Court Acquits Two Evangelists of ‘Illegal Preaching’

Constitutional freedom of religion overcomes objections from annoyed Muslims.

NAIROBI, Kenya, August 13 (CDN) — A Tanzanian court yesterday acquitted two evangelists of “illegal preaching.”

After 10 months of hearings, a Kariakoo area court in Dar es Salaam closed the case against Anglican Christians Eleutery Kobelo and Cecil Simbaulanga, who were arrested in October 2009 after Muslims invited them to participate in a religious debate at which the opponents did not appear, but authorities did.

The two evangelists maintained that no Muslims showed up to the neutral site of the supposed inter-faith debate until Islamists arrived with government security agents who charged them with “using religious sermons to incite Muslims and Christians into viewing each other with suspicion.”

The accusers had claimed that the Christians’ message that Jesus is God had annoyed Muslims and therefore disrupted a peaceful coexistence between those of the two faiths.

Kobelo told Compass by telephone that the Muslims failed to show up in court to support their allegation of illegal preaching. After the verdict, Christians shouting for joy greeted the evangelists as they left the courtroom, he said.

“We are grateful that that the court has done justice and made its ruling based on Tanzania’s constitution that allows for freedom of religion and assembly,” Kobelo said. “We thank the Christians worldwide for praying for us and Compass for highlighting our plight.”

Simbaulanga said the message of Christ’s atoning death and resurrection cannot be stopped.

“The court decision will make us preach the gospel more vigorously, and many Muslims will turn to Christ,” he told Compass. “Muslims tried to stop the movement, but nobody can stop the gospel.”

Kobelo and Simbaulanga were in jail for seven days before they were released on bail on Oct. 27.

Simbaulanga was imprisoned for 62 days between December 2006 and February 2007 in Kigoma, he said. Denied bail, he was accused of trying to convert Muslims to Christ and “abusing Islam” by saying Muhammad had married a young girl. Several cases are pending against him in different courts, he said, and Muslims are constantly searching for him.

An estimated 62 percent of Tanzania’s population is Christian and 35 percent is Muslim, mostly Sunni; other religious groups make up the other 3 percent of the population, according to the U.S. Department of State.

Police in the Tanzanian capital of Dodoma stopped two Christian evangelists from reading excerpts from the Quran in an outdoor event on March 18, 2009, according to the state department’s 2009 International Religious Freedom Report. Officers temporarily detained them and released them with a warning not to read the Quran during sermons to avoid antagonizing the Muslim community.

Report from Compass Direct News

Arrested Evangelists Say Muslims Colluded with Police

Anglicans say Islamists tricked them by showing up for inter-faith debate with security agents.

NAIROBI, Kenya, February 2 (CDN) — Two Christian evangelists in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, have been arrested after Muslims invited them to debate religion but instead called in security agents who charged the evangelists with illegal preaching.

Anglican evangelists Eleutery Kobelo and Cecil Simbaulanga, released on bail and facing a hearing on Feb. 11, told Compass that Christian and Muslim groups organized the inter-faith debate that was planned for a neutral venue in October of last year in the Kariakoo area of Dar es Salaam.

Kobelo said no Muslims showed up at the debate until Islamists arrived with government security agents who charged them with “using religious sermons to incite Muslims and Christians into viewing each other with suspicion.”

“This continuous intimidation by the Muslims using the police is worrying us,” he said.

Kobelo and Simbaulanga were in jail for seven days before they were released on bail on Oct. 27. At press time charges of unlawful assembly also had been brought against the two evangelists and seven other Christians, in addition to the original charges against the evangelists.

Also arrested and released last October were Christians Joseph Lima, Shadrack Mwasonya, Festo Mumba, Erastus Mwarabu, Joseph Mmari, John Chacha, and Daniel Mwakemwa.

Kobelo said he does not foresee a fair hearing on Feb. 11, but that he cannot afford a lawyer.

“Without legal representation, it’s a long shot for justice to be done in this matter,” he said. “It is very difficult for me to raise 500,000 Tanzanian shillings [US$365] at the moment.”

Kobelo said he was seriously concerned about the charge of illegal assembly, which he said contradicted their rights as citizens; Tanzania’s constitution allows for freedom of religion and assembly.

Several other cases against Christians remain before local courts in Tanzania, he said, some of which have dragged on since 2007. His case will be tried in a court in the Kariakoo area of Dar es Salaam.

“The message we are putting across is that we need prayer and advocacy for the sake of our lives,” Kobelo said.

Simbaulanga told Compass that Muslims have resorted to using state police to harass Christians because they have political power. Tanzanian President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete is a Muslim.

“We have had tremendous success in our ministry to Muslims, with thousands of Muslims turning to Christ,” Simbaulanga said. “So Muslims are trying to stop the movement, but nobody can stop the gospel.”

Simbaulanga was imprisoned for 62 days between December 2006 and February 2007 in Kigoma, he said. Denied bail, he was accused of trying to convert Muslims to Christ and “abusing Islam” by saying Muhammad had married a young girl. Several cases are pending against him in different courts, he said, and Muslims are constantly searching for him.

“Since 1996 I have always been on the run, trying to save my life,” Simbaulanga said.

He added that a family member who preached mainly among Muslims died in prison in 2005 due to a heart attack as a direct result of police harassment.

“There is a huge team of very sincere and committed Christians reaching out to Muslims in Tanzania, and we need lots of prayer, fellowship and financial support,” he said.

An estimated 62 percent of Tanzania’s population is Christian and 35 percent is Muslim, mostly Sunni; other religious groups make up the other 3 percent of the population, according to the U.S. Department of State.

Police in the Tanzanian capital of Dodoma stopped two Christian evangelists from reading excerpts from the Quran in an outdoor event on March 18, 2009, according to the state department’s 2009 International Religious Freedom Report.  Officers temporarily detained them and released them with a warning not to read the Quran during sermons to avoid antagonizing the Muslim community.

Report from Compass Direct News 

TANZANIA: ZANZIBAR EVICTS CONGREGATION FROM GOVERNMENT BUILDING

Officials on island cite ‘renovations,’ but pastor sees pandering to Muslims.

NAIROBI, Kenya, June 22 (Compass Direct News) – A pastor in Zanzibar City said his church is without a worship place after government officials, at the instigation of radical Islamists, evicted the congregation from their rented building on Tanzania’s Zanzibar Island off the coast of East Africa.

With just two days’ notice, government officials ordered Christians of the Church of God Zanzibar from their rented government building effective April 19, ostensibly to pave the way for renovations. But two months later, said pastor Lucian Mgayway, no renovation work has begun and none appears to be forthcoming.

The government has not only failed to renovate the building but has since turned it into a business site, Pastor Mgaywa said. The church had been worshipping in the building since October 2000.

In evicting the church from its building in the Kariakoo area of Zanzibar City, Pastor Mgaywa said, the government gave in to partisan demands.

“Our being told to vacate the premise by the government was a calculated move to disintegrate the church and to please the Muslims who do not want us to be in this particular area,” he said.

Forced to rent different worship venues each week, the congregation can no longer bear the financial burden that comes with it, said Pastor Mgaywa.

“Hire venues are available, but we can no longer afford it due to limited finances,” he said. “Reasons for our being kicked out are purely religious.”

The church’s 50 members had seen signs that the eviction was coming. With increasing frequency Muslim youths had passed by the church hurling insults because they felt Christians had intruded on their territory, Pastor Mgaywa said.

“The church had been experiencing stone-throwing on the roof of the building by the Muslims during worship service,” he said. He added that since the eviction notice, members of the congregation have been increasingly harassed by area Muslims.

Pastor Mgaywa said that after receiving the order on April 17 to vacate by April 19, the congregation sought an audience with the acting director of the Zanzibar Social Security Fund, identified only by his surname of Hassan. Officials, however, rejected the church’s request to continue using the premises.

Otherwise, when the government gave two days’ notice to vacate the premises for “renovations” to be carried out, the congregation obliged; they did not seek legal redress, he said, as they had trusted that officials’ stated intentions were genuine.

Now that the congregation is left without site options, the pastor said, he has been visiting members in their homes to worship together.

Shut-downs and attacks are not unknown on the predominantly Muslim, semi-autonomous island as a resurgent Christian movement makes inroads. On May 9 Muslim extremists expelled Zanzibar Pentecostal Church worshippers from their rented property at Ungunja Ukuu, on the outskirts of Zanzibar City (see “Radical Muslims Drive Church from Worship Place in Zanzibar”).

The attackers had been angered by a recent upsurge in Christian evangelism in the area. Radical Muslims had sent ominous threats to the Christians warning them to stop their activities.

The church had undertaken a two-day evangelism campaign culminating in an Easter celebration. On the morning of the assault, more than 20 church members had gathered for Saturday fellowship when word reached them that Muslim extremists were about to attack. As the radical group approached, the Christians fled in fear of their lives.

In predominately Sunni Muslim Zanzibar, churches face other hurdles. There are restrictions on getting land to build churches, open preaching is outlawed and there is limited time on national television to air Christian programs. In government schools, only Islamic Religious knowledge is taught, not Christian Religious Education.

Zanzibar is the informal designation for the island of Unguja in the Indian Ocean. The Zanzibar archipelago united with Tanganyika to form the present day Tanzania in 1964.

Muslim traders from the Persian Gulf had settled in the region early in the 10th century after monsoon winds propelled them through the Gulf of Aden and Somalia. The 1964 merger left island Muslims uneasy about Christianity, seeing it as a means by which mainland Tanzania might dominate them, and tensions have persisted.

Report from Compass Direct News