The link below is to an article that reports on the Church of England’s Christmas advertisement campaign and to say it’s nonsense is stating the obvious. There is nothing clever or particularly engaging about it, it is just more typical modern church nonsense.
For more visit:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2210254/Is-best-way-Church-sell-Jesus-Angry-worshippers-hit-Christmas-poster-campaign.html
‘Religious police’ raid apartment; no official charges.
LOS ANGELES, March 28 (CDN) — Friends and family of two Indian Christians arrested after a prayer meeting in Saudi Arabia in January have tried in vain to secure their release.
The two Christians were incarcerated for attending the prayer meeting with other Indian nationals and accused of converting Muslims to Christianity, though the government has not produced formal charges, sources said.
Yohan Nese, 31 and Vasantha Sekhar Vara, 28, were arrested on Jan. 21 when mutaween (religious police) raided an apartment where the two had lingered after attending the prayer meeting. Religious police interrogated and beat them to the point that they suffered injuries, according to sources. During this time, religious police who were cursing at them allegedly tore up and trampled on Bibles and Christian material they had confiscated, said a source who spoke to the men.
Authorities asked them how many Christian groups and pastors there are in Saudi Arabia and Riyadh and asked their nationalities. The religious police also put pressure on the two to convert to Islam, according to sources.
The next morning, Jan. 22, authorities took the two Christians to the Religious Court in Riyadh. The court sentenced them to 45 days in prison. At 2 p.m., police filed a case at the local civil police station, according to a source who requested anonymity.
To date the Christian Indians have been in prison for 67 days. Their family and friends say they still have not been able to obtain a document with official charges but know from the prisoners that the charges are religious in nature, according to the source. At the time of their detention, the Christians were not engaging in religious activities.
On Jan. 22, 15 mutaween in civilian clothes came back to the apartment they had raided the previous day, destroyed valuable items and wrote Islamic slogans on the walls with spray paint, the source said.
Nese and Vara’s situation in prison is “horrible,” said the source. The two men are cramped in a prison cell with only enough room to stand.
“There is no place to even sit,” said the source. “Only two hours a day they are sleeping in shifts. When brother Yohan is sleeping, brother Sekhar needs to stand, and when brother Sekhar wants to sleep, brother Yohan needs to stand. They have been doing this for more than a month. I don’t know how many more days they have to continue this.”
Since the arrest, other Christians have been too frightened to meet for prayer.
One week after his arrest, Vara was able to use a phone to call his family and pastor in India. His wife, Sandhya Vara, who is expecting their first child in three months, said she has not heard from him since.
“There were no Muslims in their prayer meeting, but they are accusing them of converting Muslims into Christians,” she told Compass by phone. “We got married eight months ago, but he’s very far from me now and he’s in very much trouble, and I’m six months pregnant.”
She and his pastor in India have communicated numerous times with the Indian embassy but have received no response.
“I have been complaining to the Indian embassy,” she said. “They cannot call me or give me any information. There is no help. So many times I informed them and they cannot give any reply and cannot take any action.”
Vara had worked in Saudi Arabia for more than seven years. Last summer he came to India and got married, returning on Jan. 9 to his post in Riyadh, where he worked as a supervisor for a catering company.
“Vasantha is from my church,” said his pastor in India, Ajay Kumar Jeldi. “He is very God-fearing, good, prayerful, supporting the pastor and working for the youth.”
The morning of his arrest, Vara called Pastor Jeldi and told him he planned to go to the evening prayer meeting in Riyadh. After the meeting, Vara, Nese and four other unidentified Christians lingered at the flat where the gathering had taken place. At around 7:30 p.m. two mutaween in plainclothes and one policeman in uniform raided the apartment.
On the phone with his pastor back in India, Vara said he was in prison for religious reasons and that he had been pressured to convert to Islam, but that he had refused.
“If I have to die for my God, I will die for him here,” he told Pastor Jeldi. “God will help me.”
The pastor said that in his sole conversation with him a week after his detention, Vara requested prayers for his release.
Typically in Saudi Arabia, a foreign worker’s documents remain with the employers who sponsor them in order for them to work in the country. Saudi employers are typically the only ones who can secure their employees’ release on bail.
“Only their sponsors can bring them out,” Pastor Jeldi said. “He has the right to bring him out, and no one else has the right to go and pay the bail or anything. Only the sponsor can have that responsibility.”
Since his arrest, Vara’s employer has handed his passport to local authorities and told them he is no longer responsible for him, according to the anonymous source.
“He doesn’t want him to work in his company anymore,” said the source.
The Saudi “religious police” or Commission to Promote Virtue and Prevent Vice (CPVPV) is a government entity that includes 5,000 field officers and 10,000 employees, along with hundreds of “unofficial” volunteers who take it upon themselves to carry out the CPVPV’s mandate, according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
“Despite the fact that the CPVPV is not allowed to engage in surveillance, detain individuals for more than 24 hours, arrest individuals without police accompaniment, or carry out any kind of punishment, its members have been accused in recent years of killing, beating, whipping, detaining, and otherwise harassing individuals,” the commission stated.
In the raid, authorities confiscated anything of value in the apartment, including two musical keyboards, a guitar, two sound boxes, a sound mixer, four microphones, music stands, power extension boxes, a laptop, mobile phone chargers and a whiteboard. They also confiscated 25 Bibles and other Christian materials, the source said.
The other Indian Christians at the apartment escaped.
The anonymous source said he has informed the Embassy of India in Riyadh of their arrest numerous times.
“I have lost hope in them,” he said, “because the only thing they are always saying is that this is a religious case, so we can’t do anything.”
Pastor Jeldi said he thought someone must have complained about the group of Christian Indians who were meeting regularly, causing authorities to act.
Nearly 7 million foreigners live and work in Saudi Arabia, of which an estimated 1.5 million are Indian nationals.
Human Rights Watch has reported that Saudi Arabia systematically discriminates against migrant workers and has called for the government to “abolish the sponsorship system for migrant workers, in particular the requirement for employer consent to transfer employment and to obtain an exit visa.”
According to the U.S. Department of State’s 2010 Report on International Religious Freedom, with rare exception, expatriate workers fear government interference with their private worship. The reasons for this interference can range from the worship service being too loud, having too many people in attendance or that it occurs too often in the same place, according to the report.
Riyadh was the stage for another raid and mass arrest of Christians in early October 2010. Arab News and other press reported the arrest of 12 Filipino Christians and a French Catholic priest celebrating mass in a private apartment. There were 150 Filipinos in attendance. The employers of the 12 Christian foreign workers secured their release, and the Philippine embassy negotiated their repatriation. The Catholic priest was also released within days.
“Saudi officials do not accept that for members of some religious groups, the practice of religion requires more than an individual or a small group worshipping in private, but includes the need for religious leaders to conduct services in community with others,” stated the State Department’s religious freedom report. “Foreign religious leaders continue to be prohibited from seeking and obtaining visas to enter Saudi Arabia and minister to local religious communities.”
Report from Compass Direct News
http://www.compassdirect.org
Young converts previously held in prison for Christian activities have fled country.
ISTANBUL, May 27 (CDN) — Nearly five months after releasing them from prison, an Iranian court has acquitted two women of all charges related to being Christians and engaging in Christian activities.
Iranians Maryam Rostampour and Marzieh Amirizadeh Esmaeilabad were arrested on March 5, 2009 and detained on charges of “acting against state security,” “taking part in illegal gatherings” and “apostasy” (leaving Islam) under Iran’s Revolutionary Court system.
After nearly eight months, on Nov. 18, 2009 authorities released them conditionally.
Although the court hearing their case originally set April 13 as their trial date, Compass was unable to confirm on what date the two women were acquitted, nor the conditions of their acquittal.
Senior Iranian judges and officials repeatedly intimidated the two women and pressured them to recant their faith, according to a press statement by Elam Ministries last week.
“They were warned that any future Christian activity in Iran will be seriously dealt with,” according to the statement.
Elam Ministries said the two women had fled Iran on Saturday (May 22) to an undisclosed location and were recovering.
Another Iranian convert who was forced to flee his country under similar circumstances years ago told Compass that he believed the intense lobbying efforts to release and acquit the women brought the government to an unspoken “standoff” with Christian rights groups outside the country.
“I think the court just made a political decision, ‘We will let you go, but we will not allow you to stay in the country,’” said the Iranian Christian, who requested anonymity. “That’s a pretty old-fashioned procedure they have – ‘We will let you go if you leave the country. You can have your faith, but not here.’”
In general, when Iranian authorities arrest Christians, they release them on bail within a few weeks and keep their case files open, thus applying soft pressure while allowing them to continue living in Iran. In cases where the government wants to remove Christians from the country because of their Christian activities, authorities have handed the Christians their passports and documents and told them to leave.
Iran’s government views all Christian activities as foreign intervention and thus a threat to national security. The two women’s families had hired a private lawyer.
Since their release, the young converts to Christianity had been waiting for a trial date and decision from an Iranian court to decide their fate as Christians living their faith. During this time, sources said that authorities watched them closely and that the two women were under “pressure” and received threatening phone calls.
“The government would not want them to stay in the country as heroes,” said the Iranian Christian. “It would be better for the government if they left Iran and didn’t become a positive example for the rest of the Christian community in Iran. Otherwise they would create a precedent of [Christians] who have not denied their faith, who have been acquitted and still live as Christians inside the country.”
The two women thanked Christians who have been praying for them, according to Elam.
“We hope to eventually share some of what the Lord allowed us to go through to highlight the need and the opportunity for the church in Iran, but right now we will take time to pray and seek the Lord for His will,” said Rostampour, according to Elam’s press statement.
Iran’s Constitution gives Christians “protected” religious minority status, but in practice they face substantial societal discrimination, according to the U.S. Department of State’s International Religious Freedom Report 2009.
An article mandating death for apostates in accordance with sharia (Islamic law) reportedly has been stricken from a draft penal code, but experts on Iran say The Council of Guardians and Iran’s Supreme Leader still have the final say on who receives capital punishment for leaving Islam.
Police try to extract bribe after attacking home; in Rawalpindi, militants attack chapel.
VEHARI, Pakistan, April 8 (CDN) — Police here filed false charges of alcohol possession against 47 Christians, including women and children, on March 28 in an attempt to intimidate and bribe them, Christian leaders said.
Police broke into and ransacked the home of Shaukat Masih at 10:15 p.m. on Palm Sunday, manhandled his wife Parveen Bibi, and threatened to charge them and 45 other area Christians with alcohol possession if they did not pay a bribe, said attorney Albert Patras. The Christians refused.
Those charged include two children and eight women. Patras said that three of the 37 Christian men, Shaukat Masih, Moula Masih and Shanni Masih, secured pre-arrest bail and thus averted detainment by Dane Wall police in Vehari, in Punjab Province. None of the others named in the First Information Report is being held either.
“Police are not interested in their arrest, instead they were trying to extort some money from the destitute Christians,” Patras said. “Police thought that Christians, being a soft target, would readily be bribed to save their families, particularly their girls and women.”
Non-Muslims with a permit are allowed to possess and drink alcohol in Pakistan, while alcohol is forbidden to Muslims in Pakistan. Shaukat Masih has a government permit to keep and drink alcohol, Patras said, thus making the possession charge baseless.
“No longer using just ‘blasphemy’ laws, police and fanatical Muslims have begun to use alcohol laws, Section 3/4 of the Pakistan Penal Code, to persecute the destitute Christians of Pakistan,” Patras said. “Only Christians in Pakistan are allowed to keep and drink alcohol, so Pakistani police can apprehend any Christian and then level section 3/4 of PPC against him or her.”
Patras, head of the Society for Empowerment of the People, told Compass that Sub-Inspector Irshaad-ur-Rehman of the Dane Wall police station, along with two other policemen illegally ransacked the house of Shaukat Masih and Sadiq Masih and threatened to file alcohol charges against them if they refused to pay the bribe.
Besides the alcohol accusations, police also filed charges against the Christians for interfering with police, attacking in the form of a mob, theft, confronting police and engaging in terrorist activities, Patras said.
Patras said that Rehman filed the false charges against the Christians only to protect himself and his cohorts against accusations over their attack on the household. Rehman was not immediately available for comment.
Khalid Gill, head of Lahore zone of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance (APMA) and chief organizer of the Christian Liberation Front of Punjab Province, said that police violated the trust of their office.
“Keeping alcohol and drinking is taboo in Islam,” Gill said, “but Christians are issued permits to keep and drink alcohol. Now besides the discriminatory blasphemy laws of Sections 295-A, 295-B and 295-C of the penal code, fanatical Muslims and police have found this new way to harass and extort money from innocent, impoverished Christian families.”
The Rt. Rev. Bishop Naeem Essa condemned the police action, concurring with the other Christian leaders that Muslim extremists and police accustomed to using Pakistan’s blasphemy laws to unjustly jail Christians have found a new means of antagonism.
“Now they have grabbed a new weapon in Section 3/4 of the penal code to financially, socially and legally terrorize the weak Christians of Pakistan,” Essa said.
Armed Attack on Chapel
In another Easter week incident, in Rawalpindi law enforcement agents secured the liberty of Christians held hostage by several armed Muslim militants, including at least five burqa-clad women, who attacked a church building after a Good Friday (April 2) service.
APMA’s Gill said the assailants armed with automatic rifles and pistols desecrated Gordon College Chapel of Robinson Community Development Ministries (RCDM) Church and ripped apart books, including the Bible. The assailants also entered nearby residences and reprimanded adults and children for their faith in Christ, besides looting many of the homes, Gill said.
Eyewitnesses said that while two Christians, Shaban Gill and Imran Nazir, were scaling the wall of their property to enter their home, the Muslim militants opened fire on them. Gill managed to escape but Nazir was hit, and the militants held his wife and two daughters, one 4 years old and the other 18 months, at gunpoint.
A heavy contingent of police from City Police Station Raja Bazaar arrived at the scene, and with the help of local Christians broke down doors and gates to make their way into the property and its adjoining residential area. Police secured the liberty of all three Christian hostages and arrested at least 10 suspects.
Nine of the suspects have been identified as Mushtaq Ahmed, Amjad Zaman Cheema, Dildar Hussein, Muhammad Anwer and Saqib Ali, along with the burqa-clad Nusrat Bibi, Shahnaz Bibi, Irum Bibi and Fatima Bibi.
Police were initially reluctant to file charges against the arrested Muslims but eventually did so under the pressure from Christian rights activists Robinson Asghar, head of RCDM.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Report from Compass Direct News
Police unresponsive to U.S.-born activist assaulted for his faith.
JERUSALEM, December 28 (CDN) — A Christian of Jewish origin who has been attacked on the streets here four times because of his faith in Christ is seeking police protection.
Jerusalem resident Yossi Yomtov said police have been slow to investigate hate crimes against him by youths wearing kippahs, cloth skullcaps typically worn by observant Jews. In two of the attacks a youth plied him with pepper spray and stun gun shocks, he said.
“This young man cursed me for my belief in Christ,” Yomtov told Compass. “He used ugly curses and spoke in highly abusive language.”
Yomtov, who founded social activist group Lemallah (“Upward”) after moving to Israel from the United States in 1999, said he was last attacked on Dec. 19. On that occasion his group was holding a demonstration in downtown Jerusalem, he said, when a man chanting anti-Christian slogans and using foul language approached him and begin striking him. Police never showed up in spite of many calls to the police station, he said.
Yomtov said he received Christ in 1984, while still living in the United States. He said he became a Christian after he “hit the bottom” – taking drugs and engaging in “in illegal activity.” He regards himself as a Jewish Christian belonging to no one church; he does not belong to the highly organized movement of Messianic Jews.
“I’m not secretive about my belief like some other people, and I often talk about it,” he told Compass. “That’s how many people are aware of me believing in Jesus Christ.”
In previous attacks in the last few months, the assailants appeared to be teenaged or young men of French origin, he said.
“When they approached, one of them started cursing me – I ignored him, as I figured he wasn’t about to attack me, but he did,” Yomtov said. “I received a punch in the face and had to defend myself.”
Police arrived and caught one of the attackers but refused his request to press charges, he said. Yomtov said he asked police why they didn’t secure any witnesses.
“I was told to shut up,” he said. “It was clear that they were not going to press any charges.”
A month later, he said, he was attacked again. The same teenaged youth approached him on King George street in downtown Jerusalem.
“He sprayed my eyes with a pepper spray, and I stood there, blind, for at least 15 minutes,” Yomtov said. “People at a nearby bus stop started calling the police, but they never showed up.”
Late at night on Oct. 12, the harrasment continued.
“I was walking in the city center, in close proximity to a very central Ben-Yehuda street sometime after midnight, and a group of youths with stun guns attacked me brutally,” he said. “I rushed to the police station, but the police officer again was reluctant to take up this complaint, and it took quite a few times and a lot of me convincing them to take this matter seriously.”
Yomtov said he managed to take a photo with his cell phone of the youth who seemed to be the gang leader.
“Finally they agreed to start investigating this issue, yet so far there is no progress in the investigation, and I have totally lost a sense of personal security,” he said. “I don’t know when they’ll come up to me next.”
Police in Jerusalem declined to comment on Yomtov’s case in spite of repeated requests by Compass.
On one street, Yomtov pointed to a morass of hatefull grafitti. Written with Hebrew characters, some of it employed foul language in referring to Christianity and Islam; other messages proclaimed threats such as, “Death to Arabs” and “Death to the left.”
“It seems as if they don’t want to stop the hate crimes, the hate graffities, until it’s too late,” Yomtov said. “If they were serious about enforcing laws against violence they would have at least identified the perpetrator and submitted that information in the complaint file for the prosecutor. Instead they threatened me with arrest, when all I wanted was to investigate the violent crime against me.”
He referred to the recent indictment of ultra-orthodox Jewish extremist Jacob Teitel, an immigrant from the United States charged with multiple hate crimes, including the murder of an Arab shepherd and taxi driver in 1997 and the planting of an explosive device at the front door of a family of Messianic Jews in Ariel that seriously injured 15-year-old Ami Ortiz.
“I wonder whether the Israeli police could prevent the crimes Jacob Teitel performed, had they been taking him seriously from the beginning,” said Yomtov. “It seems that the Israeli police only care to investigate hate crimes when someone is killed or seriously injured.”
Report from Compass Direct News
Largest-ever event in northern part of country encourages house churches.
HANOI, December 21 (CDN) — For the second time in 10 days, Protestant history was made in Vietnam yesterday when 12,000 people gathered for a Christmas rally here.
The event, which took place in the large square in front of the entrance to My Dinh National Stadium in the heart of Hanoi, was said to be 10 times larger than any prior Protestant gathering in history in northern Vietnam. On Dec. 11 in southern Vietnam, an estimated 40,000 people attended a Christmas celebration in Ho Chi Minh City (see “Unprecedented Christmas Gathering Held in Vietnam”).
Local sources said long-requested written permission for the event, entitled “Praise Jesus Together,” never came in spite of several reminders. But four days before the event was to take place, Hanoi authorities and police told organizers – in words as close as they would get to granting permission – that they would “not interfere.”
“One can hardly overestimate the importance of such an event in the lives of northern house church Christians,” said one long-time Compass source. “For many, this will have been the first time to join in a large crowd with other Christians, to feel the growing power of their movement, to hear, see and participate in the high quality, and deeply spiritual mass worship.”
The day before the event, Christians gathered near the stadium for final prayer and to help with preparations. Witnesses said the huge public square at the entrance to the stadium was arrayed with thousands of stools rather than chairs – plastic, backless, and bright blue and red. In 10-foot tall letters, “JESUS’ was emblazoned on the backdrop to the stage.
Invitations had been sent through house church networks even as official permission for the event was still pending. When church leaders decided to move ahead only days before, Christians were asked to send out mass invitations by text-message, leading some to speculate whether this may have been the largest ever such messaging for a Christian event.
Nearby Christians as well as those bussed from more distant areas began to fill the venue hours before the event. They were not dissuaded by a Hanoi cool spell of 12 Celsius (56 Fahrenheit) with a chill wind. Bundled in thick jackets, their heads wrapped in scarves, they waited expectantly without complaint.
They were not disappointed. Witnesses said the throng deeply appreciated a program of outstanding music and dance, a powerful personal narrative followed by a gospel message and an extended time for prayer for the nation. As at the previous event in Ho Chi Minh City on Dec. 11 that house church Christians had long worked and prayed for, the program featured music from Jackson Family Ministries of the United States.
In a world of globalized gospel and praise choruses, songs included hymns such as “How Great Thou Art” as well as classic praise songs such as “Sing Hallelujah to the Lord.” Witnesses said the music was accompanied by tasteful, emotionally engaging dance. Top Vietnamese artists performed, including news songs by Vietnamese songwriters, and a Vietnamese choir of 80 sang, as did a Korean choir.
A young man in his 30s who now pastors two house churches told the crowd how an encounter with Jesus proved more powerful than the grip of drug addiction. His story, simply and humbly told, proved an effective bridge to a Christmas evangelistic message by Pastor Pham Tuan Nhuong of the Word of Life house church. Then the winsome Pastor Pham Dinh Nhan, a top southern house church leader, gave a disarming but strong invitation to follow Jesus, witnesses said.
Organizers said approximately 2,000 people then poured forward in response, packing the large area in front of the stage.
The final portion of the program included a time of intense prayer for the nation, with pastors confessing and praying for righteousness for Vietnam’s leaders, as well as for God’s protection and blessing on their land. In their prayers they claimed Vietnam for Christ, witnesses said.
A high point for the throng was the superimposing of a large white cross on a yellow map of Vietnam on the backdrop. As the Korean choir sang a spirited revival hymn, the crowd raised thousands of hands and exploded in sound.
“The sound of crying, of praise, of prayer were blended as one, beseeching Almighty God for spiritual revival in Vietnam,” said one participant.
The event was streamed live at www.hoithanh.com for Vietnamese and others around the world to see.
Until recently – and still in some places – most Vietnamese meet in small groups in homes knowing at any time there could be a hostile knock on the door, a source said.
“None of these groups is registered or recognized by the government,” the source said of the crowd at yesterday’s event. “What you see is Christians standing up!”
In addition to this event and the Dec. 11 event in Ho Chi Minh City, a large public Christmas rally was held by the Evangelical Church of Vietnam (North) at the Hoang Nhi church in Nam Dinh Province on Saturday (Dec. 19). Some 2,500 people gathered in the church’s large courtyard, with sources saying 200 responded to an invitation to follow Christ.
In Tuy Hoa, on the coast of central Vietnam, a Christmas program is planned for Saturday (Dec. 26) in a 4,000- seat theater. Many smaller events are also planned in other areas, part of an unprecedented public display by Vietnam’s Protestants.
At the same time, the freedom for Christians tolerated in large cities has not reached some more remote parts of the country, where ethnic minority Christians live. In Dien Bien Dong district of Dien Bien Province, authorities on Tuesday (Dec. 15) orchestrated immense ethnic social pressure on a new Christian couple to recant. The couple told Compass that police added their own pressure.
“The police said they would beat me to death, and take away all my possessions, leaving my wife a widow, and my children orphans with no place to live,” the husband told Compass. “I folded. I signed promising that I would no longer follow God. I really want to, but it is very, very hard to be a believer where we live, as the officials will not allow us.”
Report from Compass Direct News
Six sentenced for anti-Christian rampage; tensions persist.
NEW DELHI, September 10 (CDN) — A fast-track court in Orissa state on Monday (Sept. 7) sentenced six people to four years of “rigorous imprisonment” and a fine of 2,000 rupees (US$41) each for their role in anti-Christian violence in the state’s Kandhamal district a year ago.
The court in Phulbani ordered them to remain in prison another three months if they are unable to pay the fine. Additional Sessions Judge Shobhan Kumar Das announced they were convicted of setting Christian houses on fire and engaging in unlawful assembly by defying curfew.
Following the assassination of a Hindu leader on Aug. 23, 2008, Kandhamal district was the epicenter of nearly three months of violence by Hindu extremists that killed at least 100 people and burned more than 4,500 houses and over 250 churches and 13 educational institutions; 50,000 people were displaced. Although Maoists took responsibility for the assassination, Hindu extremists blamed Christians in order to ignite large-scale violence on the minority community.
Sentenced on Monday were Kiringa Kanhar, Lasia Kanhar, Gananath Kanhar, Lankeswar Kanhar, Naresh Kanhar and Gorekh Pradhan. Police had charged 11 people, all residents of Tambasuga village, for burning the houses of Ladada Kanhar and his two sons in the same village in August of last year. The court acquitted five of them for lack of evidence.
The government has set up two fast-track courts at Phulbani, Kandhamal district to bring justice to the victims of violence. A total of 831 cases of violence have reportedly been filed.
“The police have dropped around 300 First Investigation Reports out of the 800-odd cases due to various reasons like lack of evidence,” Orissa High Court attorney Bibhu Dutta Das told Compass.
On June 30, Fast Track Court-II had convicted and sentenced Chakra Mallick of Gochhapada for his involvement in the violence. Mallick was sentenced to four years in prison and a fine of 4,000 rupees (US$82). At the same time, 15 others were acquitted due to lack of evidence.
In addition, Fast Track Court-I had sentenced five people – Bisra Kanhar, Durbasha Kanhar, Rabi Kanhar, Gupteswar Kanhar and Naresh Kanhar of Salaguda village – to six years of prison and a fine of 6,000 rupees (US$123) each.
With the conviction of the six people on Sept. 7, the total number of convictions for the violence increased to 12, while at least 42 others have been acquitted.
Police reportedly arrested 680 persons for their alleged involvement in the violence, and 10,000 people were named in 827 cases registered during the anti-Christian rampage last August. Charge sheets have been filed in 437 cases, with investigations underway in another 354 incidents including the rape of a nun, Director General of Police Manmohan Praharaj told media.
The two Fast Track courts are expected to deliver more verdicts soon. But attorney Das told Compass that the two judges assigned to the Fast Track courts are capable of taking on more cases than they have so far; he predicted they would see an increase soon.
“We will request the [Orissa] High Court to intervene in this situation so that police can speed up investigations,” Das said.
Kandhamal District Collector Krishan Kumar said investigations had already concluded in two-thirds of all cases submitted to police, and that charge sheets had been filed.
“Ten to 12 people have already been convicted in the span of one year,” he said. “This shows that the Orissa government is very serious about justice.”
Fearful Witnesses Attorney Das told Compass that the distance between the Phulbani court and the villages of witnesses is 70 to 80 kilometers (nearly 50 miles), and that they refuse to attend hearings because they have not been provided security.
“Only after a warrant is issued by the court to the witness do they appear before the court,” he said, “for in that case the police usually accompany them to the court since it is a warrant.”
District Collector Kumar told Compass that no witnesses had filed First Information Reports asking for police protection.
“If anybody asks for protection, it will be given to them,” he said.
The state government has shut down the last of the relief camps for victims of the violence that began after the assassination of a Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council or VHP) leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati and four of his disciples at his Jalespata ashram (religious hermitage) in Kandhamal district on Aug. 23, 2008.
The last two camps at Tiangia and Mandakia had housed some 700 refugees from the violence. The government had set up 14 relief camps in Kandhamal alone to accommodate the thousands of people who came in searching for shelter; the violence eventually spread to 14 of Orissa’s 30 districts.
A relief camp in Tikabali in Kandhamal district was shut down on July 27, and when 35 families from there finally returned to their village of Bodimunda on Aug. 29, Hindu extremists attacked them at night. They damaged their tents, and fighting erupted as Christians tried to defend themselves.
“The superintendent of police of that area was informed, and the police intervened on time,” District Collector Kumar told Compass. “There were no casualties, and no one was hurt.”
Report from Compass Direct News
A Chinese pastor, currently serving a sentence for ‘illegal activities’ while leading his church, has been transferred to a labor camp in Henan Province, China, reports Michael Ireland, chief correspondent, ASSIST News Service.
ChinaAid says that on June 29, about 3 p.m., Pastor Dou Shaowen was secretly transferred to Shifo Re-education Through Labor Center in Zhengzhou city, Henan province.
The Christian human rights group says authorities still have not informed his family of his transfer. Pastor Dou is currently serving a one-year sentence of re-education through labor for ‘engaging in illegal activities’ because of his leadership of Rock (Panshi) Church.
ChinaAid says: “Pastor Dou was first arrested on June 14 when government officials raided and forcibly abolished and sealed Rock Church’s building, a house church in Zhengzhou city, Henan. Police arrested him, his wife Feng Lu and five other believers. Pastor Dou and Feng Lu received one-year re-education through labor sentences, while the five other believers were each sentenced to 15 days detention and a 500 yuan ($74USD) fine.”
ChinaAid goes on to say that Pastor Dou was held in Jinshui Branch Detention Center of Zhengzhou City until June 25, when at about 6:30 p.m., he was transferred to Baimiao Re-education Through Labor Center located on Wenhua Road, Zhengzhou city.
ChinaAid contacts reported: “He was given inhuman treatment in the re-education through labor center. When he wanted to talk to the police officers, he was forced to squat. He worked 18 hours a day from 6 a.m. to 12 a.m. midnight. Over 70 people sleep in a room. Due to the hot weather and the poor sanitary conditions…some prisoners have eczema, herpes and other skin diseases. They have to work 18 hours a day without enough to eat.”
At about 3 p.m. on June 29, Pastor Dou was transferred to Shifo Re-education through Labor Center where conditions are reported to be worse.
According to a ChinaAid media update, authorities have permitted Pastor Dou’s wife, Feng Lu, to serve her one-year sentence at home, in order to care for their 12-year-old daughter.
The news release says: “When Feng Lu went to see her husband at the Baimiao Re-education Through Labor Center, she was told she was not allowed to visit him for a month, and was not informed he would be transferred to another labor camp. Feng Lu is required to report to the Public Security Bureau regularly, and could be sent to labor camp again if she is found ‘engaging in illegal religious activities’ again.”
ChinaAid explains that Rock Church’s gathering site is still sealed at this time, and authorities have refused to release the computer and other materials that were confiscated in the raid on June 14.
Rock Church recently released a ‘Declaration on June 14 Incident by Rock Church of Zhengzhou’ to the international community and a petition to the Chinese government.
In the declaration, the Christians of Rock Church state, “We hope the government can give us justice, give back our innocence, cancel the penalties of one year of re-education through labor for Dou Shaowen and Feng Lu immediately, protect the normal religious life of the believers, severely punish those people who committed crimes when they are supposed to enforce the law and apologize to all the believers.”
Report from the Christian Telegraph
A researcher in the Vatican Secret Archives claims to have filled a gap in the known history of the Shroud of Turin, saying that rediscovered records of the Knights Templar trials show the Shroud had been in the possession of the order before it was suppressed, reports Catholic News Agency.
The Shroud had disappeared in the sack of Constantinople in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade and reports of it do not surface again until 1353, Researcher Barbara Frale said in L’Osservatore Romano. The Shroud was then displayed in a church at Lirey in France by descendants of Geoffroy de Charney, a Templar Knight burned at the stake with the last head of the order, Jacques de Molay. According to L’Osservatore, Frale has uncovered new evidence concerning the Shroud in the testimony surrounding the Knights Templar, a crusading order.
Founded at the time of the First Crusade in the eleventh century, the Knights Templar protected Christians making the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. They took their name from the Temple of Jerusalem, near which they were first stationed.
After the crusaders lost the Holy Land with the fall of the city of Acre in 1291, support for them weakened. Accused of both heresy and engaging in corrupt and sexually immoral secret ceremonies, the order’s leaders were arrested by King Philip IV of France. The king pressured Pope Clement V to dissolve the Knights Templar, which he did in 1307.
Frale reported that a trial document recounts the testimony of Arnaut Sabbatier, a young Frenchman who entered the order in 1287. He testified that as part of his initiation he was taken to “a secret place to which only the brothers of the Temple had access.” He was shown “a long linen cloth on which was impressed the figure of a man” and instructed to venerate the image by kissing its feet three times.
Frale said that the Knights Templar had been accused of worshiping idols, in particular a “bearded figure.”
According to Frale, the Knights took possession of the Shroud to rescue it from heretical groups such as the Cathars.
In 2003 Frale rediscovered her trial document source, known as the Chinon Parchment, after realizing it had been wrongly cataloged in the Vatican Library.
Radiocarbon dating tests conducted on the Shroud in 1988 indicated it was a medieval forgery. However, the tests’ accuracy has been challenged on the grounds the sample was taken from an area of the Shroud mended after a medieval fire.
The Catholic Church has not taken a position on the authenticity of the Shroud.
Report from the Christian Telegraph
On Friday the Rev. Walter Hoye of Berkeley, California, was ordered to serve 30 days in county jail by Judge Stuart Hing of the Alameda Superior Court. Rev. Hoye had been found guilty on January 15, 2009, of unlawfully approaching two persons entering an abortion facility in Oakland. Judge Hing had also ordered him to stay one hundred yards away from the abortion facility for three years. However, Rev. Hoye refused this term of probation and would not agree to a stay-away order. Therefore, the judge denied the defense motion to stay the sentence pending appeal. Mr Hoye was taken into custody from the courtroom, reports LifeSiteNews.com.
At a hearing on February 19, Judge Hing stated that he had not intended to impose any fine or jail time on Rev. Hoye if he would agree to stay away from the abortion facility. After Rev. Hoye refused to agree not to offer alternatives to abortion-minded women, Judge Hing imposed a 30-day sentence and $1130 fine.
Dozens in the African-American and pro-life communities from around the nation who came out in support of Rev. Hoye were outraged by the sentence.
“It is absolutely incredible that in America an individual can be sentenced to jail for engaging in peaceful free speech activity on a public sidewalk,” remarked Allison Aranda, Staff Counsel for Life Legal Defense Foundation. “Rev. Hoye is being singled out for particularly harsh punishment because he refused to agree not to offer help to women considering abortion. Where is the justice in that?”
Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life, today denounced the sentence leveled against the pastor.
Rev. Hoye, said Pavone, “has just begun serving a sentence which is blatantly unjust. Rev. Hoye did no violence, but rather attempted to stop violence by his prayerful presence at an abortion mill in Oakland.
“He was right to refuse to promise not to approach the abortion facility. By intervening for these children, he simply seeks to fulfill the command, ‘Do to others what you would have them do to you.’ No government can put a cap on peaceful efforts to save children from violence.”
Rev. Hoye is an African-American pastor who says he feels a special calling to work for the end of what he calls the genocide by abortion taking place in the African-American community. As part of his efforts, he stands in front of an abortion facility in Oakland with leaflets offering abortion alternatives and a sign reading, “Jesus loves you and your baby. Let us help.”
In response to Rev Hoye’s efforts, the Oakland City Council passed an ordinance making it a crime to approach persons entering abortion centers to offer alternatives to abortion. Approaching women to encourage them to enter the clinic is permitted, according to City policy.
According to 2004 statistics from the National Center for Health Statistics, about 37 percent of pregnancies of black women end in abortion, compared with 12 percent for non-Hispanic white women and 19 percent for Hispanic women.
LLDF Legal Director Catherine Short and attorney Mike Millen, who also represented Rev. Hoye at trial, are currently challenging the constitutionality of the ordinance on Rev. Hoye’s behalf in federal court. They say they are hopeful the ordinance will be struck down and Rev. Hoye vindicated.
Report from the Christian Telegraph
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