The Global Consequences of Coronavirus
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Acting selfishly has consequences right now – why ethical decision making is imperative in the coronavirus crisis
JOHN FOTIADIS/AAP
Hugh Breakey, Griffith University
As the country moves into lockdown mode in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are increasingly faced with serious ethical questions about what ordinary people should be obliged to do for others.
These challenges can perhaps best be seen in the outrage as people flocked to Bondi Beach and packed into pubs and cafes over the weekend, despite strict social-distancing rules.
This also helps explain the anger on social media over people lying about overseas travel in order to get doctors’ appointments, hoarding toilet paper and defying quarantine orders, even as they defend their conduct self-righteously.
People are even being met with disdain when they ask others to keep their distance.
Why is ethical action critical?
In the face of a pandemic, legislation and police enforcement can only do so much. Ethical decision-making by ordinary people becomes crucial.
While laws and policies can be slow to evolve, individuals can alter their behaviours instantaneously. Rules and bans can be ham-fisted or crude, but ethical decision-makers can respond intelligently to their own contexts.
Above all, ethical decision-makers can be intrinsically motivated to do right by the community, ensuring compliance of social-distancing rules in situations where effective policing is logistically impossible.
Even as Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews announced a special taskforce to enforce an immediate shutdown of venues and restrictions on gatherings, he appealed to people’s consciences in the strongest terms:
If you act selfishly, people will die.
This is why leaders have called for voluntary cooperation during the crisis. Laws and political action alone will not save us. An effective response to the pandemic requires ordinary people making sound ethical decisions.
Why is this so challenging?
As we’ve seen from the images over the weekend, ethical decision-making in response to a pandemic is not easy. Many people are simply not taking the crisis seriously enough.
One of the reasons for this is confusion. Rules change almost daily, meaning some people won’t know the latest requirements. Others might not appreciate the stakes involved with their behaviours, and that it is not only their own health they are risking.
Also, rules can be ambiguous. For example, what happens if you’re keeping an appropriate distance from others at the beach or park, and it starts becoming crowded? Who should leave? Should those who arrived first have priority? Or should those who have had “their turn” move on?
In ambiguous situations, people take cues from those around them. If we saw others interacting normally at the park or pub (before they were closed), we could conclude it’s probably okay. We might also wonder if there’s any point in obeying the rules if others aren’t.
Read more:
Why releasing some prisoners is essential to stop the spread of coronavirus
Furthermore, it’s easy to question the legitimacy of the new rules. Ordinarily, we judge rules based on many factors, such as:
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Is it the right thing to do?
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Is it fair?
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Will it be effective?
In fluid situations, these conditions are hard to meet. Consider the case of casual workers with no paid sick leave who might not be able to pay rent or might lose their jobs if they comply with quarantine orders. Demanding they shoulder this burden can seem unfair.
Similarly, many teachers feel they are taking unfair risks to keep schools open.
In the most difficult cases, people must weigh up conflicting moral priorities. Do they support their elderly parents by visiting them, or is this risking infection?
For these reasons, even conscientious ethical decision-makers can struggle.
Joel Carrett/AAP
Why we might make poor decisions
Unfortunately, human beings suffer from decision-making biases.
For example, we often interpret expectations as entitlements. We convert our ordinary expectations about social, work, educational, religious and sporting routines into demands that these should continue.
This is one reason why some call for a “war footing”, urging people to acknowledge a “new normal”.
Read more:
Explainer: what are the laws mandating self-isolation and how will they be enforced?
In addition, people tend to be self-interested and prioritise immediate goals. Abstract concerns about risks to community infection can seem less salient than the pressures of the moment.
This bias can affect ethical decision-making. It allows us to “neutralise” rules by inventing stories about why they don’t apply to us, given our special circumstances. These self-serving excuses are a classic source of serious moral error.
Some guidelines to follow
There are no easy answers to the myriad moral challenges that COVID-19 thrusts upon us. However, here are five rules of thumb:
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Common sense ethics still applies – and the stakes make it more important than ever. Never lie about or conceal your history or infection status. Comply strictly with authoritative directives about quarantine.
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Stay informed about the latest rules.
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Never force your decisions on other people. Even if you aren’t personally concerned about social distancing, acknowledge that others are entitled to their space.
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If others are behaving recklessly or inappropriately, try to engage with them constructively. Outrage can be appropriate, but understanding can be better at changing minds.
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Gird yourself for the long haul. “Fatigue” can set in over long periods with changing rules. As the weeks in a state of emergency turn into months, we can be worn down and become less diligent in our ethical decision-making.
Finally, remember the positives. As the stakes rise, acts of kindness and support are more important than ever before.
Hugh Breakey, President, Australian Association for Professional & Applied Ethics. Senior Research Fellow, Moral philosophy, Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law, Law Futures Centre., Griffith University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
We know bushfire smoke affects our health, but the long-term consequences are hazy
Brian Oliver, University of Technology Sydney
In previous years, Australians might have been exposed to bushfire smoke for a few days, or even a week. But this bushfire season is extreme in every respect. Smoke haze has now regularly featured in Australian weather reports for several weeks, stretching across months in some areas.
What we considered to be short-term exposure we must now call medium-term exposure.
Given this is a new phenomenon, we don’t know for sure what prolonged exposure to bushfire smoke could mean for future health. But here’s what air pollution and health data can tell us about the sorts of harms we might be looking at.
Read more:
Climate change set to increase air pollution deaths by hundreds of thousands by 2100
Short-term effects
We know poor air quality is having immediate effects, from irritated eyes and throats, to more serious incidents requiring hospital admission – particularly for people with existing respiratory and heart conditions.
After the smoke haze hit Melbourne on Monday, Ambulance Victoria recorded a 51% increase in calls for breathing difficulties.
This aligns with Australian and international research on the acute effects of exposure to bushfire smoke.
But the long-term effects aren’t so clear.
Long-term effects: what we know
When considering the long-term health consequences of air pollution, we draw on data from heavily polluted regions, typically in Africa, or Asia, where people are exposed to high levels of airborne pollution for years.
It’s no surprise long-term exposure to air pollution negatively affects health over their lifetime. It’s associated with an increased risk of several cancers, and chronic health conditions like respiratory and heart disease.
The World Health Organisation estimates ambient air pollution contributes to 4.2 million premature deaths globally per year.
A recent study in China reported long-term exposure to a high concentration of ultrafine particles called PM2.5 (which we find in bushfire smoke) is linked to an increased risk of stroke.
Read more:
How does poor air quality from bushfire smoke affect our health?
We also know the dose of exposure is important. So the worse the pollution, the greater the the health effects.
It’s likely some of these long-term effects will occur in Australia if prolonged bushfires become an annual event.
Experimental studies
Observational studies, like the Chinese one mentioned above, demonstrate the long-term health effects of long-term exposure to air pollution. But we don’t really have any studies like this following populations which have experienced short- or medium-term exposure.
To explore the health risks of more limited exposure, we can look to experimental data from cell and animal models.
These studies follow the models for days (short-term) or weeks (medium-term). They show exposure to any type of airborne pollution – from traffic, bushfires, wood or coal smoke – is detrimental for health.
The results show increased inflammation in the body, and depending on the model, increased incidence of respiratory or heart disease.
What about bushfire smoke?
We don’t have a lot of experimental data on the effects of bushfire smoke specifically, apart from a few studies on cells in the lab.
In my lab we’ve found the short-term in-vitro effects of bushfire smoke are comparable to the smoke from cigarettes. This does not however mean the long-term heath effects would be the same.
Read more:
Pregnant women should take extra care to minimise their exposure to bushfire smoke
If we think about what’s burning during a bushfire – grass, leaves, twigs, bushes and trees – it’s also reasonable to draw on experimental data from wood smoke.
Wood smoke contains at least 200 different chemicals; some of them possible carcinogens.
In one small study, ten volunteers were exposed to wood smoke for four 15 minute periods over two hours. Afterwards, participants experienced increased neutrophils, a type of aggressive white blood cell, in both their lungs and circulation. The concentration of particulate matter in the wood smoke was lower than the levels we’ve seen in Sydney.
From shutterstock.com
These short term studies show bushfire smoke is toxic, and it’s this toxicity which is likely to cause long-term effects.
One review found lifelong exposure to wood smoke, for example from indoor heaters, is associated with a 20% increased risk of developing lung cancer. Though it’s important to remember this is long-term exposure; the risks associated with medium-term exposure are not yet known.
How can we apply these findings?
Taking data from one type of airborne pollution and applying it to different pollutants – for example comparing the smoke from only one type of wood to bushfire pollution – is complex. The chemical make up is likely to differ between pollutants, so we need to be cautious extrapolating results.
We also need to be wary about how we translate results from cell and animal studies to humans. Different people are likely to respond to bushfire smoke differently. Our genetic make up is important here.
And with variable factors like at what age the exposure starts, how long it lasts, and other factors we’re exposed to during our lives (which don’t exist in a petri dish), it’s difficult to ascertain how many people will be at risk, and who in particular.
Looking past the haze
The human body actually has a remarkable capacity to cope with air pollution. It appears our genes help protect us from some of the toxic effects of smoke inhalation.
But this doesn’t mean we’re immune to the effect of bushfire smoke; just that we can tolerate a certain amount.
So would a once in a lifetime medium-term exposure have a chronic effect? At the moment there’s no way of answering this.
Read more:
How rising temperatures affect our health
But if, as many people fear, this medium term exposure becomes a regular event, it could cross into the long-term exposure we see in some countries, where people are exposed to poor air quality for most of the year. In this scenario, there’s clear evidence we’ll be at higher risk of disease and premature death.
For now, we desperately need studies to help us understand the effects of medium-term exposure to bushfire smoke.
Brian Oliver, Research Leader in Respiratory cellular and molecular biology at the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research and Professor, Faculty of Science, University of Technology Sydney
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Bushfires threaten drinking water safety. The consequences could last for decades
From shutterstock.com
Bushfires pose serious short- and long-term impacts to public drinking water quality. They can damage water supply infrastructure and water catchments, impeding the treatment processes that normally make our water safe to drink.
Several areas in New South Wales and Victoria have already been issued with warnings about the quality of their drinking water.
Here’s what we know about the short- and long-term risks.
Read more:
How to monitor the bushfires raging across Australia
Short-term risks
Bushfires can damage or disrupt water supply infrastructure as they burn. And the risks can persist after the fires are out.
A loss of power, for example, disables important water treatment processes such as chlorine disinfection, needed to kill microorganisms and make our water safe to drink.
Drinking water for the towns of Eden and Boydtown on the NSW south coast has been affected in this way over recent days. Residents have been advised to boil their water before drinking it and using it for cooking, teeth brushing, and so on.
Other towns including Cobargo and Bermagui received similar warnings on New Year’s Eve.
Read more:
Disaster recovery from Australia’s fires will be a marathon, not a sprint
In some cases, untreated water, straight from a river supply, may be fed directly into drinking water systems. Water treatment plants are bypassed completely, due to damage, power loss, or an inability to keep pace with high volumes of water required for firefighting.
We’ve seen this in a number of southern NSW towns this week including Batlow, Adelong, Tumbarumba, and the southern region of Eurobodalla Council, stretching from Moruya to Tilba. Residents of these areas have also been urged to boil their drinking water.
Untreated river water, or river water which has not been properly disinfected with chlorine, is usually not safe for drinking in Australia. Various types of bacteria, as well as the parasites giardia and cryptosporidium, could be in such water.
Animals including cattle, birds and kangaroos can excrete these microorganisms into river water. Septic tanks and sewage treatment plants may also discharge effluents into waterways, adding harmful microorganisms.
Human infection with these microorganisms can cause a range of illnesses, including gastrointestinal diseases with symptoms of diarrhoea and vomiting.
Read more:
What are parasites and how do they make us sick?
Long-term risks
Bushfires can damage drinking water catchments, which can lead to longer term threats to drinking water. Drinking water catchments are typically forested areas, and so are vulnerable to bushfire damage.
Severe impacts to waterways may not occur until after intense rainfall. Heavy rain can wash ash and eroded soil from the fires into waterways, affecting drinking water supplies downstream.
For example, bushfire ash contains nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorous. Increased nutrient concentrations can stimulate the growth of cyanobacteria, commonly known as “blue-green algae”.
Cyanobacteria produce chemicals which may cause a range of water quality problems, including poor taste and odour. Some cyanobacteria can produce toxic chemicals, requiring very careful management to protect treated drinking water.
From shutterstock.com
Many water treatment plants include filtration processes to filter small suspended particles from the water. But an increase in suspended particles, like that which we see after bushfires, would challenge most filtration plants. The suspended particles would be removed, but they would clog the filters, requiring them to be more frequently pulled from normal operation and cleaned.
This cleaning, or backwashing, is a normal part of the treatment process. But if more time must be spent backwashing, that’s less time the filters are working to produce drinking water. And if the rate of drinking water filtration is slowed and fails to keep pace with demand, authorities may place limitations on water use.
Read more:
The bushfires are horrendous, but expect cyclones, floods and heatwaves too
Boiling water isn’t always enough
In order to reduce the risk of gastrointestinal and other illnesses, water suppliers and health departments may issue a boil water alert, as we’ve seen in the past week. Bringing water to a “rolling boil” can reliably kill most of the microorganisms of concern.
In cases where water may be contaminated with chemical substances rather than microorganisms, boiling is usually not effective. So where there’s a risk of chemical contamination, public health messages are usually “do not drink tap water”. This means bottled water only.
Such “do not drink” alerts were issued this week following bushfire impacts to water treatment plants supplying the Victorian towns of Buchan and Omeo.
Read more:
How does poor air quality from bushfire smoke affect our health?
Impacts to catchments from bushfires and subsequent erosion can have long-lasting effects, potentially worsening untreated drinking water quality for many years, even decades.
Following these bushfires, many water treatment plant operators and catchment managers will need to adapt to changed conditions and brace for more extreme weather events in the future.
Stuart Khan, Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering, UNSW
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Syria: Latest Developments and News
The links below are to articles reporting on the latest news and developments within and without Syria, concerning the conflict there and the consequences of it throughout the world.
For more visit:
– http://www.wnd.com/2013/08/u-s-facing-al-qaida-retaliation-strike/
Pornography in the Church: Concerns Raised
The article below raises concerns about the level of pornography in the church and the consequences of it. I believe there are real reasons for concern and it is something we all need to address as Christians.
For more see:
http://www.christiantelegraph.com/issue12979.html
Church in China to Risk Worshipping in Park
Evicted from one site and denied others, unregistered congregation resorts to open air.
LOS ANGELES, April 7 (CDN) — One of the largest unregistered Protestant churches in Beijing plans to risk arrest by worshipping in the open air this Sunday (April 10) after eviction from the restaurant where they have met for the past year.
The owner of the Old Story Club restaurant issued repeated requests for the Shouwang Church to find another worship venue, and authorities have pressured other prospective landlords to close their facilities to the 1,000-member congregation, sources said. Unwilling to subject themselves to the controls and restrictions of the official Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM), the congregation has held three services each Sunday in the restaurant for more than a year.
Church members have said they are not opposed to the government and are not politically active, but they fear authorities could find their open-air worship threatening.
“Normal” (state-sanctioned) religious assembly outdoors is legal in China, and even unregistered church activity is usually tolerated if no more than 50 people gather, especially if the people are related and can cite the gathering as a family get-together, said a source in China who requested anonymity. Although the congregation technically risks arrest as an unregistered church, the primary danger is being viewed as politically active, the source said.
“For a larger group of Christians to meet in any ‘unregistered’ location led by an ‘unregistered’ leader is illegal,” he said. “The sensitivity of meeting in a park is not being illegal, but being so highly visible. Being ‘visible’ ends up giving an impression of being a political ‘protest.’”
The congregation believes China’s Department of Religious Affairs has overstepped its jurisdiction in issuing regulations limiting unregistered church activity, according to a statement church leaders issued this week.
“Out of respect for both the Chinese Constitution [whose Article 36 stipulates freedom of worship] and Christian conscience, we cannot actively endorse and submit to the regulations which bid us to cease all Sunday worship activities outside of [the] ‘Three-Self Patriotic Movement’ – the only state-sanctioned church,” according to the statement. “Of course, we still must follow the teachings of the Bible, which is for everyone to submit to and respect the governing authorities. We are willing to submit to the regulations with passivity and all the while shoulder all the consequences which . . . continuing to worship outside of what is sanctioned by these regulations will bring us.”
The church decided to resort to open-air worship after a prospective landlord backed out of a contractual agreement to allow the congregation to meet at the Xihua Business Hotel, the church said in its statement.
“They had signed another rental contract with another property facility and announced during the March 22 service that they were to move in two weeks,” the source said. “In spite of the fact that they had signed a formal contract, the new landlord suddenly called them on March 22 and refused to let them use the facility.”
The landlord offered various excuses for reneging on the contract, according to church leaders, and that disappointment came after 15 months of trying to obtain the key to another property the church had purchased.
“The space in Daheng New Epoch Technology building, which the church had spent over 27.5 million RMB [US$4.2 million] to purchase, has failed to hand the key over to the church for the past year and three months because of government intervention,” the church said in its statement. “For the past year, our church has not had a settled meeting place.”
Beginning as a house church in 1993, the Shouwang Church has been evicted from several rented locations. It also met outside after its last displacement in 2009. The congregation does not believe its calling is to split up into smaller units.
“For the past several years the church has been given a vision from God to be ‘the city on a hill,’” the source said. “Especially since 2009, when they officially began the church building purchase, they have been trying to become a more officially established status. At this point, they feel that they have not completed the journey in obedience to God.”
The number of Protestant house church Christians is estimated at between 45 and 60 million, according to Yu Jianrong, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Rural Development Institute. Yu and others have concluded that house churches are a positive influence on society, but the government is wary of such influence.
Yu estimated another 18 to 30 million people attend government-approved churches – potentially putting the number of Christians higher than that of Communist Party members, which number around 74 million.
The government-commissioned study by Yu and associates suggested that officials should seek to integrate house churches and no longer regard them as enemies of the state. The study employed a combination of interviews, field surveys and policy reviews to gather information on house churches in several provinces from October 2007 to November 2008.
Yu’s team found that most house or “family” churches fit into one of three broad categories: traditional house churches, open house churches or urban emerging churches. Traditional house churches were generally smaller, family-based churches, meeting in relative secrecy. Though not a Christian himself, Yu attended some of these meetings and noted that the focus was not on democracy or human rights but rather on spiritual life and community.
The “open” house churches were less secretive and had more members, sometimes advertising their services and holding public gatherings, he found. Urban emerging churches functioned openly but independently of TSPM churches. In some provinces such as Wenzhou, these churches had constructed their own buildings and operated without interference from local officials.
While some house churches actively seek registration with authorities to avoid arrests and harassment, they would like the option of registering outside the government-approved TSPM structure, as they disagree with TSPM beliefs and controls. Many unregistered evangelical Protestant groups refuse to register with TSPM due to theological differences, fear of adverse consequences if they reveal names and addresses of church leaders or members or fear that it will control sermon content.
Report from Compass Direct News
http://www.compassdirect.org
Muslims Resume Building on Christian Graveyard in Pakistan
Hard-line cleric defies local officials’ order to stop construction.
SARGODHA, Pakistan, September 1 (CDN) — Muslims led by a hard-line cleric on Friday (Aug. 27) resumed building on a Christian cemetery in Mandi Bhawaldin, desecrating more graves in spite of a local government order to halt construction, according to the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance (APMA).
Radical Muslim cleric Mirza Abdul Ghani had built a mosque on the Christian graveyard off New Rasool Road in Mandi Bhawaldin after allegedly occupying the land 16 years ago, when area Christians were too intimidated to object, said Salamat Zia of APMA.
“No one could object to the construction of the mosque, as it is in the constitution of Pakistan that no religious worship place could be demolished,” said Zia. “Therefore all the Christians remained silent then.”
The cleric’s alleged desecration of more of the graveyard land around the Masjid Ahle-Sunnat-Wal-Jamaat mosque began three months ago, Zia said.
“This Christian graveyard was earmarked before the Indo-Pakistan partition on Aug. 14, 1947,” Zia added, “and their forefathers were buried there.”
Zia, a local journalist and resident of the Muhalla Ghorra area in Mandi Bhawaldin, said it initially appeared that Ghani’s workers were building an addition to the mosque, as only pillars had been erected. Now Ghani’s builders have completed a basement as well as possibly some shops, with cement plaster now being applied to the new units.
On Aug. 6 Zia led a seven-member Christian delegation intending to meet with District Coordination Officer (DCO) Muhammad Amin Chaudhary, another district officer named Syed Shahbaz Hussain Naqvi and District Police Officer Dar Ali Khatak of Mandi Bhawaldin about the encroachments on the Christian graveyard and to discuss how the graves of their loved ones were being demolished and desecrated.
As DCO Chaudhary was on leave, Acting DCO Shahid Rana took their application and forwarded it to the District Officer of Revenue and Tehsil Officer of Regulations with directives to visit the site and demolish all encroachments except the Masjid Ahle-Sunnat-Wal-Jamaat mosque, Zia said.
After inspecting the site, the administrative officers issued directives to stop the illegal encroachments, and for a few days the construction was halted, he said.
“But despite the stay orders of stopping construction, the Muslim men restarted construction over the Christian graves on Aug. 27,” Zia said.
Khalid Gill, chief organizer of APMA in Punjab Province, said that Muslim leaders threatened Christians who objected to the construction.
“They threatened that in case Christians protested against the resumption of construction they would also carry out a protest rally against Christians, and Muslim clerics said Christians would be responsible for the consequences,” Gill said.
APMA has demanded that the government allocate land for a Christian graveyard equivalent to the area allegedly occupied by the Muslims.
Local Urdu-language dailies in Mandi Bhawaldin have publicized the alleged encroachment on the Christian graveyard.
Report from Compass Direct News
Christian Convert in Bangladesh Falsely Accused of Theft
Muslims said to use mistaken identity to stop activities of Christian who refused to recant.
DHAKA, Bangladesh, August 27 (CDN) — A Christian convert from Islam was falsely arrested for cattle theft last weekend in a bid by influential Muslims to stop his Christian activities, area villagers said.
Day laborer Abul Hossen, 41, was arrested on Saturday (Aug. 21) for alleged cattle theft in Dubachari village in Nilphamari district, some 300 kilometers (180 miles) northwest of the capital, Dhaka.
Christian villagers told Compass that Hossen was the victim of “dirty tricks” by influential Muslims.
“There is another Abul Hossen in the village who might be the thief, but his father-in-law is very powerful,” said Gonesh Roy. “To save his son-in-law, he imputed all the blame to a different Abul Hossen who is a completely good man.”
Hossen, who converted to Christianity from Islam in 2007, has been very active in the community, and Muslims are harassing him with the charge so his ministry will be discredited and villagers will denounce his faith, Roy said.
“If he can be accused in the cattle theft case, he will be put in jail,” Roy said. “He will be a convicted man, and local people and the believers will treat him as a cattle thief. So people will not listen to a thief whatsoever.”
Some 150 villagers, about 20 percent of them Christian, went to the police station to plea for his freedom, he and other villagers said.
Sanjoy Roy, a lay pastor with Christian Life Bangladesh, told Compass that Hossen was a fervent Christian and that some Muslims have been trying to harass him since his conversion.
“They are hoping that if he is embarrassed by this kind of humiliation, he might not witness to Christ anymore, and it will be easy to take other converted Christians back to Islam,” Sanjoy Roy said. “He is a victim of dirty tricks by some local people.”
Hossen was baptized on June, 12, 2007 along with 40 other people who were raised as Muslims. Of the 41 people baptized, only seven remained Christian, with villagers and Muslim missionaries called Tabligh Jamat forcing the remaining 34 people to return to Islam within six months, sources said.
Local police chief Mohammad Nurul Islam told Compass that officers had arrested a cattle thief who confessed to police that his accomplice was named Abul Hossen.
“Based on the thief’s confessional statement, we arrested Abul Hossen,” said Islam. “There are several people named Abul Hossen in the village, but the thief told exactly of this Abul Hossen whom we arrested.”
Hossen denied the allegation that he was involved in cattle theft, Islam said.
“Hossen is vehemently denying the allegation, but the thief was firm and adamantly said that Hossen was with him during the theft,” he said. “Then we took Hossen on remand for three days for further inquiry.”
A former union council chairman who is Muslim, Aminur Rahman, also told Compass that Hossen was a scapegoat.
“He is 100 percent good man,” said Rahman, who also went to the police station to plea for Hossen’s freedom the day after his arrest. “There are two or three people named Abul Hossen in the village. Anyone of them might have stolen the cattle, but I can vouch for the arrested Abul Hossen that he did not do this crime.”
Whether Hossen is a Christian, Muslim or Hindu should not matter in the eyes of the law, Rahman said.
“He is an innocent man,” he said. “So he should not be punished or harassed. That is why I went to police station to request police to free him.”
Local government Union Council Chairman Shamcharan Roy, a Hindu from Lakmichap Union, told Compass that Hossen was not engaged in any kind of criminal activities.
“In my eight years of tenure as a union council chairman, I did not find him engaged in any kind of criminal activities,” said Shamcharan Roy. “Even before my tenure as a chairman, I did not see him troublesome in the social matrix.”
Immediately after Hossen’s arrest, Shamcharan Roy went to the police station and requested that he be freed, he added.
“I was under pressure from local people to free him from custody – more than 100 villagers went to the police camp, getting drenched to the skin in the heavy downpour, and requested police to free him,” Shamcharan Roy said. “Police are listening to a thief but are deaf to our factual accounts about Abul Hossen.”
In July 2007, local Muslims and Tabligh Jamat missionaries gathered in a schoolyard near the homes of some of the Christians who had been baptized on June 12, a source said. Using a microphone, the Muslims threatened violence if the converts did not come out.
Fearing for their lives, the Christians emerged and gathered. The source said the Muslims asked them why they had become Christians and, furious, told them that Bangladesh was a Muslim country “where you cannot change your faith by your own will.”
At that time, Hossen told Compass that Muslims in the mosque threatened to hang him in a tree upside down and lacerate his body with a blade. Hossen said the Muslims “do not allow us to net fish in the river” and offered him 5,000 taka (US$75) and a mobile phone handset if he returned to Islam.
“But I did not give up my faith, because I found Christ in my heart,” Hossen told Compass in 2007. “They threatened me with severe consequences if I do not go back to Islam. I said I am ready to offer up my life to Christ, but I won’t renounce my faith in Him.”
Report from Compass Direct News
Christians Narrowly Escape Flying Bullets in Pakistan
Evangelistic team cheats death; separately, stray gunshot leads to false charges.
RAWALPINDI, Pakistan, July 15 (CDN) — Suspected Islamic extremists fired bullets into the car of a Christian evangelist with impunity last month, while in another Punjab Province town stray gunfire led to two Christians being falsely accused of murder.
Following a youth revival in Essa Nagri, near Faisalabad, the Rev. Kamran Pervaiz, a guest speaker from Rawalpindi, was in the passenger seat of a Toyota Corolla returning to Faisalabad with his team on June 25 when 12 armed men tried to stop their car, the pastor said.
Pastor Naeem Joseph, an organizer of the revival, was leading the ministry team by motorbike, and he led them past the armed men as they reached the Narawala Road bypass at about 1:15 a.m.
“I didn’t stop,” Pastor Joseph told Compass. “A gunshot was fired at me, but it missed, and instead of going straight I turned right towards the Sudhar bypass and took the motorbike into the fields.”
Pervaiz Sohtra was driving the car.
“Rev. Kamran asked me to increase the speed,” Sohtra said. “The armed men shouted to stop and directly fired at the car. I saw from the rearview mirror that they were coming after us, and I told everyone to stay down.”
The rear window suddenly broke to pieces as bullets pierced the car.
“Pervaiz [Sohtra] turned off the lights and took the car into the fields and turned off the engine,” Kamran Pervaiz said. “The attackers drove by, near the road, without noticing the fields. No one was injured. We were all safe.”
Pervaiz said he was certain that they were targeted because of their involvement in the Christian revival meeting; response to Pervaiz’s preaching jumped when a crippled man was healed after the evangelist prayed for him at the event. Muslim groups had warned the Christians to abort the meeting after banners and posters were displayed across Essa Nagri.
“A local Muslim group tore the banners and threatened us, telling us not to organize the meeting or else we would face dire consequences,” said Salman John, one of the organizers.
A police patrol responded to the ministry team’s emergency number phone call, reaching them in the field shortly before 2 a.m. and escorting Pervaiz and the others in their bullet-damaged car to Model Town, Faisalabad.
Pastor Joseph filed an application for a First Information Report (FIR) at Ghulam Muhammad Abad police station in Faisalabad. Acting Superintendent Shabir Muhammad took the application but declined to register an FIR due to pressure from local Muslim groups, he said.
“I am trying to register the FIR, but the things are out of my control at higher levels,” Muhammad told Compass.
False Arrest
In Gujrat, by contrast, police soon arrested two young Christian men after shots fired into the air by a drunken man killed a neighbor.
Cousins Saleem Masih, 22, and John Masih, 23, were falsely accused of robbery as well as murder, a later police investigation found, and they were released. Both worked at the farm of Chaudhry Ashraf Gondal, who became inebriated along with friend Chaudhry Farhan on June 18, according to Riaz Masih, father of Saleem Masih.
“They were feasting and then got drunk and started firing gunshots into the air for fun, and one of the bullets hit a passer-by near their home, and he died on the spot,” Riaz Masih said.
Yousaf Masih, father of John Masih, told Compass that when police arrived, Ashraf Gondal “gave them some money and asked them to take care of the matter.”
On June 22, police went to Yousaf Masih’s house asking for Saleem and John Masih. When Yousaf Masih said they were at work and asked if everything was alright, the inspector told him that the two young men had robbed and murdered shopkeeper Malik Sajid on June 18 at about 11:30 p.m.
“My son and Saleem came home around 6 p.m. and they didn’t go out after that,” Yousaf Masih told the officers. “On June 18 they were at home – they didn’t go out, so how could they murder Sajid?”
Police went to Ashraf Gondal’s farm and arrested the two young Christians. When police told Ashraf Gondal that they had robbed and murdered Sajid, he replied that they were capable of such a crime as they often asked him for advances on their pay and “they even sell alcohol.” Alcohol is illegal for Muslims in Pakistan and can be sold only by non-Muslims with a license.
Riaz Masih said he and Yousaf Masih rushed to Ashraf Gondal for help, but that he spoke harshly to them, saying, “Your sons have robbed and murdered an innocent person, and they even sell alcohol. Why should I help criminals, and especially Christian criminals?”
The two fathers went to the police station, where the Station House Officer (SHO) refused to allow them to meet with their sons. They went to Pastor Zaheer Latif.
“I’ve known Saleem and John since they were small kids, and they could never rob or murder anyone,” Pastor Latif told Compass. “They were targeted because they are Christians. The SHO and Ashraf knew that these boys would not be able to prove themselves innocent.”
The pastor referred the fathers to the senior superintendent of police operations officer Raon Irfan, who undertook an investigation. When he spoke with Ashraf Gondal, Irfan said, the landowner denied that Farhan had visited him on June 18.
“I have read the inquiry report by the SHO,” Irfan told Compass. “I am aware of the fact that this SHO is a corrupt person, and it is clearly a false report.”
Irfan said that, after talking with villagers, he concluded that Farhan was with Ashraf Gondal in Gujrat on June 18, and that they shot into the air for fun and one of the bullets killed Sajid.
“Ashraf bribed the SHO to arrest someone else and file charges of robbery and murder,” Irfan said. “Ashraf is an influential person, and he told the SHO to file the case against Saleem and John, as they are Christians and would not be able to prove themselves innocent.”
Advocacy group Peace Pakistan filed an appeal of the false charges with the Gujrat Session Court on June 25. In light of Irfan’s report, Session Judge Muhammad Gulfam Malik on June 27 released Saleem Masih and John Masih and suspended the SHO for corruption and filing a false case.
No action, however, was taken against Ashraf Gondal or Farhan. Police have not arrested either of them.
Report from Compass Direct News
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