BANGLADESH: MUSLIM VILLAGERS BEAT EVANGELISTS IN SOUTHEAST

Nearly four months later, Christian worker still suffering nerve damage.

FULGAZI, Bangladesh, June 1 (Compass Direct News) – Nearly four months after Muslim villagers in this southeastern Bangladesh sub-district furiously beat two evangelists for showing the “Jesus Film,” one of the Christians is still receiving treatment for nerve damage to his hip.

Christian Life Bangladesh (CLB) worker Edward Biswas, 32, was admitted to Alabakth Physiotherapy Centre on May 5. Dr. Mohammad Saifuddin Julfikar told Compass that injuries Biswas sustained from the Feb. 8 attack in Feni district, some 150 kilometers (93 miles) southeast of Dhaka, had led to neurological complications in his hip.

“His hip joint was displaced, and one bone in the hip was fractured,” Julfikar said.

Biswas told Compass that he and 21-year-old Dolonmoy Tripura first showed the film on Feb. 7 in a home in Chandpur village, where they also taught the more than 200 poor and mostly illiterate viewers about the dangers of arsenic in water, mother-and-child health care and AIDS prevention. United Nations Children’s Fund reports say more than 30 million people are exposed to high levels of arsenic in water in Bangladesh and India.

Azad Mia of the same village requested they show the film at his house the following day. They went to his home the evening of Feb. 8, but because one of Mia’s family members was ill they were unable to screen the film. As they returned home, Biswas said, some villagers told them to show the film at their home; the two evangelists suspected a trap.

“At first they tried to sweet-talk us into going to their house,” Biswas said. “On our refusal to show the film, they tried to force us to go. I smelled a rat and again refused to go. Later they forcefully took us deep inside the village.”

About 20 people gathered and began beating them, he said.

“Some of the elders of the village told them to release us, but they were adamant to see the movie,” Biswas said. “They took us to a schoolyard, where we showed the ‘Jesus Film’ under tremendous compulsion. After showing 20 minutes of the first reel of the film, Muslim villagers again started beating us as we were lying on the ground. They punched and kicked us.”

While 15 to 20 Muslims struck them, approximately 200 others present for the screening looked on, he said. The villagers also beat a Muslim who had transported the CLB workers about the village on a three-wheel rickshaw for the showing of the film.

The assailants also destroyed the film projector, generator, microphone and the four reels of the film, Biswas said.

“Several days after the beating, I came to know from some villagers that a family had become Christian around 10 years ago in the neighboring village, “Biswas said. “All the villagers were angry, and they evicted that family from the village.”

The attack was pre-planned, with the showing of the film seen as a legitimate pretext for beating them, he said. They also threatened Daud Mia, a Muslim villager who had allowed them to show the film in his house the previous day, said Biswas.

CLB Area Supervisor Gabriel Das took Biswas and Tripura to a local doctor for treatment. CLB Chairman Sunil Adhikary expressed concern about freedom of religion and the rights of minorities provided in the country’s constitution.

“The beating was a flagrant violation of our rights,” said Adhikary. “They showed the film, but they did not force anyone to be converted. We forgave the attackers and showed them the love of our God.”

Since 2003 at least three CLB workers in Bangladesh have been killed – likely by Islamic extremists, say police and local officials – and several hundred have been injured.

In April Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed spoke about freedom of religion, democratic governance and equal opportunity in Bangladesh with Gerard Valin, vice-admiral of the French Navy and commander of the French Joint Forces in the Indian Ocean, who was visiting the country. Hasina told the commander that Bangladesh would protect religious freedom for all faith groups, as well as ensure freedom of expression for all minorities.

Report from Compass Direct News

EGYPT: CUSTODY BATTLES BRING ISLAMIC LAW INTO QUESTION

Human rights advocates look to international arena for help.

ISTANBUL, November 24 (Compass Direct News) – Egyptian human rights workers are looking to international bodies for support against Muslim judges who use sharia (Islamic law) to undermine custody rights of Christian mothers.

Despite provisions such as Egyptian law’s Article 20, which dictates that minors should remain with their mother until age 15, judges consistently rule in favor of Muslim fathers in custody disputes with Christian mothers. Islamist judges typically resort to Article 2 of the Egyptian Constitution, which states that “principles of Islamic law are the principal source of legislation.”

Sharia-based decisions that rule contrary to Egyptian statutory law have led the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), an independent human rights organization, to protest before the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights (ACHPR). The ACHPR was formed by the African Union to oversee the implementation of its Charter on Human and People’s Rights.

An investigation, decision and recommendation by the African Commission to the Egyptian government would lend considerable weight to the EIPR’s efforts to enforce Egyptian Personal Status Law, which states explicitly the mother’s right to custody of her children until they reach age 15.

The EIPR’s complaint before the African Commission accuses the Egyptian government of violating the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which Egypt ratified in 1984, the human rights organization said in a Nov. 10 statement. The EIPR referred to the case of 13-year-old twins Andrew and Mario Medhat Ramses, whom an appeals court awarded to their father Medhat Ramses Labib on Sept. 24 after a custody battle.

“The government’s treatment of the boys’ mother, Kamilia Lotfy Gaballah, constituted discrimination based on her religion and violated her right to equal protection before the law,” the EIPR stated. “The case also charges that the government violated the two boys’ right to freedom of religion and contravened the state’s legal obligation to protect child rights.”

The boys’ father, Labib, converted to Islam in 1999 after divorcing Gaballah to marry another woman. In 2006 Labib altered the official religious status of the boys and later applied for custody.

“Obviously in this custody decision, it is a flagrant disregard of the Personal Status Law, which ensures custody for the mother until the children are 15 years old,” said Hossam Bahgat of the EIPR. “In this case the judiciary chose to ignore statutory law and apply their own interpretation of sharia.”

The long-running case of the twins exemplifies the problem but is in no way unique. Sisters Ashraqat Gohar, 12, and Maria Gohar, 8, were taken from their Christian mother in January and placed in the custody of their Muslim father, Wafiq Gohar, despite his criminal record and the 12-year-old’s claims that he is an alcoholic.

The court ruling referred to Wafiq Gohar’s fears that “[the girls] would cherish a religion other than Islam, eat foods that are banned in Islam and go to church” as determining factors in their decision.

“It is a big problem we are facing in Egypt,” said Naguib Gobrail, president of the Egyptian Union of Human Rights Organizations. “The decision of the court clearly stated that according to Article 2, the main source [of legislation] is sharia, so the judge cannot apply the natural law.”

More recently, 3-year-old Barthenia Rezqallah of Tanta, near Cairo, remains in her father’s custody, despite a court order that she be returned to her mother pending a final verdict. Police have turned a blind eye to the court order out of fears that the child will practice Christianity rather than Islam, said Gobrail.

Gobrail said that international pressure may be the solution.

“Maybe a connection with someone of international character connecting with President [Hosni] Mubarak is the only way,” he said, “because he has the authority to give orders to the National Assembly to issue a law to make things equal between Muslims and Copts, especially for the children.”  

Report from Compass Direct News