SOMALIA: CONVERT FROM ISLAM SHOT DEAD

Islamic extremist rebel group hunts down underground church leader.

NAIROBI, Kenya, July 20 (Compass Direct News) – Muslim extremists early this morning killed a Christian convert in Mahadday Weyne, Somalia, 100 kilometers (62 miles) north of Mogadishu.

Al Shabaab Islamist rebels shot Mohammed Sheikh Abdiraman to death at 7 a.m., eyewitnesses told Compass. They said the Islamic extremists appeared to have been hunting the convert from Islam, and when they found him they did not hesitate to shoot him.

The sources told Compass that Abdiraman was the leader of an underground “cell group” of Christians in Somalia.

“We are very sad about this incident, and we also are not safe,” one eyewitness said by telephone. “Pray for us.”

The sources were too distraught to share more details about Abdiraman’s death. Another eyewitness who requested anonymity said Abdiraman had been a Christian for 15 years. He is survived by two children, ages 15 and 10. His wife died three years ago due to illness.

Intent on “cleansing” Somalia of all Christians, al Shabaab militia are monitoring converts from Islam especially where Christian workers had provided medical aid, such as Johar, Jamame, Kismayo and Beledweyne, sources said. Mahadday Weyne, 22 kilometers (14 miles) north of Johar, is the site of a former Christian-run hospital.

Linked with Islamic extremist al Qaeda terrorists, al Shabaab rebels have mounted an armed effort to topple President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed’s Western-backed Transitional Federal Government with the intention of imposing sharia (Islamic law). The group is already enforcing sharia in large parts of southern Somalia that they control.

The militants reportedly beheaded seven Christians on July 10, and refugees from Somalia tell of other attacks. One refugee last year recounted an attack in Lower Juba, Somalia. Binti Ali Bilal, the 40-year-old mother of 10 children, was fetching firewood with her 23-year-old daughter, Asha Ibrahim Abdalla in April 2008 in an area called Yontoy when al Shabaab members and Muslim neighbors approached them. Yontoy is 25 kilometers (15 miles) from Kismayo.

For some time the local community had suspected that she and her family were Christians, Bilal told Compass. The group asked the women if they were Christians, and when they said they were, the group began beating her and her daughter, who was six months pregnant, Bilal said.

After raping them and holding them captive for five days, the Muslim extremists left them for dead, she said, and her husband found them. The baby born to her daughter, she told Compass, suffers from diseases related to the prenatal trauma.

Reuters reported on July 10 that al Shabaab militants beheaded seven people in Baidoa that day for being Christians and “spies.”

Report from Compass Direct News 

MALAYSIA: BAN LIFTED ON MALAY SECTION OF CATHOLIC NEWSPAPER

Government maintains newspaper cannot use ‘Allah’ for God.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, January 9 (Compass Direct News) – Nine days after imposing a ban on the Malay-language section of the Herald, a Catholic newspaper, Malaysia’s Ministry of Home Affairs yesterday lifted the ban – but stipulated that the publisher must not use the word “Allah” for God in its Malay section until the matter is settled in court.

The editor of the Herald, which publishes in English, Malay, Mandarin and Tamil, was notified by letter of the decision to lift the ban late yesterday evening.

Father Lawrence Andrew, editor of the Herald, told Compass that the letter made clear that the conditions set out by the government in its earlier letter still stand. The publisher must print the word “terhad” (“restricted” or “limited” in Malay) on the cover page of the newspaper to indicate that the weekly can only be sold in churches and is meant for Christians only. Fr. Andrew told Compass the publisher will comply with this condition, which he said was not an unreasonable request.

In addition, the ministry has continued to prohibit the publisher from using the word “Allah” as the Malay translation for God. The ministry maintained that the prohibition must remain in place until the dispute over the publisher’s right to use the word is settled in court.

Asked how the Herald intends to proceed, Fr. Andrew told Compass the publisher is preparing a reply to the ministry in which it will reiterate its stand in its Jan. 2 letter to the ministry that the weekly ought to be allowed to use the word until the court decides otherwise. He said the newspaper will continue to use the word “Allah” in its newly-resuscitated Malay-language section since the court has yet to decide on the matter.

“We will respect the law of the court,” he told Compass.

A hearing in the court case is scheduled for Feb. 27.

In 2007, the government issued a series of warnings to the Herald to discourage the publisher from using the word “Allah” in referring to God in the Malay-language section of its multilingual newspaper. The government feared use of the word might cause confusion among the country’s majority-Muslim population.

The publisher, however, maintained that it had a right to use the word and took the government to court over the issue.

Fr. Andrew told Compass he was pleased with the lifting of the ban, describing it as a “gift of God’s blessing.”

Since the publisher was notified of the lifting of the ban only yesterday, he said this year’s first issue, to be distributed through churches on Sunday (Jan. 11), will be published without the Malay-language section.

Fr. Andrew told Compass the publisher will make up for the reduced size of its first issue of the year (24 pages) with a bumper second issue (44 pages) on Jan. 18.

The Herald is a multilingual newspaper published by the Catholic Church of Malaysia. Its Malay-language section caters primarily to its East Malaysian indigenous members, who make up significantly more than half its readers.

The weekly has a circulation of 13,000 and an estimated readership of 50,000. The newspaper is sold in Catholic churches and is not available from newsstands.

Malaysia’s population is about 60 percent Muslim, 19 percent Buddhist and 9 percent Christian. About 6 percent are Hindu, with 2.6 percent of the population adhering to Confucianism, Taoism and other traditional Chinese religions.

Report from Compass Direct News