COMPASS DIRECTGlobal News from the Frontlines

May 17, 2002 E-Mail Version

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 2002 Compass Direct

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

CHINA(1) ‘New’ Religious Policy -- Same Old StoryLeaked provincial regulations are a revamp of previous rules.

(2) China’s Anti-Cult Campaign in ContextDifficulties abound in sorting out a confusing situation.

COLOMBIA(3) A Big MistakeColombian guerrillas appear uninterested in kidnapping evangelical missionaries.

(4) A Conversation with a Colombia Kidnap Survivor***Ray Rising spent 810 days in captivity.

(5) Pastor Kidnapped Near MedellinChurch waits for demands from Colombian guerrillas.

EGYPT(6) Coptic Mother Yearns to End Legal Battles***Jailed ‘convert’ husband not yet arraigned.

ETHIOPIA(7) Churches AttackedActive Christian outreach programs raise Muslim tensions.

INDIA(8) Extremists Call for Extermination of Muslims and Christians in GujaratIndia’s ‘laboratory of fascist Hinduism’ is embroiled in communal riots.

(9) Protestant Church Viciously AttackedTribal Christian is killed on Easter Sunday.

(10) Christians Secretly Forced to Re-Convert to Hinduism Hindu militants call for an end to Christian proselytizing.

INDONESIA(11) Ambon Christians Outraged as Muslim Leader Calls for JihadTwelve Christians are killed in eastern Indonesia.

NIGERIA(12) Two Converts to Christianity Face DeathThe location of the former Muslims is unknown.

(13) Defense Minister Says Muslims Plan to Wipe Out ChristianityKatsina state stops Christian religious education.

(14) Christians Question Reasons for Church DemolitionsEleven churches are destroyed in April.

(15) Pope Tells Nigerian Priests to Resist Islamic FundamentalismBishops term Islamic law a “flagrant violation.”

NORTH KOREA(16) Persecution Plus Famine Equals Church GrowthCollision of terrible events sparks new hope for Christians.

PERU(17) Pardon in Doubt for Peruvian Evangelical Walter Cubas is stuck with a decade-old terrorism charge.

PHILIPPINES(18) Hostages Near One-Year Mark***No release in sight for Martin and Gracia Burnham.

(19) Hostage Knew the RisksMission has faced 20 years of crisis management.

TURKEY(20) Iranian Christian Family Faces Quandary***Canadian Embassy refuses immigration status.

(21) Turkish Pastor Put on Trial in Diyarbakir***Church construction halted since November.

(22) Turkish Protestants Subjected to Open IntimidationNationalist Party targets Istanbul church services.

(23) Bomb Threat Against Ankara Church

***Indicates an article-related photo is available electronically. Contact Compass Direct for pricing and transmittal.

***********************************(1) China’s ‘New’ Religious Policy -- Same Old StoryLeaked Provincial Regulations are a Revamp of Previous Rulesby Xu Mei

HONG KONG (Compass) -- Following the major religious affairs conference in Beijing last December, those concerned with the cause of religious freedom in China have been awaiting promised new legislation with some trepidation. Now, after many confusing signals, a copy of the new religious regulations for Jiangsu province has leaked overseas, providing an opportunity for a serious assessment of Beijing’s present policies on religion.

Some observers believe that Beijing is deliberately issuing the new regulations at the provincial level to judge reactions both inside and outside China before going ahead with new national regulations. The Jiangsu provincial regulations that were passed on February 5 -- and become effective June 1 -- are probably typical of what is now being promulgated across the country at the provincial level.

China watchers say this new document of 45 regulations leads to the conclusion that it is an unimaginative reiteration of well-worn ideology leading to tighter bureaucratic control instead of an innovative new policy with a much needed liberalization in Chinese Communist Party (CCP) religious policy.

The guiding presumption behind government policy is stated in Article 11: “Religious bodies have the following duties: To accept administrative supervision lawfully carried out by the Religious Affairs Bureau (RAB) and other relevant departments and to educate citizens believing in religion in patriotism, socialism and the legal system.”

This underlying assumption of the right of the state and the CCP to dictate religious policy and indoctrinate its religious citizens is a continuation of policy guidelines laid down in 1982 by the Central Committee of the CCP in “Document 19” and re-stated by them in “Document 6” in 1991.

The role of the government in maintaining control of religious affairs is also stated clearly in Article 6: “Religious Affairs Bureau of local governments of all levels higher than county level are in charge of religious affairs within their respective administrative region.”

“Freedom of religious belief” as narrowly defined by the CCP is still only officially enjoyed by the five major religions of Buddhism, Daoism, Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism. Only the “patriotic” religious organizations receive any official recognition. Article 7 states categorically that only the existing patriotic religious bodies -- the Three Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM), the China Christian Council, the Catholic Patriotic Association and their Buddhist, Daoist and Muslim counterparts -- are “established legally.”

To establish a religious organization “registration procedures should be followed in accordance with national regulations.” (Article 9) These national registration requirements are not detailed. But no mention is made of independent house churches or the possibility of them registering directly with the government. The distinct impression is given that no major changes will be made to the present system under which all religious believers have to belong to religious organizations controlled by the patriotic associations if they wish to be legally recognized by the government.

At the grassroots level, reports have filtered out from Shanghai, Zhejiang and Sichuan in recent months that local officials have been approaching known house church leaders to discuss registration and the possibility of bypassing the TSPM. However, the absence of any mention of this in the new regulations casts doubt on the government’s sincerity.

At most, it appears that such registration bypassing the patriotic religious associations may be only a temporary ploy. In fact, some house church leaders are convinced that the present stress on registration is merely a second “wave,” following policy started a few years ago. The ultimate aim may still be to control and eliminate the house churches. In the meantime, discussion on the details of registration can be a useful tool to promote further division in house church ranks.

The notorious “Three Fixes,” which have been a straitjacket for the TSPM for many years, are enshrined officially in Articles 13 to 15.

“The names of all religious workers must be filed with their Religious Affairs Bureau. Individuals who are not approved or filed are not allowed to engage in any religious activities under the title of religious worker.” (Article 13)

“All religious activities have to be conducted within the confines of religious sites lawfully registered.” (Article 14)

“Preachers cannot go outside their own area to evangelize or preach without first ‘filing with the relevant Religious Affairs Bureau.’” (Article 15)

Thus the CCP seeks to prevent lay ministry and all unregistered house church activity.

Ministry within the TSPM churches is severely limited. The bureaucratic mindset of the CCP is revealed in Article 16, which defines permitted “religious activities” narrowly as

certain rites such as “praying, reading scripture, giving sermons, observing religious holidays and holding funeral services, etc.”

All mention of religion as an all-encompassing way of life -- which includes, for Christians, evangelism, the teaching and training of children and youth and showing social concern -- is excluded.

Foreign religious believers do not escape the CCP’s attention. Articles 32-35 spell out the severe limitations they must accept in China. Foreigners meeting for worship must obtain the permission of the RAB and meet on “patriotic” premises (for Christians, TSPM churches). Evangelism and the distribution of religious literature are forbidden. “No foreign nationals should seek to convert Chinese citizens.” Nor should they “distribute any religious printed materials.” (Article 37)

No less than five articles (38-42) lay down draconian penalties for all Chinese who disobey the regulations. Fines of between 500 and 2,000 RMB may be imposed on all those who:

Establish religious organizations without permission.

Engage in religious activities as religious workers without approval from the government.

Cross [internal Chinese] boundaries to engage in religious activities without permission [a clear reference to evangelism].

Hold religious activities in places not yet registered with the RAB.

Worse still, those who set up “religious activity sites without registration” may be fined between 2,000 and 20,000 RMB. The lower amount is easily the annual wage for many rural believers -- the latter is several years’ income. The authorities also threaten confiscation of income and property.

Millions of house church Christians who are worshipping and evangelizing peacefully outside the government-controlled system face ruin if these penalties are strictly imposed.

These regulations represent all that is bad in the CCP’s system of religious control, which, faced with the grass-roots revival of religions, has become progressively more detailed over the last 20 years. Voices of reason and moderation who have spoken out from time to time within the “patriotic” religious associations appear to have been ignored. The old slogans and ideological framework have been revamped. An opportunity for enlightened reform has been lost.

The future for religious believers who for reasons of conscience feel unable to accept these restrictive regulations looks dark if the rules are strictly implemented.[Return to Index]

***********************************(2) China’s Anti-Cult Campaign in ContextDifficulties Abound in Sorting Out a Confusing Situationby Xu Mei

In late April, reports filtered out from China that about 100 leaders of the evangelical China Gospel Fellowship -- a major house church grouping that claims some four million members -- had been arrested by the police. Soon after, contradictory but more reliable reports said these key leaders had almost certainly been kidnapped by the sinister Lightning from the East (LFE) cult in a carefully orchestrated strategy.

This bizarre event shows how confusing the situation can be for Chinese Christians -- and even more so for overseas observers.

Some Western Christians who tend to always place blame on the Chinese authorities were brought up short. As the Chinese government’s crackdown on cults continues and reports of both cultic activity and of persecution of genuine house church believers continue to emerge, it is necessary to stand back, take stock, and analyze the entire situation. It is crucial for Western Christians and those concerned for human rights not to jump to ill-informed conclusions but to see often confusing and contradictory events in their overall context.

The Reality of Cults in China TodayThe vast revival of religion since the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) has spawned a bewildering variety of sects, cults and new religions. Maoist ideology has failed to satisfy Chinese spiritual aspirations. The void has filled with a plethora of religious sects, which the government has growing difficulty in categorizing.

If some 70 percent of the population are peasants, then over 800 million people are living in semi-literacy and poverty, prone to superstition, witchcraft and magic.

The five religions tolerated by the authorities -- Buddhism, Daoism, Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism -- are like icebergs floating in a murky ocean that conceals depths of folk-religion, bizarre cults and outright fanaticism. Witches and shamans beat the spirits out of possessed or mentally ill patients. People die because of exorcisms and false promises of faith healing.

In late 1998, members of the pseudo-Christian cult Lightning from the East “armed with daggers, steel bars, and powdered lime lured their victims out of their villages under the pretext of praying for the relief of illness, but disfigured their victims, breaking their legs and cutting off their ears,” a May 2000 Tianfeng article stated. LFE’s belief that Christ has returned as a Chinese woman living in Henan province is completely heretical from a Christian standpoint, but not necessarily a punishable offense. However, any government would take action against those who rape, steal, injure and even murder under the cloak of sectarian religious activities.

The Historical BackgroundThe Chinese have a long history -- and a long memory. The government is well aware that over the centuries most dynasties fell when impoverished and desperate peasants formed into religious cults and secret societies that sooner or later mutated into open rebellion. The Red Turbans and the White Lotus were examples of Daoist or Buddhist sects that rose up against the emperor.

However, the most recent rebellion came from the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, which seized Nanjing as its capital from the decadent Manchu Qing dynasty in 1853 and was only suppressed 11 years later at the cost of 20 million lives. The Taiping ”emperor,” Hong Xiuquan, was a failed Confucian scholar who had read a Christian tract and had visions that he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ, sent to this earth to destroy the “demon” Manchus.

Many missionaries were initially impressed by the Taiping fervor for the Ten Commandments and the Sabbath Day. Could this be God’s means for the evangelization of China? But Hong’s brutal slaughter of his opponents and his vast harem brought bitter disillusionment.

Today, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) no longer extols the Taipings as peasant revolutionaries as in the radical Maoist years. The CCP is poised to welcome capitalists and entrepreneurs into its ranks. Some Party cadres wear designer suits and hold lavish banquets costing more than 10 years’ income of the average farmer.

China already has a huge number of rural unemployed. Urban unemployment is expected to triple over the next four years as reforms initiated by China’s membership in the World Trade Organization bankrupt uncompetitive industries, according to an April 29 Reuters/China Daily report. Only three years ago, Beijing was rocked by the demonstrations of 10,000 Falun Gong supporters outside the CCP leadership compound.

Is it any wonder that the suppression of sects and cults, seen as the spawning ground of political disaffection and rebellion, is now a top priority for what has become an intensely conservative and reactive rather than proactive regime? “Unity and Stability” at all costs has become the CCP’s mantra.

Defining CultsIn April 2000 the Ministry of Public Security defined a cult as any organization which:

Sets up an illegal organization in the false name of religion.

Deifies its leaders.

Fabricates and spreads superstition and heterodox beliefs to excite doubts and deceive the people and recruits and controls its members by these means.

Systematically disturbs social order and injures the lives and property of citizens.

This is a catch-all list of regulations that can be used to ban virtually any religious organization. Most house churches can be falsely labeled cults under the first, third and fourth points. All house churches that have not registered are illegal and members are potentially liable to arrests and fines. Those that spread the gospel vigorously can be accused of spreading heterodox beliefs and recruiting followers.

In practice, the CCP has so far listed 14 cults as illegal, in addition to Falun Gong. Of these, 12 are “Christian” and only two are Buddhist. Of the “Christian” cults, many are heretical by orthodox Christian standards.

For instance, the founder of the Lingling cult, Hua Xuehe, claimed he was the “Second Jesus.” The founder of the Lord God cult, Liu Jiaguo, claimed to be the “Lord God,” swindled believers out of 400,000 RMB and raped 19 women. Wu Yangming, the founder of the Established King cult, also claimed to be the Messiah and raped many women.

The Shouters or Local Church, based in California, was founded by Witness Lee, Watchman Nee’s right-hand-man. Although on the fringes of the Christian world in that they hold a very narrow view of themselves as the only true church and Lee’s views on the Trinity have been criticized, many consider them to be Bible-believing Christians. Viewed with suspicion by most evangelicals, for years they have operated freely in the U.S., Taiwan and other countries. However, in China they are banned -- probably because of Lee’s strong anti-communist views.

The Total Scope Church, also known as the New Birth Church, was founded by Xu Yongze and has grown to many millions. This house church has been criticized both by the Three Self state church and by other more conservative house churches as being a cult.

There is certainly evidence of “sheep-stealing” and of high pressure on new converts, forcing them to weep and wail while confessing a whole list of sins. However, a fair assessment would be that the group is extreme in practice, rather than heretical in doctrine. Xu and many members have been imprisoned at different times and the church strongly persecuted.

Orthodox House ChurchesOrthodox unregistered house churches are placed in a peculiarly difficult position at present. The mere fact of not being registered means they are technically illegal and may suffer the full weight of the law.

In practice, conditions vary considerably. In some areas, the authorities turn a blind eye. Many house churches operate semi-openly, their leaders and places of worship known to local police and officials, but meetings are relatively undisturbed. In other areas, they have to meet secretly or “underground.”

The government relies to some extent on local official church leaders in the Three Self Patriotic Movement, China Christian Council or Patriotic Catholic Association to keep them informed of all religious activities. In areas where these “patriotic” religious leaders are sympathetic to their unregistered counterparts, a compromise ensues.

One patriotic Catholic bishop was even allowing his pro-Vatican underground counterpart to hold training seminars in his church. However, in areas where the local official clergy are hostile to house churches, they may spy, inform and encourage the police to arrest house church leaders, falsely labeling them as cults.

In many places, Religious Affairs Bureau officials may be knowledgeable about Christianity and the orthodoxy of unregistered house churches. However, in some rural areas they are incredibly ignorant. A few months ago, police arrested house church believers in western China because they were kneeling to pray. Police automatically labeled them as belonging to the Falun Gong cult.

Clear DistinctionsThe Chinese government should not arbitrarily label groups “heretical,” China watchers say. Government at all levels should allow full religious freedom, only intervening if criminal activity has been undertaken by a religious organization.

In China, the tradition of Confucian state orthodoxy has been overlaid by the orthodoxy of “Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong thought” that is basically hostile to all religions. Only mainstream religions as defined by the state are tolerated. The state wrongly arrogates to itself the right to label religious groups as orthodox or heterodox. It still regards “freedom of religious belief” as a privilege to be granted by the CCP rather than as a basic human right.

The whole bureaucratic structure of control of religion by the CCP through the Religious Affairs Bureau and the compliant patriotic religious associations is inimical to genuine religious freedom and increasingly anachronistic as China continues to open up in so many other fields.

The CCP should recognize that genuine Christian faith makes good citizens. It should cease persecuting house church believers. It should also realize that religious heterodoxy is no excuse for the government to breach human rights.

On the other hand, Christians overseas need to recognize the reality of cults in China today. They should not demonize the Chinese authorities nor dismiss every report of cultic activity as disinformation. They need to recognize that unregistered groups cover a wide spectrum from perfectly orthodox Christians to the lunatic and criminal fringe.

Perhaps above all they need to distinguish wider human rights from purely Christian issues. They will rightly wish to support Christians wrongly imprisoned for their faith. But what about Tibetan Buddhist nuns tortured in prison? While assessing Falun Gong as

a dangerous cult from a Christian perspective, will they nevertheless speak out against the reported death in Chinese police custody of over 100 Falun Gong followers?

To this end they may like to ask the following questions whenever a case of purported religious persecution is reported and action urged:

Is the report reliable? Is it exaggerated? Has it been confirmed? What is the motive behind spreading this report? (e.g.: Is it anti-communist propaganda with a political motivation?)

Is the Chinese government right in labeling a group as criminal or cultic?

Is the group or leader genuinely Christian and biblically-based?

If the group is “heretical,” to what extent? Is it merely extreme in some aspects?

Even if it is heretical, does that justify government persecution? (We may regard some as heretical, but all operate freely in Western society. Should China be allowed a double standard in criminalizing many fringe religious groups?)

If a crime has been committed, does it justify fines, imprisonment, or even the death sentence?

If certain leaders or members of a group have been rightly found guilty of criminal activities, does this mean that all the members of the group are necessarily guilty and should also be outlawed or punished?

Is this a case which as a Christian: (a) I can wholeheartedly pray for and challenge the Chinese government about? If so, what is the wisest course of action that will most help the persecuted group or individual? (b) I have some reservations about, and need more information before I can wholeheartedly support. (c) I recognize is heretical or non-Christian but nevertheless is a gross miscarriage of justice.

[Return to Index]

***********************************(3) A Big MistakeColombian Guerrillas Appear Uninterested in Kidnapping Evangelical Missionariesby David Miller

COCHABAMBA, Bolivia (Compass) -- Guillermo Gaviria, the governor of the department (state) of Antioquia, Colombia, had had enough of war. On April 19, he set out on a “March of Non-Violence” from Medellin to the mountain village of Caicedo, a stronghold of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Gaviria, who said his march was inspired by the writings of Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi, hoped to convince FARC leaders to stop killing and kidnapping unarmed civilians.

The governor’s courageous gesture inspired admiration across the country -- a Canadian missionary living in Bogota called it “one of the most Christ-like actions that we have witnessed in Colombia” -- and motivated 1,000 supporters to join the March of Non-Violence.

On April 21, they were nearing Caicedo when FARC guerrillas intercepted the marchers and, as TV cameras rolled, led Gaviria and seven of his companions away into the bush. Later, the rebels released everyone except Gaviria and Colombia’s ex-Minister of Defense, Gilberto Echeverry, who serves as an advisor to the governor.

Guillermo Gaviria, it appears, has fallen victim to his country’s national disgrace: kidnapping. Colombia ranks as the world capital for this heinous crime. According to statistics released by the Evangelical Council of Colombia, eight persons are abducted daily in this nation of 42 million. On a given day, some 3,000 persons are in captivity, held by rebel armies or the paramilitary forces fighting them or, in the majority of cases, by common criminals.

Since the breakdown of peace negotiations last February, kidnapping has escalated along with the guerrilla war. At press time, FARC held several notable citizens in addition to Gaviria and Echeverry. They include five members of the national Parliament and a dozen state legislators, former cabinet member Fernando Araujo and Ingrid Betancourt, a candidate for the presidency. About 40 government soldiers and police officers are also in the rebel’s power.

Recently, the FARC extended kidnapping operations outside the country. On February 19, Esteban Paz, son of an ex-mayor of Quito, fell into the hands of Colombian rebels hiding inside Ecuador. The FARC freed the young man in late April, reportedly after receiving a one-million-dollar ransom from his father, Rodrigo Paz.

The latest spate of kidnappings has prodded the international community to take action. On April 26, the Commission on Crime of the United Nations meeting in Vienna, Austria, unanimously approved a resolution to combat kidnapping. Authored by Colombia and endorsed by 13 other countries on the Commission, the measure brands kidnapping a “grave offense, in every circumstance and for whatever purpose” and classifies it officially as an act of terrorism. It calls on governments to share intelligence resources and cooperate in judicial proceedings in order to capture and convict kidnappers. States are also urged to create strategies to stop the laundering of ransom money and provide support and counseling to families of the victims.

One week later, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft increased international pressure on kidnappers by announcing the indictment of FARC commander German Briceno and five of his associates for the kidnapping and murder of three U.S. citizens in March 1999. Terence Freitas, Ingrid Washinawatok and Lehee’Enae Gay, volunteers working to improve living conditions of the U’wa Indian tribe, were abducted by FARC guerrillas operating in the area and, upon Briceno’s orders, executed after eight days of captivity.

Colombians welcome the international measures. It remains to be seen, however, how far U.N. resolutions and U.S. justice can go to stop the FARC and Colombia’s other guerrilla movement, the National Liberation Army (ELN), from using abduction and extortion as a military strategy.

That is because kidnapping is a lucrative trade for the rebels, the second largest source of income -- after drug trafficking -- that finances their war against the state. It is also a relatively easy trade. Due to the breakdown of security in the country, only a small fraction of criminals are apprehended by police. Courts fail to convict many of those who are captured because victims’ families, fearful of reprisals, refuse to press charges.

If there is one positive sign in the gloomy scenario, it is the apparent decrease in recent years of kidnappings perpetrated against foreign Christian workers. The trend is particularly evident among evangelical missionaries. Between January 1993 and March 1994, the FARC committed a string of kidnappings that resulted in the deaths of five North Americans working with New Tribes Mission. A sixth missionary, Ray Rising of Wycliffe Bible Translators, survived two years and three months of captivity before his release in June 1996. Surprisingly, since that time, neither FARC nor ELN has abducted a foreign missionary. Why?

Part of the reason is tighter security. Both New Tribes and Wycliffe closed their forward bases in the guerrilla-infested department of Meta and pulled their personnel back to the safer environs of Bogota. Missions have also reduced staff in Colombia. In Wycliffe’s case, the organization has made an intentional effort to train and deploy Colombian nationals to do Bible translation work. Security is only one motive for this. The explosive growth of the Latin American missionary force in the past decade means that countries such as Colombia can now provide qualified professionals of its own to do ministries that used to be conducted exclusively by outsiders.

Nevertheless, Colombia still has a sizeable community of foreign missionaries, most of whom are just as exposed to the threat of kidnapping as are the people among whom they live and work. Why are they not targets?

“There are basically two reasons for kidnappings,” Rising told Compass. “One is monetary and the other political. And if they don’t get anything out of either one, well then it’s not worth it to them.”

The guerrilla units who abducted Rising and New Tribes missionaries David Mankins, Mark Rich, Rick Tenenoff, Steve Welsh and Tim Van Dyke received no ransom payments from mission organizations. In the sordid economics of kidnapping, that means they lost money on the deal. FARC commits considerable resources to feed, transport and confine their prisoners.

They did receive a lot of bad press, however. The kidnappings generated negative public opinion on an international scale, making it difficult for the guerrillas to portray themselves as champions of freedom fighting for a more just society. Indeed, the U.S.

recently added the FARC to its list of international terrorist organizations. In late April, the European Union narrowly defeated a motion to label the FARC a terrorist organization, in hopes that gentler treatment might lure them back to the negotiating table.

Kidnapping missionaries, the FARC has learned, offers little political incentive either. Guerrillas cannot, for example, use them as bargaining chips to extract concessions from the government. At press time, the rebels were proposing that President Andres Pastrana release some of their imprisoned comrades in exchange for Gaviria, Betancourt and other public officials they hold captive. Pastrana flatly refused the offer. He would be even less prone to exchange FARC prisoners for private citizens, foreign or otherwise.

No one can predict what the FARC, or any other terrorist group that resorts to kidnapping, will do. In some cases, the guerrilla high command is unable to control their unruly units in the field. Nevertheless, Rising believes that a combination of little or no monetary reward and bad publicity provides an effective deterrent against kidnapping.

“The guerrillas commented later to somebody who knows me that, in my case, it was a bad investment,” he said. “They admitted that taking me was a mistake.”

If that is the case, then the appalling mistake FARC committed nearly a decade ago by abducting Mankins, Rich, Tenenoff, Welsh and Van Dyke might explain why no evangelical missionary has since had to face the horrible ordeal of kidnapping.

Colombians can only hope that the agonizing sacrifice those martyrs and their families paid might convince guerrilla fighters today that kidnapping innocent people -- including courageous peacemakers like Guillermo Gaviria -- is still a mistake.[Return to Index]

***********************************(4) A Conversation with a Colombia Kidnap SurvivorRay Rising Spent 810 Days in Captivityby David Miller

Over a 15-month period in the mid 1990s, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) abducted six North American evangelical missionaries and held them for multi-million dollar ransoms. Five men of New Tribes Mission -- David Mankins, Mark Rich, Rick Tenenoff, Steve Welsh and Tim Van Dyke -- were eventually murdered by their captors. Ray Rising, a radio engineer with Wycliffe Bible Translators (WBT), was the only one to survive. Tortuous negotiations between WBT, local civic leaders in Colombia and FARC commanders led to his release, unharmed, on June 17, 1996.

Last week, Rising spoke with Compass Direct correspondent David Miller in Cochabamba, Bolivia, about the 810 days he spent in captivity, casting light on an ordeal that thousands of ordinary people and their families fear in Colombia.

Compass Direct: How were you captured?

Ray Rising: I was in Puerto Lleras on March 31, 1994, giving kids rides on my motorcycle. About 6:30 in the evening, I was on my way home. As I approached the back gate to our property, I was encountered by three, armed young men who ordered me to get off my motorcycle and go with them.

Compass: Do you have any idea why FARC chose you to be kidnapped?

Rising: Probably because of my access to the local people. I was involved in getting school materials for children, x-ray machines for the hospital, a shipment of medical supplies from the States. I was good friends with the local political leaders and people in town. So I was a target.

Compass: What was the initial reaction of your wife and children?

Rising: They couldn’t believe it at first. It was widely understood that the FARC had kidnapped me, although it was not confirmed right away. It’s mission policy under those circumstances that the family leave the country. So about 10 days after I was kidnapped, my wife and younger son, who was still in high school then, went to our center in Waxhaw, North Carolina.

Compass: Did you receive any word from your loved ones during your captivity?

Rising: No, nothing. I had no written communication from Doris during the entire time. I sent out 68 letters and she received 5 of them. Whenever it was convenient to (the guerrillas) to prove I was still alive, they would send out a letter.

Compass: What was the greatest hardship you faced?

Rising: Being away from my family, not knowing what was happening. I was somewhat apprehensive that my emotional well-being might deteriorate to such a point that I was uncontrollable. That didn’t happen, praise God. Five times we fled from the military -- helicopters nearby, machine guns going off and mortars. It wasn’t a very pleasant situation.

A lot of times I’d say: “Lord I need help today. You know I can’t go through another day like this.” At one point I turned on the radio and a pastor was on there who said, “When you go through the valleys, hang onto the promises of God.” And that’s exactly what I needed at that point. It was just the Lord that kept me sane.

Compass: How did you get along with the FARC?

Rising: Pretty good, with most of them. There were a few rascals that tried to give me problems. They got rid of them and sent in somebody else to replace them. One of them apologized to me for those guys. So, I could say they treated me adequately.

Compass: Did you get enough to eat?

Rising: Lots of rice, potatoes, beans and wild game like armadillo. I lost about 20 pounds, but there was always something to eat.

Compass: Did it ever occur to you to try to escape?

Rising: I prayed a lot about it, and said, “Lord, if you’re in it, I’ll do it.” One night I couldn’t sleep because the guard was snoring. I got up and walked over to him and he just kept right on snoring. I said, Well, Lord, should I go or should I stay? And the verse came to me, “Wait on the Lord, be of good courage and he shall strengthen thine heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord.” So I said, okay, Lord, I’ll wait.

About a week later the commander told me there was another group of guerrillas camped near us. You see, the Lord knew that if I had tried to escape, I would have had 100 guerrillas out looking for me the next day. If they had caught me, they would have tied me up, maybe done something unpleasant.

Compass: What is your impression of the FARC? What motivates them?

Rising: It’s a Marxist-Communist movement. All of their soldiers have been indoctrinated into that system. A lot of them are from poor families, very little education. Some of them are orphans and this is kind of a family to them. They seemed to be very well-trained, well-financed and motivated by their cause.

Compass: Do you think the FARC will ever accept a negotiated settlement and lay down their arms?

Rising: In my conversations with those who were in charge of my unit, it appeared to me they have a fixed agenda. There weren’t any real conditions for peace except their own. They told me that the M-19 [guerrilla movement] accepted peace, and then some of them were systematically killed. That’s what they told me. It’s not my opinion.

I don’t see any foreseeable way that they would accept peace unless their livelihood was in jeopardy. They get finances through kidnapping. Of course, a lot of their financing comes from drug trafficking, and a lot of that comes from the U.S. and Europe, as I understand.

Compass: The FARC were holding five other evangelical missionaries at the same time as you. You were the only one to survive. Why do you think the outcome was different for you?

Rising: One of the things that was pointed out to me was that I was very well known in the area because of my being involved in civic affairs. A lot of people went to talk to the

guerrillas. One was a Catholic priest, somebody I knew. He said, “What you’ve done is unpleasant to God and to man.” So they had orders to treat me well.

Another family got involved that had one of their own sons kidnapped at one point, so they negotiated with the guerrillas. The Lord put the right people in the right places at the right time to work it out.

Compass: Your mission paid no ransom for your release. Do you think the policy of refusing to pay ransom protects the missionary community?

Rising: I think it does maybe on a large scale. It’s not a good idea to pay ransom. But from the guerrillas’ point of view, if you say you don’t pay ransom, they probably won’t believe it. So every case has to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, and very, very carefully.

Compass: Since the rash of kidnappings in the mid 90s, the FARC has abducted no more North American evangelical missionaries. Did something happen in your case, or in the case of the five New Tribes men, that discouraged FARC from targeting missionaries?

Rising: I think that they looked at it and evaluated what they actually got out of it. There are basically two reasons for kidnappings. One is monetary and the other political. And if they don’t get anything out of either one, well then it’s not worth it to them. The guerrillas commented later to somebody who knows me that, in my case, it was a bad investment. They admitted that taking me was a mistake.

Compass: Last week the United Nations, at Colombia’s urging, passed a resolution to fight kidnapping on an international scale. Do you think that will help?

Rising: My opinion of the guerrillas is that they don’t respect anybody outside of their organization. I don’t know that it will have any effect, but it might.

Compass: If someone were kidnapped by the FARC today, what would be your advice to the victim’s family?

Rising: Try to contact people who are familiar with negotiating with the FARC, and just get all the information you can about it. The victim’s mission organization should contact people within the country who know their own people. If it’s the Philippines, go through Filipino people; if it’s Colombia, go through Colombians. A North American won’t understand how they will react because he won’t understand the culture.

Compass: How can the international Christian community be mobilized to help?

Rising: One of the things we need most of all is prayer. And people need understanding. Kidnap victims afterwards are affected by -- what’s it called? -- Post-traumatic Stress Syndrome. You don’t trust anybody. You don’t sleep well. You can have flashbacks, feelings of panic if there’s any kind of threat, real or imagined.

I’ve often said that nobody understands what I went through unless they’ve gone through it themselves. A lot of people think you can just walk out of that and be the same person you were before. But you’re not. So be a comfort and encouragement to those people.

***A photo of Ray Rising is available electronically. Contact Compass Direct for pricing and transmittal.[Return to Index]

***********************************(5) Pastor Kidnapped Near MedellinChurch Waits for Demands from Colombian Guerrillasby Deann Alford AUSTIN, Texas (Compass) -- Guerrillas manning a roadblock near Medellin kidnapped an associate church pastor as he returned with a group of church members on Sunday, April 28, from an afternoon baptismal service, reported the head of that city’s pastoral alliance.

Guerrillas of an unidentified armed group took Juan Carlos Villegas from a roadblock 20 miles from the city, said Pedro Hernandez, head of the Medellin Association of Evangelical Pastors (AMEM) and national director of Christ for the City International (CFCI).

A man who answered the phone at Villegas’ church, Family Christian, said the kidnappers have not communicated with the church about their demands. “We know absolutely nothing,” said the man, who identified himself only as a leader of the church and declined to give his name “for security reasons.”

Hernandez said that Villegas, 32, was traveling with some 50 members of Family Christian Church as the group was coming back from a baptismal service on April 28. The group came upon the roadblock where guerrillas were stopping travelers. The rebels detained the church members but immediately released all but Villegas, Hernandez said.

Guerrillas commonly use the practice, called “miraculous fishing,” to choose kidnapping victims by taking captives, checking their backgrounds, keeping those they determine would be valuable hostages and releasing the rest.

Andrew McMillan, pastor of Christian Faith Community Church in Medellin, describes Villegas as “young, wiry and really energetic, a good guy.”

“He’s a man of vision and prayer, a real fiery young guy,” McMillan said. “He is a very visible assistant pastor and a very charismatic personality.” Their two churches have joined with other Medellin congregations in prayer vigils.

Hernandez said he knows Villegas through AMEM. Villegas had worked with a CFCI project called New Generation, a program that develops skills of young pastors and church leaders and mobilizes them to share Christ with their peers.

Family Christian Church, located in Bello Antiochia about five miles from Medellin, is an independent congregation of 1,400 members, Hernandez said. Andrés Puerta is the church’s pastor.[Return to Index]

***********************************(6) Coptic Mother Yearns to End Legal BattlesJailed ‘Convert’ Husband Not Yet Arraignedby Barbara G. Baker

CAIRO (Compass) -- Five months after a Coptic Christian pharmacist who allegedly converted to Islam was jailed for stabbing his wife’s mother and sisters, the mentally unstable defendant still has not been called before El-Fayoum’s criminal court to face attempted murder charges.

Under Egyptian law, Dr. Hanna Kemal Hanna Morgan, 39, will have to stay in jail without bail until his formal arraignment before a local court. At that point, if his lawyer advises him to plead “not guilty” by reason of insanity, the court could order his transfer to a mental institution.

However, an insanity plea could provide legal cause to nullify Morgan’s lawsuit attempting to gain custody of his two daughters, who remain under the care of their Christian mother. Under Egypt’s implementation of Islamic family law, the minor children of a Muslim father are considered Muslims as well and are automatically given over to his custody.

A plea of insanity would also provide evidence to validate two stalled court cases opened by his wife, Dr. Inas Emil Kemal, who has been trying for the past two years to annul Morgan’s certificate of conversion to Islam on the merits of his mental incompetence.

After fighting bouts of mental illness for 10 years, Morgan suddenly left the psychiatric hospital ward where he was being treated in February 2000. A few weeks later, his family learned he had signed a formal certificate of conversion to Islam. Local authorities in El-Fayoum, a stronghold for several extreme Islamist organizations in Egypt, warned Morgan’s relatives against trying to make any contact with him.

Last November, Morgan broke into his parents-in-law’s home and inflicted serious stab wounds on his mother-in-law, who lost her spleen in the attack and was hospitalized for 11 days. Morgan’s anger was reportedly sparked by a recent court decision to cancel a lawsuit he had opened to obtain custody of the children.

Morgan was issued a formal “conversion” certificate from Al-Azhar, the highest Islamic authority in Egypt. But his official identification as a Muslim was never processed, pending the outcome of the court cases filed by his wife.

“She needs a capable lawyer to open a new case for her,” a close friend of Dr. Inas told Compass, “one that links the mental condition of her husband with his legal demand for their girls.

“But just being a legal expert is not enough,” he remarked. “This lawyer will need much guidance from God, to somehow protect her from the rules of family law under sharia (Islamic law).”

In the meantime, Dr. Inas still fears that the extremist groups involved in her husband’s so-called “conversion” may try to kidnap her two young daughters.

“I can’t live in El-Fayoum any more,” she told Compass in mid April, “because fanatic Muslims there believe that my children are not Christians now.” So she has left the city, staying out of public view as much as possible in her new location.

As a trained pharmacist, she has been able to return to a job in her profession, although she must leave work early to be home before her seven-year-old daughter Mirna returns from school each day. But she has been forced to leave her youngest daughter Dina, nearly two-and-a-half years old, in the care of relatives. “I only see her one week in every month,” Dr. Inas sighed. “But there is no other way, because I must work to support them and myself.”

“I’m not tense like before,” Dr. Inas admitted, giving Mirna a warm hug before sending her off to play.

“But I really want an end of this,” she sighed, after her daughter left the room. “I want to turn the page in my life.”

***A photograph of the Kemal family is available electronically. Contact Compass Direct for pricing and transmittal.[Return to Index]

***********************************(7) Churches Attacked in EthiopiaActive Christian Outreach Programs Raise Muslim Tensionsby Geoff Stamp

LONDON (Compass) -- A Muslim mob attacked an indigenous Protestant church in the eastern Ethiopian town of Asaita in early March, Open Doors reported on April 24. The attackers reportedly shouted slogans against the United States and other Western countries.

Police arrived in time to save the Mekane Yesus church from being burned, but much of the property inside the building was destroyed, including Bibles, hymnbooks and choir robes.

The Muslim protesters -- many of whom were students -- identified and attacked two Christian evangelists: Molla Tesfay, who is still receiving treatment in Addis Ababa for his injuries, and Gureta Ahmad. Police detained Ahmad, which officials said was for his own safety. But he is still in jail, casting doubt on the true reason for his detention, the Open Doors report said.

Muslims leaders accused Ahmad of proselytizing. Ahmad is involved in projects relating to the Afar people -- a Muslim people located in northeast Ethiopia and Djibouti. The violence could be connected to an Afar aid project of the Mekane Yesus church.

“The persecution in Asaita may have been instigated by Muslim leaders wanting to protect Afars from the witness of Christians working with the aid projects,” said one Christian leader.

Earlier this year, a mob of protesting Muslims burned the Mekane Yesus church in Kamise, about 40 miles south of Dese in Wello province, following an attempt to damage an Ethiopian Orthodox Church. The mob went to the church, beat the few people present and burned the church. One church member had to be hospitalized for severe head wounds. The church has now been largely rebuilt, and Christians have resumed worship services.

Estimates suggest that the number of Protestants and evangelicals in Ethiopia has grown from 3.5 million in 1985 to 10 million in 2001. Most of the Protestant churches have active outreach programs, which can have an abrasive impact upon the Muslim and even the Orthodox Church populations. The resulting tensions continue to be felt across this East African country, Open Doors said.[Return to Index]

***********************************(8) Extremists Call for Extermination of Muslims and Christians in GujaratIndia’s ‘Laboratory of Fascist Hinduism’ Embroiled in Communal Riotsby Abhijeet Prabhu

BANGALORE, India (Compass) -- Shocking slogans have surfaced on the walls of Ahmedabad, Gujarat state’s capital city and economic center, calling for the ethnic cleansing of Christians after Muslims have been wiped out.

The slogans, written in bold letters in Gujarati and Hindi said: “First butchers, then Christians.” “Butchers” is a reference to Muslims who run the slaughterhouses and sell meat and cattle in India.

Gujarat, which has gained worldwide infamy as India’s “laboratory of fascist Hinduism,” is embroiled in communal riots that have claimed more than 2,000 lives, mostly from the minority communities. Since the riots began in early March, Christians have been living in fear along with their Muslim neighbors.

On April 22, students appearing for their Class 12 state-run board examinations were horrified to find grammar questions with direct reference to Nazism implicitly targeting Christians.

The English paper (006-E) of the Gujarat Higher Secondary Education Board contained questions Christians found offensive. Question 3 (B) read, “There are two solutions, one of them is the Nazi solution. If you don’t like people, kill them, segregate them. Then strut up and down. Proclaim that you are the salt of the earth.”

Christians complained that the last sentence was a clear indication that the question was targeted at Christians who are well known in India even in the public media as “the salt of the earth.”

Father Cedric Prakash, director of the Ahmedabad-based Center for Human Rights, Justice and Peace, said that the questions were “symbolic of the government that is ruling Gujarat. There is no civil society left here that is untouched by [chief minister] Modi’s tyranny. What is the point in asking 16- and 18-year-old minds about Nazism? It exposes the mindset of those who rule us,” he said.

Father Durai, principal of St. Xavier’s High School, Loyola Hall, was among others who condemned the questions and said that the Gujarat government should have acted responsibly.

Atul Setalvad, a prominent Mumbai lawyer, said, “The last 10 years have seen a consistent, organized campaign of hate against Christians and Muslims in Gujarat.”

Pamphlets are also being distributed to spread hate against Christians and other minorities. Compass was shown a pamphlet entitled, “Specially for Hindu Youth.” It was subtitled, “Let Bajrang Dal ready its crossbow: War is the only salvation.”

The pamphlet contained statements like: “One hundred thousand Christian missionaries bring in millions of rupees from abroad and carry out conversions,” “The forefathers of 95 percent Christians and 90 percent Muslims were Hindus,” and “Because of conversions, the Hindus of the border districts are becoming minorities.”

During the first week of March, an orphanage run by the Friends Missionary Prayer Band (FMPB), an indigenous mission organization, was attacked by activists of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP).

The 120 children who were boarders from Adivasi (aborigine) families were terrorized and snatched away by the VHP while the missionary running the meeting place had to flee for his life, sources said.

The FMPB was forced to close down the meeting place in Panchmahal district near Godhra, the epicenter of the riots. A few Christians made an effort to find the missing children, but they only succeeded in finding a dozen of them and restored them to their families.

In Ahmedabad, three Christian families were robbed along with their Muslim neighbors, and their houses were set on fire. All their property and life savings were destroyed in the attack, sources said.

Christian graveyards in Mahuda and Kapadganj were vandalized by Hindus from the Patel community. The Patels forced the Christians to vacate the site of the graveyards and have taken over the land. Christians in the area now have nowhere to bury their dead.

Joseph George, an evangelist living in a Muslim-dominated area, told Compass that Christians were prohibited from buying even small articles and daily food unless they greeted the shopkeeper in their locality with the statement, “Victory, glory, praise to god Ram.”

“Christians are so terrified that they have been scared to even organize or go for prayer meetings,” he said. The church leaders and bishops were also reluctant to take any initiatives, he added.

A Hindu mob attacked the Catholic-run Mahatma Gandhi school and beat up two priests, Fr. Nicholas Martiz, novice master, and Fr. George Bhuriya. They also torched a Divine Word Mission station in Sanjeli, about 60 kilometers from Godhra. The missionaries and lay people were badly bruised in the violence that followed the above incidents.[Return to Index]

***********************************(9) Protestant Church in India Viciously AttackedTribal Christian Killed on Easter Sundayby Abhijeet Prabhu

BANGALORE, India (Compass) -- An armed group of about 60 Hindu fundamentalists attacked the Protestant charismatic New Life Fellowship Church in Moodabidari in India’s Karnataka state on Sunday April 14. The Hindu militants accused worshippers of converting local Hindus to Christianity.

Two weeks earlier on Easter, a tribal Christian in the Nilgiri hills of neighboring Tamil Nadu state was beaten to death.

Police said that the men, armed with batons, iron bars, tridents and other weapons, began stoning the prayer hall in Moodabidari, about 35 kilometers from Mangalore, and then forced their way in about 9:45 a.m. as Pastor D.P. Menezies was preaching during the service.

The mob shouted slogans, damaged furniture, window panes, doors, disconnected the telephone and destroyed the vehicles parked outside the church, causing a loss of around 75,000 rupees ($1,530). The prayer hall was attached to the residence of church member Richard D’Souza, who has loaned his house for worship services for the past year.

Sources say that the attack was carried out by local “custodians of the Hindu faith” who were provoked when two Hindu girls were attracted to Christianity and were attending services and Bible studies regularly. A number of highly educated Hindu youth were being drawn to the claims of Christ, particularly through campus evangelism in this part of the country, sources added.

Sajan K. George, convenor of Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), told Compass that seven members of the mob were known RSS sympathizers. He dismissed the conversion angle as causing the attacks and said that the date of the attack was significant since it was the birthday of Babasaheb Ambedkar, the “father” of the depressed castes in India. The place where the attacks took place is a hotbed of both low caste as well as RSS fascists. RSS extremists regard low caste people with contempt and also fear that many of them are converting to Christianity.

George also cited earlier attacks on churches in nearby Suratkal as evidence that the RSS extremists are stirring up trouble in Mangalore.

The recent speech made by Home Minister L. K. Advani calling upon Hindu cadres “not to be apologetic about Hinduism” at a party meeting in Goa from April 10-12 has also triggered the “sparring spirit of the RSS,” he added.

Two days later, the Mangalore police arrested four persons in connection with the attack. Police also seized the vehicle used during the attack. Superintendent of Police S.K. Singh said that the four accused had been brought before the court. The other 46 accused in the attack have also been identified and efforts are on to apprehend them, he said. The police were also trying to ascertain the organization behind the attack, he added.

Later the same night, the tabernacle of St. Thomas Forane Catholic Church near the prestigious Dharmaram College in Bangalore, famed for its studies of world religions, was desecrated. Offertory money was also stolen from the collection boxes in the late hours of the night. Police are investigating if this was an attack by fanatics or merely a theft.

On April 17, the home minister for Karnataka state, Mr. Mallikarjun Kharge, said that the church attacked in Mangalore was believed to be the residence of a “gospel healer who was believed to have mystical powers.” One of the main reasons for the attack was the

suspicion that the healer was responsible for converting people to Christianity, said Kharge.

He added that a close watch was being kept on key leaders of the Sangh Parivar (Hindu Family). “The pattern of violence is the same and wherever these leaders go, communal violence follows,” he said.

Meanwhile, on the morning of March 31, Bro. Raman died in a hospital after he was beaten up by an anti-Christian mob in his ancestral village in the Nilgiri hills of Tamil Nadu. Raman was a convert from the Badaga community. He is survived by a wife and two married daughters.

The Badagas are a unique tribe with a rich indigenous culture. They number about 300,000 and spread out over 200 villages. At least one percent of Badagas have become Christian as a result of mission work. The Far East Broadcasting Association also has a broadcast in Badaga, which is the only radio program in that language.

Though the Badagas are not Hindu by religion, there have been attempts to draw them into the Hindu fold. Sources said that there was organized opposition to the production of FEBA’s radio programs in Badaga. Militant groups tour the Badaga villages warning against the missionary activities of Christians.

The All India Christian Council state convenor Oliver D’Souza released national statistics showing that a total of 48 attacks on Christians and churches have been reported in the year 2000, and 36 cases have been reported in 2001. These incidents in which Christians were injured or property was destroyed do not include another 125 incidents where Christian clergy and full time workers were assaulted and literature destroyed. In 2002, the count stands at 23 incidents, of which seven have taken place since April 1.

This includes four attacks on Catholics in Arehalli, Sundkeri, Fatimapur and Kushalnagar. A grocery store of a Catholic family in Arehalli parish has been boycotted by the Sangh Parivar cadres, while in another village a Catholic family is not being allowed to draw water in the villages.[Return to Index]

***********************************(10) Christians Secretly Forced to Re-Convert to Hinduism in IndiaHindu Militants Call for an End to Christian Proselytizingby Abhijeet Prabhu

BANGALORE, India (Compass) -- The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Organization, VHP) is secretly conducting large-scale conversion drives in India’s Marxist-ruled state of West Bengal. More than 16 tribal Christians were forced to re-convert to Hinduism on April 22 at a purification ceremony in Chopra village in the Malda district about 300 kilometers from Calcutta, NGO sources said. Ten other animist tribals were also converted to Hinduism in the village.

The conversions were in violation of the law on conversion that requires converts to file court affidavits affirming their consent to change their religion. Ironically, the VHP has been accusing Christians of violating this same law. Christians have been strictly adhering to the letter of the law to the extent that classes on conversion laws and how to file affidavits are taught to missionaries at Bible colleges.

The converts at Chopra did not go through the process of filing affidavits. However, the VHP insists that they are exempt from these laws because when people convert to Hinduism it is not “conversion” but “homecoming,” VHP leaders say.

District police chief Pankaj Dutta said he did not know of the conversions. However, sources say that the VHP is actively sponsoring large-scale conversion drives but is careful that reports of its activities do not leak out in the state. The VHP is wary of the ruling Marxist government, which is known to be unsympathetic to the Hindutva (Hindu nationalism) cause.

Police say they would like to intervene, but seldom are aware of the conversion drives because the VHP no longer publicizes them.

Over 300 Christians have been converted in the last few months, sources said. The converts were required to undergo a fire ritual, fast, bathe in a pond and chant Hindu prayers.

“If this is the case in a state where the government is hostile to militant Hinduism, you can imagine what it is like in states where the government is hand-in-glove with the saffron forces,” Rev. Anand Mukherjee, pastor of a Baptist church in Calcutta, told Compass.

Meanwhile, despite the sixth round of talks between the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) and Christians at the United Theological College in Bangalore last month, and despite the final attempts of Christian leaders to convince the RSS leadership that force or finance is not behind conversions, RSS chief K. S. Sudarshan publicly called upon Hindus to guard against religious conversions.

“Hindus will soon turn into a minority in their own country if timely steps are not taken to check forcible religious conversions,” Sudarshan said in the Hindu heartland of Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, on April 7. He added that Christian missionaries were taking advantage of division in Hindu castes and sub-castes and missionaries were trying to promote Christianity in Asian nations by setting up schools and hospitals in the country. In addition, Muslim organizations wanted to convert India into an Islamic state, he stated.

Taking a cue from the RSS chief, a VHP leader said on April 13 that in a Hindu nation, no community will be allowed to take an evangelistic stance toward other religions. Also, religious groups, especially Christians and Muslims, will not be allowed to “forcibly

convert” members from other communities. He alleged that large-scale Christian proselytizing was taking place among tribals because of the money being offered them.

Meanwhile, in the neighboring state of North-East India, the Tripura Baptist Christian Union (TBCU) has refused to mediate with outlawed militant groups like Naga Hu Hu in Nagaland after its chief minister, Manik Sarkar, in a recent press conference directly accused Christian missionaries of militancy in Tripura.

The Baptists made their position clear after Sarkar asked the church and Christian organizations to help restore peace in the troubled state.

TBCU Assistant General Secretary Rev. Dakshina Ranjan Reang said, “It is unfortunate that a section of political leaders, including the chief minister, are trying to blame Christian missions for the militancy.” He said it was ironic that the Rama Krishna Mission and other Hindu religious institutions were never asked to play a mediating role. “They can play a better role because the majority of people in the state are non-Christians, while Christians constitute only three to four percent of the total population,” he argued.[Return to Index]

***********************************(11) Ambon Christians Outraged as Muslim Leader Calls for JihadTwelve Christians are Killed in Eastern Indonesiaby Alex Buchan

LONDON (Compass) -- Maluku church leaders appealed to the United Nations secretary-general on Sunday, April 28, as “their only hope” to protect them from Muslim extremism and official government discrimination.

The appeal followed a difficult week on eastern Indonesia’s Ambon Island where 12 people were murdered in the Christian village of Soya by suspected Islamic extremists in the early hours of that Sunday.

“We knew there would be a massacre after the leader of Laskar Jihad visited Ambon and incited Muslims at Friday prayers to kill Christians,” said an Ambon pastor. “But why did the government not stop him?” Laskar Jihad chief Jafar Umar Thalib was arrested on May 4 over alleged provocation in the Soya incident, the Jakarta Post reported.

Soya is a Christian village five kilometers east of Ambon city. Early in the morning on April 28, masked men attacked the village with bombs and rifle fire. Shouting “God is great,” they stabbed six people to death, and six more burned to death after their homes were set afire. One of the dead was a six-month-old child.

It is the worst violence on Ambon in recent months and shatters a peace accord signed between Muslims and Christians on February 12.

Tension had been rising on Ambon the previous week. On Thursday, April 25, a few Christian extremists from the banned separatist movement, South Moluccas Republic (RMS), marked the 52nd anniversary of a failed independence bid by raising the flag of the outlawed group. This was certain to outrage Muslims as the RMS wants only Christians on the islands. There then followed two very different responses from the Christian and Muslim religious leaders.

Dr. I Hendrikus, leader of the Protestant church in the Maluku Islands (also known as the Moluccas) promptly released a statement stressing that the church had no connection with the RMS and disapproved of the action.

But the national leader of Laskar Jihad -- the Muslim extremist force that has wreaked such havoc on the islands -- flew into Ambon city and addressed thousands at Friday prayers at the mosque. He was inflammatory in his language and raised a huge cheer when he shouted, “We must incite a people’s war against the separatists.” Christian leaders were furious that Jafar Umar Thalib had been allowed into Ambon at all.

“Once we started to hear the buzz around the city that Thalib had made these incendiary remarks, we knew a massacre was imminent,” said a Lutheran church pastor. A church elder said, “We can’t trust the government, you see. The RMS leader is behind bars, but the leader of the Muslim extremists who rejects the Malino accord is allowed to come into the city and spread his poison openly.”

Feeling that the Jakarta government is not capable of the neutrality required to make the peace agreement work, Ambon’s Christian leaders made their appeal to the U.N. They wrote, “We have to call on you, for there have been various attempts done internally and nationally but to no avail. … The United Nations is our only hope now. Please save us from this trial.”

It is not the first time they have made the appeal, and there has been little encouragement from the U.N. hierarchy thus far.

Jakarta believes it can sort out the three-year war in the Malukus, which has left over 5,000 dead and 200,000 displaced. But there are factions within the government who are pressing for the military to have increased powers.

At the moment, the Malukus are in a state of civil emergency, but some leaders are calling for martial law to be imposed, which would bring the area under military jurisdiction. The House speaker, Akbar Tandjung, said on April 30, “It’s time for the government to consider the implementation of martial law.” The civil governor, M.S. Latuconsina, is under pressure for allowing Thalib to move around freely.

But many Christian leaders are uneasy with the idea of the army in command. Pastor Frans Lutherman from the Moluccas Advent Church told Reuters, “I think it’s enough to

be under civil emergency. I am afraid the apparatus will be harsher under martial law, and it is still difficult to control the troops.” Christian leaders have long accused the army of siding with Islamic militants in conflict situations.

Although Thalib is an extremist among a largely Islamic population that rejects a literal jihad, the clamor for Indonesia to shed its secular canopy and implement Islamic law is growing. Muslim political parties control 24 percent of Parliament, although they are rarely united enough to act as a bloc.

Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Ba’asyir met the vice president, Hamzah Haz, on April 29 to, in his words, “underline the demand to adopt Islamic law in several provinces.” This follows the adoption of Islamic law in Aceh province.

Ba’asyir leads the Indonesian Mujahiddin Council (MMI) and was accused earlier this year by Singapore’s former prime minister as having links to the Al-Qaeda terrorist network. Another militant political group is the Justice Party, which recruits from the strident Islamic student organization. Its three top leaders were all trained in Saudi Arabia, and critics say they have Saudi money to push for the same kind of restrictive religious society in Indonesia.

The Justice Party, for example, boasts about its social work. In the low income village of Sukamekar, a 90-minute drive from Jakarta, the party has provided a mill for the peasant’s rice, donated a tractor, and runs a school teaching their literal version of Islam.

“If we provided a mill for a village, we would be accused by the Muslims of trying to buy converts, and it would start a riot -- you see how the ground is always uneven in Indonesia,” said a Christian pastor in Jakarta. [Return to Index]

***********************************(12) Two Converts to Christianity Face Death in NigeriaThe Location of the Former Muslims is Unknownby Obed Minchakpu

MADA, Nigeria (Compass) -- Two Nigerian Muslims who converted to the Christian faith in Mada village of northern Nigeria’s Zamfara state are missing, possibly at the hands of Muslim fundamentalists seeking to kill them for changing their faith.

Former Muslims Lawani Yakubu and Mohammed Ali Ja’afaru were arrested by members of an Islamic monitoring group set up by the government of Zamfara state to ensure strict compliance to Islamic law (sharia). They were taken to a sharia court in Mada on charges of converting to Christianity.

The sharia monitoring group insisted that the two Christians must be sentenced to death in accordance with the teachings of Mohammed, the prophet of Islam.

However, the presiding judge of the sharia court, Awal Jabaka, rejected on April 24 the demands of the Islamic monitoring group for a death sentence verdict, and instead ruled “improper jurisdiction.”

“Even though the punishment for conversion from Islam to any other religion is death, the Zamfara state sharia penal code has no provision for a change of religion,” the judge said.

Not satisfied with the decision of the court, the sharia monitoring group allegedly decided to kill the two converts anyway. Now the location of the two Christians is unknown. Local authorities told Compass they are not in police custody.

Christian leaders in Gussau, in Zamfara state, are trying to trace the whereabouts of the two converts and, if necessary, rescue them.

Pastor David Ishaya, Chairman of the Christian Complaints Committee of the Zamfara State Chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria, told Compass, “Ever since the introduction of sharia in this state, we have not known peace. Daily, we are assaulted without cause. We are second-class citizens here because we are Christians.”[Return to Index]

***********************************(13) Nigeria’s Defense Minister Says Muslims Plan to Wipe Out ChristianityKatsina State Stops Christian Religious Educationby Obed Minchakpu

ABUJA, Nigeria (Compass) -- Muslim leaders aim to eradicate Christianity in northern Nigeria, says Nigeria’s Defense Minister, Lt. General Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma.Danjuma told a gathering of the Northern (Nigeria) Christian Elders Forum (NOSCEF) on April 20 in Abuja, the federal capital, that Christians are now under severe pressure. He urged the Christian leaders assembled at the All Saints Anglican Church not to be intimidated.

“Our religion is under assault in our country. If Christians are not careful, there will be a time that the propagation of the teaching of Jesus Christ will become an offense,” Danjuma said. “We know that we are minority in the north, but if we are not careful, we will be wiped out of existence in the north.”

He said the only way out is for the church and its leaders to ensure that indigenous citizens of northern Nigeria are massively recruited into the pastoral ministry so that they can effectively reach their Muslim brothers with the gospel.

“We want full indigenization of the clergy in all the cities and the rural areas so that … when there is any religious crisis in such places, there will be people that can not run away because such have no second home.”

He lamented that thousands of Christians had been killed in northern Nigeria in the past three years, and thousands of others were forced to relocate to the southern parts of the country for fear of being killed by Muslim fundamentalists.

“Many of our brothers and sisters have had cause to run away from Kano, Kaduna and Bauchi, to Jos and Abuja. But with the recent attack on them in Jos, those who could not go down south had resettled in Abuja,” he observed.

He likened what is happening in northern Nigeria to what happened in Egypt and other North African countries, where he said Christianity flourished as a faith and was later wiped out by Islam.

Danjuma also told the NOSCEF attendees that the incessant attacks on Christians by Muslim fundamentalists and the implementation of the Islamic legal system by Muslim governors in northern Nigeria were just two of many strategies to wipe out Christianity in Nigeria.

Meanwhile, the government of Katsina state in northern Nigeria has cancelled the teaching of Christian Religious Knowledge by removing its curriculum from all public primary and secondary schools, while making the teaching of Islamic Religious Knowledge compulsory.

An official statement issued on April 30 stated, “The government’s decision was in line with its policy of tailoring programs that are in tune with the Islamic system we envisaged and can bring about rapid development.”

Rt. Rev. James Kwasu, the Anglican Bishop of Katsina, told Compass that the decision is a continuation of Islamization in the state.

“It is a tactful way to curtail our religious liberty, hoist Islam on us, and ensure that Christians are eliminated from Katsina state,” Kwasu said. He explained that Nigeria’s national policy on education provides for the curricula of both Islamic and Christian religious studies to be taught in all schools.

Katsina state, with a population of 3.7 million people, has a minority Christian population of about 30 percent. The state is one of 12 states in northern Nigeria that has adopted and is implementing Islamic law.[Return to Index]

***********************************(14) Christians Question Reasons for Nigerian Church DemolitionsEleven Churches are Destroyed in Aprilby Obed Minchakpu

ABUJA, Nigeria (Compass) -- Government officials demolished 11 churches in April in the states of Kano and Lagos, and in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital territory. Seven churches were destroyed in Kano, one in Lagos, and three in Abuja.

Pastor Christopher Okafor, an official of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), told Compass in Abuja that the church buildings belonged to the Ibukun Oluwa Church, Christ Holy Church and Rhema Chapel.

The Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB) demolished the Abuja churches, and police supervised the demolition. The AEPB claims the churches did not meet the required building standards.

Pastor Yomi Otenaike, a pastor with Rhema Chapel in Abuja, said that the church lost equipment worth over $800,000, plus the value of the building. He described the demolition of the churches “as a subtle plan to stunt the growth of Christianity in the federal capital territory.”

Otenaike claimed his church met all the required regulations governing the building of structures. He said they received government approval to develop the church property seven years ago.

In Kano state, CAN leaders reported that at least seven church buildings were demolished between April 8 and April 22. Rev. James Fadipe, chairman of CAN’s Kano state chapter, told Compass that the destruction of the churches was “a step towards ensuring that Christianity did not have a foothold in the state.”

“They have demolished church buildings located in Narya Sargi, Bakin-Rafi, Guna, and Gomeshina,” Fadipe said. He added that five more churches have been marked for demolition in Garkoby.

In Lagos state, Victory Christian Church in Lagos city and several other churches have also been demolished or marked for destruction.

Rev. Solomon Adegbolagun, Social Security Chairman of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, said that the demolition of churches in the state has become a game for the Muslim government of Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the governor of Lagos state.

However, the Lagos state government claimed in a press statement that the churches were demolished because they did not comply with established construction regulations.[Return to Index]

***********************************(15) Pope Tells Nigerian Priests to Resist Islamic FundamentalismBishops Term Islamic Law a ‘Flagrant Violation’by Obed Minchakpu

JOS, Nigeria (Compass) -- Pope John Paul II urged leaders of Nigeria’s Catholic Church to resist attempts by Muslim fundamentalists to impose Islam on the country. The pope’s comments came on April 20 while receiving a group of visiting Nigerian priests in Rome.

In a statement issued by the secretariat of Nigeria’s Catholic Church, the pontiff said, “There are certain parts of the country where proponents of Islam are acting with ever-greater militancy, even to the point of imposing their understanding of Islamic law on entire states within the Nigerian federation and denying other believers the freedom of religious expression.

“I strongly encourage and support your effort to speak out courageously and forcefully in this regard.”

The Nigerian Catholic Church has been in the forefront in the fight for religious liberty and human rights in the country.

On February 22, the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria issued a communiqué in which they decried the misuse of religion by Nigerian politicians. “Religion has been used and abused to achieve selfish political ends,” the bishops wrote, focusing particular attention on the implementation of Islamic law (sharia) in several states in northern Nigeria. They called sharia “a flagrant violation of the secular nature of the Nigerian nation.” [Return to Index]

***********************************(16) Persecution Plus Famine Equals Church Growth in North KoreaCollision of Terrible Events Sparks New Hope for Christiansby Alex Buchan

Since the 1950s, North Korea has been the site of the world’s most persecuted church. Since 1995, it has also been the site of the world’s quietest humanitarian disaster -- a famine that has cost over two million lives.

Yet in the collision of these two terrible events, a spark of new hope for the church in North Korea has been ignited. Or, in the intriguing equation of a 72-year-old North Korean evangelist: “Persecution + famine = growth.”

His equation is by no means self-explanatory or -- at the moment -- widely demonstrable. But enough evidence has emerged to give it credence. It runs like this:

One, North Koreans are so repressed in their own country that it is virtually impossible to encounter the gospel.

Two, North Koreans get so desperate from the famine that they risk all to flee to neighboring China in search of food.

Three, some of these refugees find a welcome among the Christian Korean/Chinese communities, who do not always obey their government’s call to ensure the refugees are instantly deported. Many of these refugees -- astonished at the risks these strangers are taking on their behalf -- become Christians.

Four, a number of these new converts seek training in the Bible and in evangelism, and feel called to return to North Korea and spread the gospel, even if it means death in a labor camp.

Five, in such a way the famine -- dreadful though it is in extent -- can be partly seen in a positive light. It has resulted in a small but growing cadre of North Korean evangelists who would never have found Christ if they had stayed cocooned in the atheistic propaganda of their native country.

In the words of an elderly North Korean evangelist interviewed in March, “The famine in God’s providence may well be a key instrument to rebuild the North Korean church, because the old pre-1950s Christians are mostly dead, and could hardly spread the gospel. But now God has apparently made a way for many of the younger people to hear about Christ in another country.”

Western visitors touring the Chinese border with North Korea in March, met five men and two women who were heading back into North Korea after not only converting to Christ as refugees, but also receiving training in Bible instruction from Korean-Chinese house churches.

The Current MadnessThis small ray of hope contrasts with the current news that illustrates the madness of modern North Korea. As the famine bites hard, again driving refugee numbers sharply up in March and April, Pyongyang’s leaders spend millions on lavish ceremonies marking the 90th anniversary of the birth of the regime’s founder, Kim Il Sung.

Although aid experts warned that food stocks would be exhausted in March, North Korea’s leaders pressed ahead with the ceremonies, which are set to last until June 29th. According to a Reuters report, the aid workers “... say the country is stuck in a vicious cycle in which humanitarian aid helps maintain the status quo and donor countries hold off on major offers of development aid until the political system changes.”

In April, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) submitted 13 recommendations to the U.S. government on how to respond to the religious repression in the country. The Commission admitted that the North Korean leadership is hard to influence, since the U.S. does not maintain diplomatic relations with it, although it is one of the larger aid donors, contributing $500 million in food between 1996 and 2001.

Among its recommendations to the government were calls to fund better reporting on human rights violations in North Korea, a challenge to the president to speak out

personally on the lack of freedom, urging the European Union to include religious freedom concerns in its dealing with North Korea, and asking the U.S. State Department to monitor foreign aid contributions to ensure aid actually reaches the starving.

However, a Washington insider said, “North Korea is not nicknamed ‘the hermit kingdom’ for nothing. Its leaders are almost impossible to influence by diplomatic means, and the Commission would never dare to actually support house church movements in the Chinese border area, but those are probably the groups having the most influence right now.”

How did the 21 million people of North Korea get into such a state that a terrible famine gets interpreted as a blessing?

Cocooned in AtheismNorth Koreans have since 1946 lived in a Stalinist-type state. The governing party is communist; the ideology is standard Marxism-Leninism. All this would be a hard enough environment for the Christian, but there is one important additional ingredient unique to North Korea -- the religion of Kim Il Sung-ism.

Visitors to North Korea are always struck by the religious feel of the place, and this is because its founder, Kim Il Sung, established a pseudo-religious cult with himself as the god to be worshipped. Despite adhering to the tenets of materialist ideology, North Korea is run along religious lines.

“Having been raised in a Christian environment,” writes the Rev. Bahn-Suk Lee, “Kim Il Sung copied and twisted the Christian Trinity, imposing an ungodly trinity on the people of North Korea. In his warped vision, Kim Il Sung was the almighty, eternal father; Kim Jong Il was the active word, the son; and Juche ideology was the very spirit of the revolution, the spirit ruling the nations, the life-giving breath of their god.”

Ironically, when Kim Il Sung came to power in 1946, Korea had 400,000 Christian believers, including 50,000 in Pyongyang alone, earning it the rubric, “Asia’s Jerusalem.”

But Kim, especially in the mid 1950s, was not content with simply promoting atheism. He began replacing religion with one based on himself.

He stopped at nothing, however, to purge the land of Christians. All the churches were closed; pastors executed; Bibles destroyed. Extensive tricks were played to find remaining Christians. One refugee recalls that while a child in the late fifties, the teacher told the children to play a game and report their parents if they saw them concealing a book. She recalls, “I saw my mother push a small book deep into a tear in the sofa. I dug it out without her knowledge and took it to school. Later that day I was met at the school gates and re-assigned to another family. I never saw my parents again. The book was a New Testament.”

With the vestiges of religion wiped out, Kim began to make outlandish claims for

himself. The landscape became scarred by his slogans. Each town square boasted a huge golden statue of him. In the mornings, his speeches were blared out through loudspeakers, and soon religious language was being applied to him. It was said he was “infallible, incapable of error,” he could be “in more than one place at one time,” and could “bestow eternal life upon the Korean people.”

Although Kim died in 1994, his son, Kim Jong Il, took over and sustained the “cult.” The religion survives on effective cocooning of the population from outside influence (for example, the radios have no tuner, only an on/off switch set to the official channel) and on terror.

Said a Korea watcher, “It’s very important to understand that the population really does believe this stuff … the whole country has been brainwashed.”

According to reliable reports, ideological education has been strengthened, with everyone forced to spend two hours a day after their work in classes studying the words of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il.

Church Still AliveNevertheless, the church has not died in North Korea. Korea watchers discount the official Korean churches as showpieces. There are only three churches in any case, supposedly with 10,000 members. But the suspicion is that they only have services when foreigners request a visit.

More significantly, according to the information from refugees, a network of house churches remains in place, and the total membership may number upwards of 80,000, though no one is quite sure.

Christians among the refugee communities have been giving details of their churches. House churches are small, rarely more than 10 individuals, and normally more like five, often only within families for safety’s sake. There is no singing, and activities are conducted softly behind thick curtains.

The threat of extermination is ever present. Entire house churches have been known to simply disappear. One refugee told of how a house church of 20-30 people disappeared in 2000. The police acted stealthily, leaving no traces. Another contact told of 30 Christians being discovered meeting together in 1999. They also disappeared. No one knows what has happened to them. In these conditions, it was almost impossible for the church to grow -- until the famine hit.

The Famine StrikesAccording to a well-placed North Korea watcher, “Over two million people are missing in North Korea.” This is thought to be due to a devastating famine that began in 1995.

Harrowing stories of malnourished children, bodies of old people lying in the streets, and even of widespread cannibalism touched the hearts of the West, and much aid was sent

in. But the North Korean government rarely allows aid workers free access to affected areas, and some of the agencies withdrew, since there was no way they could check if their aid was reaching the starving.

Not surprisingly, literally hundreds of thousands fled into China in search of food. No one knows how many are still there. The USCIRF can only say “between 30,000 and 300,000 North Koreans are now in China.”

But the Chinese government sends all refugees back to North Korea and does not allow U.N. staff to examine the refugees as possible asylum cases.

Confided an official in the Beijing government, “Frankly, anyone coming from North Korea has a ‘well-founded fear of persecution’ because they are bound to be in big trouble when they are sent back, but we cannot have everyone qualifying for asylum, so we just keep sending them back.” Many refugees complain of torture by Chinese police before being sent back. The USCIRF report urges China to allow U.N. access to the refugees.

Christian refugees interviewed in March said that anyone deported to North Korea faces labor camp, where approximately one in three perish from the appalling conditions. They also claim that the authorities ask, “Have you become a Christian since you left?” If they answer yes, they are either executed or placed in an Auschwitz-type labor camp where they are systematically worked to death.

The WelcomeSadly, most refugees encounter three unfriendly faces when they come into China: a frightened native who reports them to police; a policeman who deports them roughly to North Korea; or worst of all, racketeers and gangsters who prey on young female refugees, selling thousands of them into prostitution.

Amazingly, however, some receive a welcome from the many Christians among the two million Koreans living in China.

Said one man, “We knew the population would just report us, so we tried to steal food, but we were amazed when one family saw us, took us inside, and welcomed us by feeding us and housing us.” This went on for two weeks, and the North Koreans became aware that their protectors did this because of their Christian faith. The man concluded, “We were shocked because we had been told in our society that Christians were evil, foolish and hated progress, yet there we were, receiving nothing but kindness from them.” It is the contradiction between what they were told about Christianity, and their experience of Christians, that encourages the conversions.

So for the past few years, the number of Christians among the North Korean refugee population has grown. Some Korean house churches in China have set themselves up to reach and disciple them, and many, after training, make trips into North Korea. Some even decide to go back for good.

The FutureThe evangelists heading back into North Korea gave some advice to the Western church on how to help them.

First, “help the many North Koreans who have fled, so they will become the seed to change North Korean society in due time.” Second, “try to pressure the Chinese government to have a different attitude towards North Korean refugees.” Third, “train the North Korean Christians in China, make them teachers and then let them return to North Korea.”

According to a house church pastor in Dandong, on the border with North Korea, “My congregation struggles with two questions. One is why has God not opened up North Korea like he did with Eastern Europe? The other is, why has the North Korean church not revived like the Chinese church?”

The pastor teaches that the two are perhaps related. “I think the seeds that will bring revival are being scattered now at last. The new situation is the refugees. They cannot find Christ in the country -- the propaganda is too all-pervasive. They cannot stay in the society -- the famine is too extensive. So they come out and encounter Christians for the first time, and often experience real love for the first time. After they find this, they feel they have to go back and share their good news.”

Persecution, plus famine, equals growth. [Return to Index]

***********************************(17) Pardon in Doubt for Peruvian Evangelical Walter Cubas is Stuck with Decade-Old Terrorism Chargeby Deann Alford

AUSTIN, Texas (Compass) -- Although Peruvian anti-terrorism police have a flimsy case against evangelical labor leader Walter Cubas Baltazar, it won’t be easy to obtain a pardon for him, says the lawyer from the Christian legal rights organization that’s defending him.

Lawyer Wuille Ruiz of the Lima-based Peace and Hope Association argued Cubas’ case in late March before Peru’s congressional Human Rights Commission. Ruiz said that the commission has given no word on whether it will recommend that President Alejandro Toledo sign a pardon for the 38-year-old prisoner.

Cubas was a labor leader at La Union clothing factory. When the factory closed without paying its workers back wages, he and other workers protested.

On January 20, 1993, anti-terrorism police arrested Cubas for allegedly painting anti-American graffiti in downtown Lima. They accused him of having taken part in a riot.

“The police claimed to have found a pistol on Walter at the time of his arrest, which Walter has denied throughout the process,” Ruiz said. This pistol, according to the arresting officer, belonged to a Peruvian military operative who was killed by Shining Path rebels in 1992, he said.

Many of Cubas’ former co-workers at La Union were also sentenced under questionable circumstances to lengthy prison sentences. Former President Alberto Fujimori supported La Union’s plan to break the union by accusing unionists of terrorism, said lawyers in the office of human rights advocate Hubert Lanssiers.

“There is no supporting evidence that links the weapon to Walter or the murder of the military operative,” Ruiz said, adding that a witness to the operative’s death did not name Cubas as one of the probable murderers.

Police tortured Cubas until he incriminated himself. A military tribunal sentenced him to life in prison. He is serving his sentence in Lima’s Castro Castro Prison.

Ruiz declined to say whether he was optimistic that the commission would support Cubas’ bid for freedom.

“The case is truly difficult,” Ruiz said. “Please pray that God will act in his behalf and make sensitive those who will have his fate and freedom in their hands.”[Return to Index]

***********************************(18) Philippines Hostages Near One-Year MarkNo Release in Sight for Martin and Gracia Burnhamby Deann Alford

AUSTIN, Texas (Compass) -- Almost a year after Muslim rebels kidnapped Martin and Gracia Burnham from a Philippine resort, there’s no end in sight for the missionaries’ release “unless something pretty dramatic happens,” reports their mission’s spokesman.

“We would never have believed we would be here a year later, not in our wildest expectation,” said New Tribes Mission’s (NTM) Scott Ross regarding the hostage crisis that began May 27, 2001.

The Burnhams’ release has become even more complicated with news -- confirmed to Compass by Martin Burnham’s mother Oreta -- that a deal for a third party to pay ransom for the couple had fallen through.

One year ago, some 20 guerrillas of the Abu Sayyaf Islamic separatist group snatched the couple and 18 others from Dos Palmas Resort on the Philippine island of Palawan. A week later, the rebels took other hostages when they raided a hospital.

Abu Sayyaf rebels fled with their hostages by boat to the nearby island of Basilan. Only the Burnhams and Filipina nurse Deborah Yap remain as hostages. Life is difficult for the captives as they remain constantly on the run. The other hostages have either escaped or paid ransoms for their release.

Reports that the Abu Sayyaf had negotiated payment for the Burnhams’ freedom has raised tensions.

“New Tribes Mission wasn’t part of a ransom deal, and we reiterate our position that paying ransom is against NTM’s policy,” Ross said. NTM issued a statement April 25 that the mission was not consulted about this agreement and that NTM was not aware the family members were involved in a deal until they revealed it to mission representatives in confidence on April 20.

In late April, Ross went to see Martin Burnham’s parents, Paul and Oreta Burnham, and children Jeffrey, 14; Mindy, 12; and Zach, 11, in Wichita, Kansas. The grandparents, who were also NTM missionaries in the Philippines, are raising the children.

Asked how the children are coping with their parents’ plight, Ross said, “They’re strong and very much wanted their parents home at Easter and were very disappointed when they weren’t,” he said. Jeffrey didn’t want to go anywhere for spring break because he hoped his parents might be freed and didn’t want to miss it, Ross said.

The Burnham children are active in school, church and sports. “The grandparents are trying to keep life as normal as possible for the kids in an abnormal situation,” Ross said.

But normal is Gracia Burnham homeschooling them in the family’s home in a rural Philippine community. The couple worked there in a support ministry for New Tribes Mission. Martin Burnham is a pilot.

“It’s been amazing to us that it’s been this long because they’ve almost gone through a school year,” Oreta Burnham said. “We never thought it would go this long.”

But the family hasn’t lost faith that their loved ones ultimately will be released unharmed. “We still feel like the Lord’s in control,” she said. “Why He has allowed this to go on for this long, we don’t know. But I don’t think it’s for us to question what He has allowed.

“I’m sure that He has a plan for all of this. And even [for] the kidnappers. So we have to just trust Him in this.”

Concerning the Burnhams’ living conditions, Ross said, “We believe the food situation has improved a little. Some of our information is telling us they are in a location where food is a little more naturally prevalent.” While food is not getting in from the outside, the area of Basilan where the couple is believed to be held has coconuts and some other foods. “Before, it was just green bananas and cassava,” he said. “We believe their health and well-being has improved a little, to subsistence rather than starving.”

Mission officials believe the couple is somewhat safer from a military engagement. “But there’s nothing to tell us he’s not bound to a rebel by day and chained to a tree at night,” Ross said.

Still, officials are frustrated that the couple’s captors haven’t been apprehended, given that 7,000 Philippine army troops supposedly have the guerrillas cornered on a small island.

“We do believe they’re alive,” Ross said. “We’ve been convinced they’re alive all along. We’re concerned for their safety. They could still die from exposure or from a military engagement.”

Reports a few weeks ago that the Burnhams had been separated came “from a tremendous amount of misinformation,” Ross said. “It could be information leaked by the ASG [Abu Sayyaf Group] to make the military think that military action is not possible. We believe they’ve always been on an island, have always been together and they are together now.”

Concerning recent terrorism for which Abu Sayyaf claimed responsibility, “We see a little saber-rattling with a couple of bombs,” Ross said. “I think they’re trying to let the people of the Philippines know that they can do things anywhere in the Philippines. They’re trying to make a statement.”

Until the Burnhams’ plight is resolved, the family remains in limbo. Asked whether she and her husband might return to their ministry in the Philippines with their grandchildren even before her son and daughter-in-law are released, Oreta Burnham said, “I couldn’t answer that. It’s a day-by-day thing. We take things as they come. But we really can’t tell anybody our plans because we really don’t know our plans.”

***A photograph of Martin and Gracia Burnham is available electronically. Contact Compass Direct for pricing and transmittal.[Return to Index]

***********************************(19) Philippine Hostage Knew the RisksMission Has Faced 20 Years of Crisis Managementby Deann Alford

SANFORD, Florida (Compass) -- Years ago, while New Tribes Mission (NTM) was in the throes of its third Colombian hostage crisis, a group of NTMers attended an in-house seminar on handling a kidnapping or terrorist attack. The mission’s plan was to have attendees, in turn, train their fellow workers as soon as the current crisis was resolved.

The crisis was finally resolved last year when the mission concluded that NTM hostages Mark Rich, Dave Mankins and Rick Tenenoff were dead. Now, all those who took the

seminar are involved in the Martin and Gracia Burnham kidnapping in the Philippines -- gleaning information, negotiating … … or as a hostage.

Martin Burnham took that seminar, where he learned survival skills that may be keeping him and his wife alive during this year in captivity.

New Tribes, like other ministries with workers in remote, volatile areas where danger is rife, knows the risks of answering God’s call to reach those who haven’t heard the gospel. But no other mission has been hit as hard as NTM, which has experienced a 20-year-run of hostage crises without respite.

Especially in the post-September 11 world, “All reason is sending folks as far from the threat of terror as they can run,” said Dan Germann, NTM’s executive committee vice chairman. “Yet missions is finding a higher priority that can’t always be determined through risk assessments.”

Perils from malaria to martyrdom have loomed for missionaries through the ages. Germann himself was hit twice by poison blowgun darts in Colombia in the 1970s. The can’t-wait nature of spreading the gospel is heightened even more in today’s age of terrorism.

“When everyone was rushing out of the World Trade Center, the risk and all reason demanded it,” Germann said. “Yet firefighters and rescue people rushed in because of a higher priority of saving human lives.”

NTM will continue to assess risk and make adjustments, he said. The in-depth training received by Burnham and others who attended that seminar probably won’t be offered again until the current crisis ends. NTM plans to offer an updated “contingency lite” in its next training for new missionaries. “As we get past this crisis, we’ll be getting back to more aggressive training. We don’t have the personnel to do as thorough a job as we’d like to do, because of the current hostage situation.”

But danger can’t be allowed to daunt missions, Germann says. NTM’s choice is to “either become strengthened by this terrible loss, or weakened through fear and deep concerns for personal safety,” he said.

“New Tribes is either going to become an organization that, because of everything that happened to it, becomes extra cautious, or we’re going to become prayerful, thoughtful, more committed,” he said.

Germann says that if there’s anything that two decades of back-to-back kidnappings has taught him, it has been placing all expectation in who God is rather than what humans may demand that He do.

“We’re going to face some flak because we’re not among those who are rushing out, especially when it causes suffering,” he said. “We’re rejoicing in a God who can lovingly care for Martin and Gracia in the midst of their suffering. The ultimate victory is His.”[Return to Index]

***********************************(20) Iranian Christian Family Faces Quandary in TurkeyCanadian Embassy Refuses Immigration Statusby Barbara G. Baker

ISTANBUL (Compass) -- The Canadian Embassy in Ankara turned down an Iranian Christian family’s immigration application in late April, closing the last known option for religious asylum for former Muslims Mahmoud and Atefeh Erfani and their three daughters.

After nearly three years as refugees in central Turkey, the Erfani family faces eventual deportation by Turkish authorities back to Iran, where Muslims who convert to Christianity can be executed for apostasy.

The Canadian government’s refusal came nine months after its embassy in Turkey pledged in writing to examine the family’s application for immigration. The August 6 document had specified that the family could be processed to leave for Canada within eight months “if all our requirements are met.” At that point, three previous applications filed for U.N. refugee status had all been denied.

After waiting more than nine months for their first immigration interview with Canadian authorities, the Erfani family was summoned to Ankara for an April 18 interview.

Erfani told Compass by telephone from Nevsehir that his formal appointment at the Canadian Embassy consisted of a one-hour interview. “They did not speak with my wife or daughters,” he said, “and they did not give us any medical or other tests.”

Erfani’s wife, whose health is deteriorating from advancing multiple sclerosis diagnosed eight years ago, is now in a wheelchair. But with considerable effort, she was able to accompany her husband and daughters to Ankara by bus from Nevsehir, where the family has been temporarily settled by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) since their arrival in Turkey.

Just five days later, the Canadian Embassy issued a letter declaring that based on “a careful consideration” of his April 18 interview, Erfani did “not satisfy the definition of Convention refugee nor member of the country of asylum class.”

“Consequently, I have refused your application for permanent residence in Canada,” Canadian Embassy Visa Officer Umit Ozguz wrote in the April 23 letter, which Erfani received on April 26.

The embassy letter gave no specific reason for the refusal. Church sources in Canada, however, said they believed Mrs. Erfani’s health problems were most likely the determining factor.

According to definitions cited in the refusal letter, a “Convention refugee” is any person who “by reason of well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, or membership in a particular social group or political opinion” has left his country and “by reason of that fear, is unwilling to return to that country.”

In the second category, the “asylum class” was defined under Canadian policy as someone who “has been and continues to be seriously and personally affected by … a massive violation of human rights” with “no possibility, within a reasonable period, of a durable solution.”

Although converted and baptized 21 years ago, Erfani and his wife had faced deepening hostility and harassment from police authorities in Mashhad during their last 12 months in Iran, which finally frightened them into fleeing the country.

Known as a center of Shiite fanaticism, Mashhad authorities executed a convert Christian pastor for apostasy in 1990. Then the city’s two Protestant churches were forced to close, and three convert Christian couples were arrested, threatened, and formally charged with apostasy. All three families managed to escape from Iran and obtain religious asylum in Europe and North America.

In the meantime, the convert pastor in Tehran who baptized the Erfanis, as well as the local Presbyterian elder who first brought Erfani to local church services, were granted religious asylum in Europe.

Although Erfani himself was subjected to a series of terrifying abductions by local secret police during the last half of 1998, he had no documents to “prove” officially that he was being persecuted for his faith by the Iranian government. After his family was forcibly evicted from their home on the former Presbyterian church compound in March 1999, he moved them to Tehran.

But a few weeks later, when Erfani learned other Christian believers were being arrested and questioned about his own whereabouts, he secretly packed up his family and fled across the Turkish border.

Erfani confirmed this week that Turkish police authorities in Nevsehir have consistently treated him well. In consideration of his wife’s poor health, he said, they have only required him to report once a week to sign in at police headquarters. Although he said they had not been able to afford many of her needed medications, they have scraped by on what a Presbyterian church source called “meager monthly support” from abroad.

In February 2001, after the Erfanis were refused UNHCR refugee status for the second time, the Turkish Interior Ministry had issued an order for their deportation. Although the

notice was temporarily stayed by the Canadian Embassy’s letter last August, the family’s Turkish residence permits expired on March 28.

Erfani said he had turned the permits over to the Nevsehir police authorities the day they expired, along with the Canadian Embassy’s August letter.

“I have nothing in my hands now,” Erfani said. “I am afraid that we could be sent back to Iran,” he admitted.

“Just pray that God’s will be done for our family,” Erfani asked, “and that we will be filled with the Holy Spirit, to bear all these problems with God’s peace.”

According to a representative of an Anglican church in Toronto which pledged full sponsorship for the stranded family, the Erfani family’s case is now closed with Canadian immigration. Even “if there is new evidence presented,” the representative told Compass, “there is no way to reopen the case.”

***Photos of the Erfani family are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct for pricing and transmittal.[Return to Index]

***********************************(21) Turkish Pastor Put on Trial in DiyarbakirChurch Construction Halted Since Novemberby Barbara G. Baker

ISTANBUL (Compass) -- Protestant pastor Ahmet Guvener goes on trial in Turkey’s southeastern city of Diyarbakir in late May, accused by the state prosecutor of making illegal changes in the architectural plan of his nearly completed church building.

If found guilty of the charges filed before the Diyarbakir Criminal Court, the Turkish pastor could be sentenced to two to five years in jail. The first hearing in the case is set for May 28.

Meanwhile, Guvener and his small congregation are shut out of their new building, which was only a month from completion when Turkish authorities intervened to stop the construction last November. The premises have been locked and sealed for the past six months.

Architectural plans for the three-story building had been approved in February 2001 by both the municipality and the Ministry of Culture. Registered in the pastor’s name of Guvener, as he owns the property, the building includes living accommodations for the pastor and his family, as well as a modest sanctuary on the main floor. But on November 26, the pastor received abrupt orders to halt construction.

Initially, Guvener was told by representatives of the Diyarbakir Council for the Protection of Cultural and Natural Riches that the style of windows installed in the building were not in conformity to those required in Diyarbakir’s protected “old town” where the building is located.

Then he was informed that an archeologist and architect from the council had concluded during an October 23 visit to the site that his plan was “not proper” and “to a great extent blocked the view” of the ancient Syrian Orthodox church just across the street, thus violating the zoning requirements for protected historical sites.

However, the underlying objection voiced to the council by the governor of Diyarbakir was over the building’s intended use for worship by Turkish Christians.

According to a Diyarbakir city official who requested anonymity, the story was spread through the Turkish media that Guvener had applied for permission to build a home for himself, while secretly planning to turn it into a church.

“It wasn’t until after the ‘Ceviz Kabugu’ talk shows on TV last November raised public debate about Christian missionary activities in Turkey and articles appeared in the weekly Aydinlik magazine against this particular church that a problem was raised about this,” the official admitted.

Both Guvener and his architect told Compass they had clear-cut evidence that they had never disguised the purpose of the building.

“Before the city engineers approved the architectural plan,” Guvener said, “they asked us to remove the last row of pews in the sanctuary to prevent a fire hazard, because it was to be used as a public place.” The plans also included a baptismal pool and pulpit, both clearly marked on the drawings.

“Our consciences are very clear,” the church’s architect confirmed. “Not from a technical standpoint nor in any other way did we ever try to deceive the city authorities about this building.” Although a few small changes had become necessary during the building’s construction, Guvener said, he had later submitted these to the authorities and received retroactive approval.

Over the past few months, the Ministry of Culture’s Diyarbakir Council has tried to dictate major changes in the architectural plan before allowing the construction to resume. Guvener has been told to remove the kitchen and one of the two restrooms from the plan, and also to construct a wall on the main floor that would split the sanctuary into two smaller rooms.

Turkish authorities have defended the halted church construction as simply an administrative order to enforce legal building codes and zoning regulations. In response to an inquiry from a member of the Swedish Parliament, Turkish Ambassador Selim

Kuneralp claimed that Guvener’s “attempt to build [a church] without authorization in a protected part of the city has been prevented.”

The January 8 letter stated that building permission had been “withdrawn” because “the construction did not conform to the original project” and also cited its proximity to the Syrian Orthodox community’s Virgin Mary Church.

The new Protestant church is located in a traditionally Christian district of Diyarbakir, just across a narrow street from the city’s ancient Syrian Orthodox church complex in the Sur municipality’s Lalebey neighborhood.

“So where is our congregation supposed to worship?” asked Guvener, noting that they now number around 40 Turks, including families with children. Married with four children, Guvener, 37, converted to Christianity 11 years ago.

“Maybe the Turkish state, or someone in it, feels there is a genuine danger of massive turnings to the Christian faith,” commented one observer close to the situation. “Otherwise, why are they making such a hullabaloo about it? It’s hard to believe that reasonable people are concerned, except as a political ploy.”

***Photographs of Pastor Guvener and the unfinished church building are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct for pricing and transmittal.[Return to Index]

***********************************(22) Turkish Protestants Subjected to Open IntimidationNationalist Party Targets Istanbul Church Servicesby Barbara G. Baker

ISTANBUL (Compass) -- Repeated attempts to intimidate Turkey’s small Protestant church groups surfaced during April in the wake of government inquiries begun six months ago into the legality of their designated places of worship.

In the most overt demonstration, close to 100 nationalist supporters rallied in the Kocamustafapasa district of Istanbul on April 14, attempting to disrupt the Sunday morning worship service of the Agape Protestant Church.

“We don’t want a church in our neighborhood!” the demonstrators shouted, waving placards and pasting leaflets on the wall signed by Istanbul’s Fatih branch of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).

“No to missionaries!” they chanted, clapping noisily outside the church’s rented basement hall. “Every missionary is a spy!” Begun three years ago, the small congregation of Turkish citizens numbers about 30, with only one regular attender who is a foreigner.

“Four or five police were already waiting there when we came to church that morning,” the pastor’s wife told Compass. “They informed us that some MHP demonstrators and television crews were going to come.” When neither protestors nor media representatives were allowed to enter the church, the demonstrators sang the national anthem and were dispersed by the police.

“Some of the children cried during the protest, because of all the noise,” an eyewitness said, “and some of the newer believers were frightened, but we prayed and went on with the service.”

Coverage of the incident was aired on TV Channel 7 and TGRT in their Sunday evening news broadcasts, which included interviews with both the MHP branch chairman and local Protestant leaders at the scene. Two Islamic newspapers, Zaman and Vakit, printed brief reports on the demonstration the next day.

Fatih MHP chairman Cafer Yaylan, who led the protest, read from the leaflet for the TV cameras, accusing Christian missionaries of pursuing a host of ulterior political motives in Turkey. He claimed that Christians were taking advantage of the country’s economic crisis to distribute Bibles free of charge, and warned that while the lands of Anatolia held the cradle of civilization, there was also room there for cemeteries.

After the incident, the church’s lawyer fired off a letter to Devlet Bahceli, national chairman of the far-right MHP and senior coalition partner in the current Turkish government. Protesting the “sad unfortunate incident” provoked by the ranks of Bahceli’s party against a group of worshipping Christians, the letter noted the clear complicity of the press and television corps in providing biased coverage of such an event.

“The press asked the usual questions,” said a Turkish convert Christian who spoke with TV interviewers. “They asked how much money we give to people to become Christians, and how we brainwash Turkish youth. I told them very simply that we don’t do this, and that our doors are open. Anyone can come in and see what we are doing.”

Since the protest, the church in Kocamustafapasa has had several visitors at Sunday services identifying themselves as reporters from the Islamic press. “They could be trying to trap us,” one church member said, “and of course we are suspicious of others who claim to be serious inquirers. But at least they are coming and asking us directly.”

The following Sunday, April 21, MHP supporters had circulated plans for a repeat demonstration against the Besiktas Protestant Church in Istanbul. But after their scheme was protested directly to Bahceli and the Istanbul governor’s office, the demonstrators failed to show up. Nevertheless, a large contingent of security police arrived in force to guard the church.

“They made sure nothing was going to happen,” one of the church elders commented, noting they refused to leave until the congregation had all left the premises and the doors

were locked. “But isn’t it strange? The government is trying to close us down on the one hand, but on the other hand, they come to protect us!”

Along with two dozen other Protestant congregations across Turkey, the Besiktas and Kocamustafapasa churches have been accused by the Turkish government of violating municipal zoning or construction laws. Official notices delivered to these churches by the police last November and December declared that the alleged violations rendered their church meetings illegal. Accessing fines for their presumed infraction of the law, the notices warned the churches would face prosecution if they continued to worship there.

Nineteen Istanbul congregations have filed legal protests over the notices, stating that their worship sites were legally established under the provisions of the Turkish Constitution and laws. When the Turkish authorities failed to respond to these written protests within 60 days, as stipulated by law, each church then opened formal lawsuits before the Istanbul Administrative Court.

Filed separately in late March and early April, the cases request a judicial ruling on the legality of each congregation’s place of worship, as well as a restraining order to prevent the church’s closure during court proceedings on the case. No dates have yet been announced for hearings on any of these cases.[Return to Index]

***********************************(23) Bomb Threat Against Ankara Churchby Barbara Baker

ISTANBUL (Compass) -- In the wake of the deadly attack against an international church in Pakistan in mid March, Turkey put its security police on high alert around churches and synagogues. Turkish authorities specified that Islamic militants had threatened similar attacks against non-Muslim places of worship in the country.

On April 6, the International Protestant Church of Ankara (IPCA) received a telephoned bomb threat from an unknown caller. A man with imperfect but “pretty good” English called the church number, declaring that he was going to blow up the church. “We aren’t afraid to die,” the man said, and then identified himself as a Palestinian before repeating the bombing threat and hanging up.

After consulting with the embassies representing members of the congregation and the Turkish authorities, the IPCA elders cancelled all Sunday services at the church the following day. No subsequent threats or cancelled church activities have followed the incident.[Return to Index]

**********************************************************************COMPASS DIRECT

Global News from the Frontlines

Jeff Taylor, Managing EditorGail Wahlquist, Editorial AssistantSuzi Quinones, Design

Bureau Chiefs:Barbara Baker, Middle EastAlex Buchan, Asia

For subscription information, contact:

Compass DirectP.O. Box 27250Santa Ana, CA 92799USAPhone: 949-862-0314FAX: 949-752-6536E-mail: compassdirect@earthlink.netwww.compassdirect.org