Officials have not informed the 13 released Christians of the specific charges against them. But the nature of their questioning has led them to believe that they are suspected of apostasy and political crimes against the government.
Matin telephoned his wife several weeks after his arrest to tell her that he had been charged with apostasy and to request that she acquire a lawyer to take his case. But on June 22, she received a call from an official telling her that Matin did not need legal representation and inviting her to visit her husband in Shiraz.
“The caller did not say who they were, just that they were from the secret police and that the family could visit Matin on June 24 between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m.,” the source said. He said that Matin’s wife traveled 17 hours by bus from her home in Tehran to visit her jailed husband.
Matin has had no further contact with his wife and three children, ages 22, 18 and 12, since the June 24 jail visit.
Mandatory Death for ‘Apostates’ Debated in Parliament
ISTANBUL, July 9 (Compass Direct News) – A penal code that would mandate the death penalty for those who promote corruption, prostitution and apostasy even on the Internet is expected to go to debate soon in Iran’s parliament.
If passed, the penal code drafted last January would require execution of any Muslim who converts to Christianity. Under sharia (Islamic) law, apostasy is one of several “crimes” that can be punishable by death, although Islamic court judges are not required to hand down such a sentence.
The draft of the penal code under consideration explicitly sets death as a fixed punishment that cannot be changed, reduced or annulled.
Many believe that the government intends to use the proposed penal code to clamp down on the surge in conversions in Iran over the last few years. Commentators have called the surge a “mass exodus” from Islam, which in its Iranian Shiite version imposes harsh limitations on lifestyle and personal freedoms.
On July 2 Iran’s Members of Parliament voted to discuss as a priority the draft bill that seeks to “toughen punishment for harming mental security in society,” Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported last week. The news agency noted that the draft bill also includes the death penalty for “establishing weblogs and sites promoting corruption, prostitution and apostasy.”
According to the current penal code, the death sentence is already applicable to rape, adultery and armed robbery, among other crimes. The draft adds apostasy and cyber-crimes to the list and stipulates that those convicted of these crimes should be punished as “mohareb” (enemy of God) and “corrupt on the earth,” according to AFP.
Over the last few years, the Internet and media such as television have been conduits of information on Christianity and are feared as sources of “corruption” of the Iranian people. The Internet is widely used in Iran despite restricted access for thousands of websites with “immoral” content or content – including Christian ones – deemed as insulting religion and promoting political dissent.
The number of executions in Iran reached 317 last year, up from 177 recorded by Amnesty International in 2006. Human rights organizations have criticized Iran for making excessive use of the death penalty, but Tehran insists it is an effective deterrent that is carried out only after an exhaustive judicial process, reported the AFP.
In a statement earlier this year, the European Union (EU) criticized the penal code draft and particularly Section Five on the death penalty for apostasy. The EU said this section and other parts of the code violated Tehran’s commitments under international human rights conventions.
Christians in particular have suffered persecution in Iran since the Islamic revolution in 1979. No converts to Christianity have been convicted of “apostasy” since international pressure forced officials to drop the death sentence of Christian convert Mehdi Dibaj in 1994. But in the years following the convert’s release, Dibaj and four other Protestant pastors, including converts and those working with converts, have been brutally murdered.
The murderers of the Christians have never been brought to justice, and local believers suspect the government played a role in the killings.
Christian converts are regularly arrested and imprisoned without due process, tortured and placed under surveillance. Muslims who have embraced Christianity have no right to practice their newfound faith, and the printing of the Bible in Farsi, the national language, has been banned.
Report from Compass Direct News