If there’s one thing Pacific nations don’t need, it’s yet another infrastructure investment bank

Susan Engel, University of Wollongong

If Scott Morrison was looking for a way to prove Australia is a good neighbour to Pacific nations, he could hardly have chosen a worse option.

Looking for a policy to combat both China and his domestic Opposition, the Australian prime minister last week announced a plan involving billions of dollars for Pacific nations.

Billions of dollars in loans, that is.

He promised A$2 billion for an Australian Infrastructure Financing Facility for the Pacific to invest in projects focusing on the telecommunications, energy, transport and water sector. And another A$1 billion to Efic, Australia’s government-backed Export Finance and Insurance Corporation, for concessional credit to Pacific projects.

The plan is driven in part by a desire to combat China’s economic diplomacy in the Pacific. There is concern that island nations will end up indebted to Chinese creditors.

So why would Morrison want to offer Pacific Island nations even more debt?

Chinese cheques

The AIFFP has rightly been called a response to Chinese development finance in the Pacific. This is mostly from the Chinese Development Bank, not the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), which China initiated in 2013. Fiji, Samoa and Vanuatu are the only Pacific island nations that have so far joined the AIIB, and they have not received any loans. However, the Cook Islands, Papua New Guinea and Tonga have expressed an intent to join.

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Read more:
Soft power goes hard: China’s economic interest in the Pacific comes with strings attached

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As with many initiatives, the devil is in the detail of the Australian response.

Morrison has already indicated there will be no increase in Australia’s already stingy aid budget. Given his criticism of multilateral organisations as “useless”, it seems likely the AIFFP’s A$2 billion will come from diverting contributions that would have gone to United Nations agencies or other programs for low-income countries not in the Pacific.

While a greater focus on the Pacific is welcome given the region’s needs, it should not come at the expense of other countries with equally pressing challenges. Further, the shift from grants to loans is not welcome news.

Apart from an interest-free loan to Indonesia following the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that killed about 170,000 Indonesians, Australian aid has long been fully grant-based. That has been one of its key strengths.

It has left debt-based development financing to the multilateral development banks it helps fund, in particular the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the new AIIB.

Debt concerns

The World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s joint Development Committee warned about debt concerns for developing nations last month. Debt vulnerabilities risked “reversing the benefits of earlier debt relief initiatives”, it said in a communique from the annual meetings of its parent organisations held in Bali last month.

At the meetings, it was clear the IMF was more concerned about debt than the World Bank. Indeed the World Bank and its affiliates were successful in gaining a very large capital increase – US$13 billion in paid-in capital from member states, with the aim that it increase lending to US$100 billion a year by 2030.

The World Bank also had a large capital increase after the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, as did other development banks. These increases were not just in response to the crisis but also underpinned by concerns about competition from China and other emerging powers.

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Read more:
For Pacific Island nations, rising sea levels are a bigger security concern than rising Chinese influence

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With the AIIB and the New Development Bank (established by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa in 2015), there are now about 27 multilateral development banks.

Further, many countries have development finance institutions like Australia’s planned AIFFP, and export-import banks like Australia’s Efic. On top of that, private finance is at record highs.

The case for more debt-based development financing is just not there.

Pacific situation

Of 13 Pacific island countries, six are already considered at high risk of debt distress. In a couple of cases is that due to Chinese finance. In other cases the multilateral development banks are the biggest creditors. Four other countries are at moderate risk of debt distress.

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Adding to those debts is not a wise or decent thing for Australia to do. Even the government’s former minister for international development and the Pacific, Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, has warned about debt.

Most Pacific island communities have limited potential to develop along standard capitalist lines. Debt-based development requires projects with substantial economic rates of return and strong cash flows, which is difficult in small island states. Large hard infrastructure projects are risky, as Australia has learned in Vanuatu, and need to be climate change proofed.

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Read more:
For Pacific Island nations, rising sea levels are a bigger security concern than rising Chinese influence

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The AIFFP reflects a new global mantra focused on replacing aid with lending money for infrastructure. It is not responding any demand from the Pacific. Core parts of the Sustainable Development Goals like health, education and climate sustainability are being ignored. It remains to be seen if anyone in the region embraces it.

Susan Engel, Senior Lecturer, Politics and International Studies, University of Wollongong

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Shorten proposes investment bank to help Pacific nations’ development

Michelle Grattan, University of Canberra

Bill Shorten is flagging that Labor would set up a government-backed infrastructure investment bank to promote concessional financing for nation-building projects in the Pacific.

In a speech to the Lowy Institute on Monday – part of which has been released beforehand – Shorten says Australia’s Pacific neighbours want partners for infrastructure projects – “and as prime minister, I
intend to make sure they look to Australia first.

“I see this as a way Australia can elevate our status as a ‘partner-of-choice’ for Pacific development and enhance security and prosperity in the region,” he says.

In government, the ALP would put the Pacific “front and centre” in its regional foreign policy, Shorten says.

It would grow Australia’s aid commitment to the Pacific. But while development assistance is critical “our agenda for engagement needs to be bigger and broader than that”.

“We should be encouraging others, including private firms, to invest in projects that drive development in the region: from roads and ports to water supply, communications technology and energy infrastructure.

“New Zealand are already doing this, the United States and Japan are also exploring their options. Australia should be too.

“My vision is for Australia to actively facilitate concessional loans and financing for investment in these vital, nation-building projects through a government-backed infrastructure investment bank.”

Shorten does not spell out the detail of the proposed bank, which his office said would encompass projects in the wider Indo-Pacific region, but with its main emphasis on the Pacific. Planning appears to be in
its early stages.

In his speech Shorten, stressing the diversity of nations in the Pacific, says a Labor government would engage with these countries “through partnership, not paternalism”.

“We will listen, knowing that for our Pacific neighbours, sustainable development and poverty reduction are more than economic concerns. And
we must strive to understand the socio-cultural dimensions which impact these issues.”

Labor would upgrade the position of minister for Pacific affairs, which has recently been downgraded to an assistant minister. Labor’s minister would coordinate Pacific strategy and programs across
government.

“We will engage with the Pacific not through the intricacies of geopolitics – but in its own right. Our goal will not be the strategic denial of others but rather the economic betterment of the ten million
people of the Pacific islands themselves,” Shorten says.

Criticising Scott Morrison’s decision not to attend the recent Pacific Islands Forum, which was held immediately after he became prime minister, Shorten says this was “part of a pattern of neglect of the
Forum by Coalition prime ministers”.

The opposition leader also argues that Labor is better able than the Coalition to chime in with the Pacific countries’ concerns about climate change.

“No community of nations are more concerned about climate change – with better reason – than our Pacific neighbours. Rising sea levels are an existential threat for these nations, ” he says.

“Under a Labor government, Australia will be much better placed to help our neighbours respond and to press their case internationally because we accept the science of climate change – and we accept the need for real action.”

Morrison repeatedly has given as one reason for resisting the push from the right for Australia to exit the Paris climate agreement that the climate issue is of major concern to Pacific countries which are in turn strategically important to Australia.

POSTSCRIPT: Government takes new hit in Newspoll: ALP leads 54-46%

The government and Prime Minister Scott Morrison have slipped in the latest Newspoll, published in Monday’s Australian.

Labor has widened its two-party lead to 54-46%, compared with 53-47% a
fortnight ago. On primary votes, the Coalition has dropped a point to
36%; Labor has gained a point to 39%. The Greens are down from 11% to
9%.

Morrison’s satisfaction rating has fallen 4 points to 41% while
dissatisfaction with his performance is up 6 points to 44%. This gives
him a net negative rating for the first time.

But he retains a healthy head over Bill Shorten as better prime
minister – 43-35%, although the gap has narrowed from 45-34%.

Satisfaction with Shorten is up 2 points to 37%; his dissatisfaction
rating is 50%, down a point.

The latest results come in the wake of the Liberals’ loss of Wentworth
to independent Kerryn Phelps, which has produced a hung parliament.
Previously Morrison had been clawing back from the government’s
disastrous deterioration in the poll after the removal of Malcolm
Turnbull, but that apparent small improvement has now been set back.

The poll found that 58% want the government to run full term rather
than call an early election.

Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Labor is making big promises for a Pacific development bank, but questions remain

Locals in Kiribati building a sea wall to protect the low-lying Pacific island from rising sea waters.
Elise Scott/AAP

Matthew Dornan, Australian National University

This week, Opposition leader Bill Shorten used a major foreign policy speech at the Lowy Institute to announce that, if elected, a future Labor government would establish an infrastructure investment bank for the Pacific islands.

The announcement comes at a time of increased public scrutiny of Australian aid to the Pacific, driven by concerns over China’s heightened presence in the region. Many have argued that Australia’s “benign neglect” of the region has led Pacific governments to seek more assistance from China.

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Read more:
Soft power goes hard: China’s economic interest in the Pacific comes with strings attached

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Nowhere is this more evident than in infrastructure. China is believed to have a comparative advantage over Australia in infrastructure lending in the region, given its own rapid development in recent years. Infrastructure lending is also at the heart of the new China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, or AIIB.

Australian aid, by comparison, has been criticised for focusing too heavily on governance projects instead of infrastructure investments. The Vanuatu government, for instance, has justified the construction of a China-funded wharf and roads by saying:

No donor was willing [to] help provide assistance on these projects although the economic benefits [are] huge.

A shift in Labor policy

Though not entirely a surprise, Shorten’s announcement does represent a change in Labor’s approach to aid. In February, Shadow Foreign Minister Penny Wong gave a speech outlining Labor’s future aid policy that focused on health, education, gender and climate change, but made no mention of infrastructure. Then, in July, she shifted tone, calling for greater emphasis on infrastructure in the Pacific.

The Coalition has also responded to rising Chinese influence in the region, committing to the construction of underseas internet cables to the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea to head off earlier bids by Chinese companies.

A dilapidated road in Vanua Levu, Fiji.
Matthew Dornan, Author provided

Australia has for many years effectively delegated infrastructure lending to multinational development banks: the World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB). Shorten is now flagging that under a Labor government, Australia will itself provide concessional loans for projects like this on a bilateral basis.

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Read more:
For Pacific Island nations, rising sea levels are a bigger security concern than rising Chinese influence

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None of this is to suggest that Australia has been completely absent from the infrastructure sector in the past, though its focus has traditionally been stronger in other areas, such as education and disability projects.

Australia has also invested heavily in “soft” infrastructure in the Pacific, or the technical and managerial expertise and institutions needed to manage new infrastructure projects, such as bridges, roads and ports.

Such support is important, even if outcomes are difficult to measure. Without managerial or technical expertise, as well as appropriate institutions, infrastructure projects often fall into disrepair. A stark example is the tragic account of the decline of a village in Papua New Guinea following the deterioration of its airstrip.

A new reliance on concessional loans

Australian aid has been used on occasion for infrastructure projects in the Pacific, mainly through grants to complement World Bank and ADB loans. But Australia has not been in the business of providing its own loans for infrastructure development. That much is clear. And in this respect, Shorten’s announcement is significant.

If Australia is determined to move more firmly into the infrastructure game to counter Chinese lending in the region, it makes sense to fund such projects with loans.

Grants are ill-suited for infrastructure projects for which there is a strong commercial case (such as the Solomon Islands internet cable). They distort market incentives and divert scarce aid resources away from other priorities.

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Read more:
Pacific nations aren’t cash-hungry, minister, they just want action on climate change

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There are clearly potential benefits for the region from a new infrastructure bank. The Pacific suffers from an enormous infrastructure deficit, particularly in remote rural areas. There is also considerable evidence that points to the importance of infrastructure for economic development and poverty alleviation.

China Exim Bank loans, though concessional, are generally not great value for money, with higher interest rates and shorter repayment periods than those offered by other lenders, including presumably any new Australian infrastructure bank.

A large number of unanswered questions

Having said that, we should put the hubris in Shorten’s speech to one side. It makes no sense to aspire, as he said, for Australia to become the Pacific’s “partner of choice” for infrastructure projects. We can only finance a small fraction of the region’s needs, and Pacific nations will have good reason to look to other infrastructure providers, such as China. We’re not that special.

Turning from rhetoric to policy, more detail is needed before we can determine conclusively whether such a bank would be positive for the region. Shorten’s speech only indicated that Labor would:

…actively facilitate concessional loans and financing for investment in these vital, nation-building projects through a government-backed infrastructure investment bank.

That leaves a lot of questions unanswered.

Should the new bank lend to governments or the private sector, or both? To what extent will projects be selected on the basis of rigorous benefit cost analysis? How will “bankable” projects be identified? Will loans be available to all Pacific island countries, including those currently in debt distress? Will concessional loans come at the expense of existing aid priorities, including Australian funding for “soft” infrastructure?

The answers to such questions are important. After all, it is Australia’s overall approach towards infrastructure that will ultimately drive long-term impacts.

Matthew Dornan, Research Fellow, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Convert from Islam Escapes Egypt with Daughter

After painful effort to change ID card, Christians flee – to similar fate.

CAIRO, Egypt, March 21 (CDN) — When the plane carrying Maher El-Gohary and his daughter, Dina Mo’otahssem, took off from Cairo International Airport last month, they both wept with joy. After spending two-and-a-half years in hiding for leaving Islam to become Christians, they were elated by their newfound freedom.

They also felt secure that once they arrived in Syria, they would quickly obtain visas to the United States and start a new life. That hope soon proved unfounded.

After spending more than a week and a half unable to obtain a visa to the United States or to any country in Europe, they realized they may have traded in the reality of being prisoners in their own country for being refugees in another. And as El-Gohary watches the weeks pass and his resources dwindle, he said the stress is almost unbearable.

“I feel like we’ve stepped out of a prison cell and into a fire,” he said. “We are in very, very bad conditions … My daughter and I divide the bottles of water to live, because there is no income.”

Maher Ahmad El-Mo’otahssem Bellah El-Gohary, 58, gained notoriety in Egypt after he sued the government in August 2008 to gain the right to change the religion listed on his state-issued ID card from Islam to Christianity. In Egypt, ID cards play a critical role in a person’s life, being used for everything from opening a bank account and renting an apartment to receiving medical care.

The listed religious affiliation, whether a card-holder subscribes to it or not, also determines whether the person is subject to Islamic civil law. The listed religious designation determines what state-mandated religion classes minors are required to take in school. El-Gohary said he filed the suit so his daughter, then 15, could opt out of the religious classes and would not be subject to the persecution he suffered when he became a Christian in his 20s.

It is a crime punishable by imprisonment to have no ID card in Egypt.

The suit sparked outrage throughout Egypt. Both El-Gohary and his daughter were publicly branded apostates in a country where 84 percent of Muslims think those who leave Islam should be executed, according to a study released by the Pew Research Center in December. The same month the suit was filed in 2008, El-Gohary and his daughter were forced into hiding.

For two-and-a-half years, El-Gohary shifted back and forth among several apartments in Cairo and Alexandria, usually once every month. Even in hiding, the two were harassed regularly by Egypt’s dreaded State Security Intelligence service (SSI) and assaulted repeatedly by others, including someone pouring acid on Dina, El-Gohary said.

While in hiding, El-Gohary tried repeatedly to leave Egypt, but officials at the Ministry of the Interior blocked him at every attempt. On at least one occasion, they seized his passport. In December 2010, after a long legal battle, El-Gohary got a court decision ordering the Ministry of the Interior to allow him to travel, but he said it still took several weeks for the government to comply with the order; the Jan. 25-Feb. 11 revolution didn’t hurt, El-Gohary said.

 

Out of Egypt

After the national demonstrations that led to the removal of both President Hosni Mubarak and Minister of Interior Habib Al-Adly, El-Gohary and his daughter went to Cairo International Airport on Feb. 22 to leave the county. They came prepared with their newly issued passports, the court order and myriad documents to prove they had the right to leave the country. Even so, authorities took the two aside for interrogation at the airport.

“My daughter and I went to the counter of the airport to the manager, then they took us to the SSI,” El-Gohary said. “We spent an hour talking to an officer trying to tell him, ‘We spent ages during Habib Al-Adly’s time, and even now after the revolution, we don’t have the right to leave?’”

According to El-Gohary, the guard asked him if he really wanted to leave the country.

“Yes,” El-Gohary replied. “I have a court order against Al-Adly, and I have the right to leave and the freedom to travel outside the country.” As if to add insult to more than two years of injury, the SSI officers told El-Gohary that Egypt was “their country” and to “come back anytime you want to.”

El-Gohary credits the revolution as the reason he was allowed to leave Egypt, saying it was a miracle “from God.”

They chose to go to Syria because Egyptian citizens are not required to have visas to visit there. After contact with a U.S. organization that concentrates on religious freedom, El-Gohary expected it would be easy to get a visa to the United States, where his wife lives. But he said he has been unable to obtain an entry visa there or to any country where he will feel safe. He went to a U.N. office in Syria seeking assistance; he was given an appointment to come back on April 20.

“I wasn’t expecting, after all this suffering and all these years, that…” El-Gohary said, cutting himself off. “The series of persecution is not finished.”

Although they don’t live under the same type of threats as they did in Egypt, El-Gohary and Dina now live in an apartment where they still watch everything they say and everyone with whom they talk. They still spend much of their time trapped between the four walls of their apartment because Syria, El-Gohary said, is a country where converts to Christianity from Islam are persecuted.

“The danger is still there,” El-Gohary said. “We don’t get out of the house. We don’t meet people. We don’t tell people what we are doing or talk to them about our situation. Because we don’t want someone to say, ‘Why are you applying to the U.N.?’ There are still a lot of enemies.”

Dina, now 17, said that although leaving Egypt was “like a miracle,” she is devastated by the prospect of having to spend more time with her life on hold. She said she is just as scared in Syria as she was in Egypt.

“We’re really, really tired of all this suffering,” she said. “I’ve lost two years of my life. I want to finish school.”

Muslim converts to Christianity in Syria were sometimes forced to leave their place of residence due to societal pressure last year, according to the U.S. Department of State’s 2010 International Religious Freedom Report. While there is no official state religion in Syria, the constitution requires that the president be Muslim and stipulates that Islamic law is a principal source of legislation.

With strict monitoring and curtailing of militant Islam, the government in Syria has long been considered a moderate regime. The government’s fear of violent responses by Islamic extremists to increasing conversions to Christianity, however, was at least partially responsible for the closing of six buildings where Christians were meeting last year, according to Christian support organization Open Doors. Noting that several Christians were arrested and interrogated in 2010, the organization’s World Watch List bumped Syria’s ranking up to 38th place among nations in which persecution of Christians takes place, from position 41 the previous year.

Syria is 90 percent Muslim, and 6.34 percent of its 22.5 million population is Christian, according to Operation World.

Though El-Gohary and his daughter have a dark outlook on their current situation, they are still grateful.

“Without God’s love, we would have been dead by now,” El-Gohary said. “Getting out of Egypt itself was a victory from God.”

Dina said she also is thankful, but that as she gets older she is becoming increasingly preoccupied by one wish.

“I want to get out so I can finish my studies,” she said. “I want to go into a church and out of a church without being scared of being killed.”

Report from Compass Direct News
http://www.compassdirect.org

Turkey Arrests 20 Allegedly Linked to Malatya Murders

Suspects in Ergenekon network long sought in homicide case to be questioned.

ISTANBUL, March 18 (CDN) — In simultaneous operations in nine different provinces of Turkey, authorities yesterday arrested 20 people suspected of playing a role in the murder of three Christians in Malatya in 2007, according to local news reports.

Zekeriya Oz, chief prosecutor overseeing the investigation into a clandestine network known as Ergenekon allegedly aimed at destabilizing the government, ordered the arrests based on information that linked the suspects to both the network and to the Malatya murders, Turkish press reported after Istanbul Chief of Police Chief Huseyin Capkin announced the sweep at a press conference yesterday.

“This was an operation related to the Malatya Zirve publishing house murders,” Capkin said, according to online news agency Malatya Guncel. “They were just arrested. This is connected to the Zirve publishing house. That’s the framework.”

Those apprehended include Ruhi Abat, a Muslim theology professor from Malatya Inonu University, Mehmet Ulger, a retired commander of the Malatya Gendarmerie in service at the time of the murders, and other members of the military. Oz will question the suspects in Istanbul, according to reports.

Police also raided the guesthouse of the Izmir Gendarmerie, seizing computers and documents. News sources listed Malatya, Siirt, Mugla, Mersin and Izmir as some of the cities in which authorities conducted raids and arrests.

A plaintiff attorney in the Malatya murder case, Orhan Kemal Cengiz, told Compass that the names on the list of those arrested were suspects he and his colleagues have been trying to convince the Malatya prosecutor to pursue since the court received a tip in May 2008.

“They are all the usual suspects,” Cengiz said. “All their names were mentioned in the first informant letter. Unfortunately, despite all our efforts, we couldn’t find anyone to investigate these allegations.”

The letter was the first of many informant letters the Malatya court has received since it started hearing the case on Nov. 22, 2007. Penned by someone who identified himself by the pseudonym “Ali Arslan” but unsigned, the letter claimed that Ulger incited Emre Gunaydin, one of the suspects, to carry out the murders and that he communicated with Gunaydin through Abat and two gendarmerie officers, reported Turkish English daily Today’s Zaman.

Cengiz said that, though it was the duty of the Malatya prosecutor to pursue leads in the informant letter, the prosecutor deferred the investigation to the military court, which in turn refused to investigate, claiming that the name on the letter was fake and the letter was not signed.

“It was like a joke,” Cengiz said.

On April 18, 2007, two Turkish Christians, Necati Aydin and Ugur Yuksel, and German Christian Tilmann Geske, were bound, tortured and then murdered at the office of Zirve Publishing Co., a Christian publishing house in Malatya. The suspects, Salih Guler, Cuma Ozdemir, Hamit Ceker, and Abuzer Yildirim, were arrested while trying to escape the scene of the crime, as was alleged ringleader Gunaydin.

From the beginning of the court hearings, plaintiff lawyers have brought evidence to the court showing the five young suspects were connected to a wider plot to kill the three Christians as well as other key Christian leaders across Turkey. Known as the Cage Plan, the plot is believed to be part of the alleged Ergenekon “deep state” operation to destabilize the government.

The Cage Plan centers on a compact disc found in 2009 in the house of a retired naval officer. The plan, to be carried out by 41 naval officers, termed as “operations” the Malatya killings, the 2006 assassination of Catholic priest Andrea Santoro and the 2007 slaying of Hrant Dink, Armenian editor-in-chief of the weekly Agos.

Cengiz told Compass that new evidence in the Ergenekon case might have convinced Oz to pursue those detained yesterday, and he called the move “a very big step” in shedding light on the Malatya case. He and colleague Erdal Dogan said their efforts – especially a request they sent to Oz on Jan. 18, 2010 asking him to investigate the allegations that Ergenekon members were behind the Malatya murders – surely helped to move the process along.

“I believe our efforts had a very big influence on this,” Cengiz said. “We submitted a petition and requested this from Oz last year. He is acting with the Malatya prosecutor on this.”

At the request of the Istanbul Chief Prosecutor’s Office, the Istanbul Police Department prepared a report last year revealing links between the Malatya murders and Ergenekon, according to Today’s Zaman. According to the report, Sevgi Erenerol, spokesperson for a bogus ultranationalist association known as the Turkish Orthodox Church, described foreign missionary activity as “spying” and “provoking.”

“A piece of evidence in the report was a conference on missionary activity given by Sevgi Erenerol … at the General Staff’s Strategic Research and Study Center,” reported Today’s Zaman.

Erenerol was arrested in connection with Ergenekon in 2008. Her suspected links with those thought to have masterminded the Zirve murders may have influenced yesterday’s arrests, Today’s Zaman reported.

She is also believed to be one of the key people behind false accusations against two members of Turkey’s Protestant Church, Hakan Tastan and Turan Topal, who were arrested in October 2006 for insulting Turkishness and Islam because they openly shared their faith.

After four years of legal battle, a judge finally acquitted the two Christians of insulting Turkey and its people by spreading Christianity, but not without slapping them with a hefty fine for a spurious charge. The two men are in the process of appealing the fine.

The Turkish Constitution grants all citizens the right to speak about their faith.

Plaintiff attorneys in the Malatya murders case said they believe yesterday’s arrests bring them closer to their requests that the Malatya murders case file be joined to that of the Ergenekon trial.

“From now on, we can predict it is very possible that our case will be sent to Istanbul soon and that these two cases will be merged,” said Cengiz.

The next Malatya hearing is scheduled for April 29.

Report from Compass Direct News
http://www.compassdirect.org

Christians in Turkey Face Harassment; Murder Trial Stalls

Departure of presiding judge in Malatya case could further delay justice, attorneys fear.

ISTANBUL, March 15 (CDN) — Though the horrific scale of the 2007 Malatya murders has not been repeated in Turkey’s Protestant church, a recent report shows harassment continues to be a daily problem for the country’s Christians and churches.

Discrimination, slander and attacks against churches were among the examples of ongoing harassment that the Turkish Association of Protestant Churches (TEK) recorded in 2010.

In an eight-page report published earlier this year, TEK’s Committee for Religious Freedom and Legal Affairs outlined problems Protestants face. Turkish laws and “negative attitudes of civil servants” continue to make it nearly impossible for non-Muslims to establish places of worship, the committee reported. Three churches faced legal problems last year regarding their buildings, according to the report.

Missionary activities are still considered a national threat despite the existence of Turkish laws guaranteeing citizens the freedom to propagate and teach their faith, and children are victims of discrimination at school, according to the report. Though the Religious Education General Directorate for Higher Education and Training Committee allows non-Muslim students to stay out of religious classes, parents have reported cases in which they were not able to take their children out of such
courses.

“After four years [since the Malatya murders], Turkey’s religious freedoms have not improved as desired,” said attorney Erdal Dogan. “Christians, Alevis [a Shiite sub-community] and people of other beliefs are still not protected by law. And people of other faiths apart from Muslims have no legal status. Since racism is still prevalent in the context of freedom, discrimination in its turn has become a fact of life.”   

About a third of Turks are estimated to be Alevis.

Turkey rose to 30th place in Open Doors’ 2011 World Watch List of nations in which persecution against Christians takes place, up from 35th place the previous year. The Christian support organization cited deteriorating conditions as the secular country applied some laws in discriminatory ways against Christians.

TEK estimates that there are up to 3,500 Protestant Christians in Turkey.

 

Malatya Trial Stalled

In the trial of the five primary suspects in the murder of three Christians in Malatya, plaintiff attorneys fear the departure of one of the three judges to a Supreme Court of Appeals post in Ankara could further stall the nearly four-year-old case.

The loss of Judge Eray Gurtekin, who had presided over the case since it began on Nov. 22, 2007, could threaten to set back the progress of the court that has been examining links between the killers and alleged masterminds, according to Dogan, a plaintiff attorney in the case. Gurtekin was appointed as a judge in the Supreme Court of Appeals in Turkey’s capital Ankara last month.

“In a three-member panel [of judges], the change of one is not really helpful,” said Dogan, “because just as the previous presiding judge had started to understand and pay close attention to the case file, a new judge came in his place. I hope he will catch on quickly.”

The new judge joined the Malatya hearings panel this month, and Dogan said there could be more changes in the panel.

The 12th Istanbul High Criminal Court is expected to hear the testimony of another witness on March 29, and the court is trying to locate two more witnesses in order to shed light on the Malatya murders.

On April 18, 2007, two Turkish Christians, Necati Aydin and Ugur Yuksel, and German Christian Tilmann Geske, were bound, tortured and then murdered at the office of Zirve Publishing Co., a Christian publishing house in Malatya. The suspects, Salih Guler, Cuma Ozdemir, Hamit Ceker, and Abuzer Yildirim, were arrested while trying to escape the scene of the crime, as was alleged ringleader Emre Gunaydin.

From the beginning of the court hearings, prosecuting lawyers have brought evidence to the court showing the five young suspects were connected to a wider plot to kill the three Christians as well as other key Christian leaders across Turkey. Known as the Cage Plan, the plot is believed to be part of the alleged Ergenekon “deep state” operation to destabilize the government.

The Cage Plan centers on a compact disc found in 2009 in the house of a retired naval officer. The plan, to be carried out by 41 naval officers, termed as “operations” the Malatya killings, the 2006 assassination of Catholic priest Andrea Santoro and the 2007 slaying of Hrant Dink, Armenian editor-in-chief of the weekly Agos.

Questioned by the judges, Varol Bulent Aral – suspected of being one of the people who planned the murders and linked the killers to the masterminds – said he wanted the court to find out who was supporting the Zirve Publishing Co. He added a cryptic remark to Tilmann Geske’s widow, Suzanne Geske, who continues to live in Malatya with her three children and regularly attends the murder hearings.

“I want to ask Suzanne, what business does a German have here?”

The judges finally threw Aral out of the courtroom for contempt of court when he told the judges: “You are in the clouds!”

Prosecuting lawyers still hope judges will join the Malatya case files to the Cage Plan case, which is being tried at an Istanbul court.

The threat of violence against Christians continues. Last week Turkish news sources reported that Istanbul police arrested two suspects, ages 17 and 18, accused of plotting to assassinate a priest on the European side of the city. The Istanbul Public Prosecutor’s Office is examining their case.

Report from Compass Direct News
http://www.compassdirect.org

Somalia’s militant group pursues Christians into Kenya

Somalia’s militant group al Shabaab is no longer confining its agenda to the country’s borders. They are now spreading into neighboring countries. There will not be a rescue coming from the Somali government, reports MNN.

Todd Nettleton with Voice of the Martyrs says the peacekeeping help that Somalia is getting is hampered by the internal anarchy. "How do you provide support to a country that is basically a failed state, where there is chaos on the ground? "

A "failed state" describes a country with a fractured social and political structure. Nettleton notes, "Really, there is no authority structure. There is no government body that really has power to enforce their will on the country." Sadly, Somalia has been leading the Failed States Index for three years’ running.

The conflict is now extending into Kenya. One reason might be al Shabaab’s intent to eradicate Christianity and create a Muslim state. Nettleton explains. "We heard a report that al Shabaab literally had a list of Christians that they were seeking."

Since al Shabaab is hunting believers, they are fleeing. "There are Christians who have had to leave Somalia who are in some of these refugee camps in surrounding nations. As the al Shabaab philosophy spreads into those camps, those Christians are put directly at risk." For example: Kenya.

Despite the oppression, Nettleton says the Gospel can’t be discounted. There is still a remnant church, albeit deep underground.

Voice of the Martyrs has found a way to let them know they’re not forgotten. "It’s a challenge to find Christians, it’s a challenge to support them. We have provided some help to the families of martyrs in Somalia."

While the situation seems hopeless, there is one avenue that surpasses the political venues. "The most significant thing that we can do is to pray for the country of Somalia, to pray especially for our Christian brothers and sisters there."

Somalia is ranked fourth on the Open Doors World Watch list of countries that are noted for their persecution of Christians.

Report from the Christian Telegraph

Christians in Middle East Fear Violence from Anti-Quran Protests

Those in the West who provoke Muslim extremists are not the ones who will suffer, they say.

ISTANBUL, October 5 (CDN) — Christians across the Middle East said they will be the ones to suffer if a group of anti-Islamic protestors in the United States goes through with its plans to publicly tear up or otherwise desecrate the Quran.

They roundly condemned the proposed actions as political stunts that are unwise, unnecessary and unchristian.

“This kind of negative propaganda is very harmful to our situation in Muslim countries,” said Atef Samy, assistant pastor for networking at Kasr El Dobara, the largest Protestant congregation in Egypt. “It generates uncontrollable anger among the people around us and gives the impression that all Christians feel this way about Islam.”

Samy said U.S. Christians who are protesting Islam need to think about the results of their “irrational actions.” The desecration, he said, will lead to protests and will incite people to commit anti-Christian violence.

“How do they expect Muslims to react?” he said. “And has anybody thought how we will pay for their actions or even their words?”

Tomorrow and Thursday (Oct. 6 and 7), political activist Randall Terry will host “Hear Muhammad Speak!” a series of demonstrations across the United States that he said are meant to “ignite national and world-wide debate/dialogue/education on the anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, and at times violent message of the Quran.” During these protests, Terry plans to tear out pages from the Quran and encourage others to do the same.

He has said he is conducting the protest because he wants to focus attention also on the Hadith and the Sunnah, the recorded sayings and actions of Muhammad that Muslims use to guide their lives. Terry said these religious documents call “for the murder, beheadings, etc. of Christians and Jews, and the suppression of religious freedom.”

Known for his incendiary political approach, Terry is founder of Operation Rescue, an anti-abortion rights group. After stepping down from Operation Rescue, he publicly supported the actions of Scott Roeder, who murdered a Kansas physician who performed late-term abortions. Terry also arranged to have a protestor present an aborted fetus to then-presidential candidate Bill Clinton at the 1992 Democratic National Convention.

On this year’s anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Terry stood outside the White House and denounced Islam as one of five other protestors ripped out pages from the Quran and threw them into a plastic trash bag, which along with Florida Pastor Terry Jones’ planned (though ultimately cancelled) Quran-burning provoked isolated attacks across the Islamic world that left at least 19 dead.

Terry is part of a seemingly growing tide of people destroying or threatening to destroy the Quran as an act of protest against Islam or “Islamic extremism.”

 

Objections

Terry has said that he wants to “highlight the suffering of Christians inflicted by Muslims” and to call on Islamic leaders “to stop persecuting and killing Christians and Jews, and well as ‘apostates’ who leave Islam.”

But Christian leaders in the Middle East said protests in which the Quran is desecrated have the opposite effect. They are bracing themselves for more attacks. Protestors in the West can speak freely – about free speech, among other things – but it’s Christians in the Middle East who will be doing the dying, they said.

“This message of hate antagonizes Muslims and promotes hatred,” said Samia Sidhom, a Christian and managing editor of the Cairo-based newspaper Watani. “Thus churches and Christians become targets of counter-hate and violence. Islam is in no way chastised, nor Christianity exalted. Only hate is strengthened. Churches and Christians here find they need to defend themselves against the allegations of being hateful and against the hate and violence directed at them.”

Martin Accad, a Lebanese Christian and director of the Institute of Middle East Studies at Arab Baptist Theological Seminary in Beirut, agreed with Sidhom.

“We are held guilty by association by extremist Muslims, even though the vast majority of Muslims will be able to dissociate between crazy American right-wingers and true followers of Jesus,” he said.

Leaders in the Arabic-speaking Christian world said Terry’s protests and others like it do nothing positive. Such provocations won’t make violent Muslim extremists re-examine their beliefs or go away.

“Islam will not disappear because we call it names,” said Samy, of the Egyptian Protestant church. “So we must witness to our belief in Jesus without aggressively attacking the others.”

Accad, a specialist in Christian-Muslim relations and also associate professor of Islamic Studies at Fuller Theological Seminary, said positive engagement is the best approach for Christians to take toward Islam.

“Visit their places of worship and get to know them, and invite them to yours,” Accad said. “Educate your own congregation about Islam in a balanced way. Engage in transformational partnerships with moderate Muslim leaders who are working towards a more peaceful world.”

The element of the protests that most baffled Christians living in the Muslim world was that burning or tearing another religion’s book seemed so unchristian, they said.

“In what way can burning or ripping the Quran serve Christianity or Christians?” Sidhom of Watani said. “It is not an action fit for a servant of Christianity. It merely expresses hate and sends out a message of extreme hostility to Islam.”

Accad called publicly desecrating the Quran an act of “sheer moral and ethical absurdity.”

“These are not acts committed by followers of a Jesus ethic,” Accad said. “They will affect the image of Christianity as badly as the destruction of the World Trade Center affected the image of Islam.”

Accad added, “Since when do followers of Jesus rip an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth?”

Such protests also defeat the purposes of churches in Islamic nations, Christians said. H. Ramdani, a church leader in Algeria, said Christians must strive to build bridges with Muslims in order to proclaim Christ.

“It’s destroying what we are doing and what we are planning to do,” he said of the protests. “People refuse to hear the gospel, but they ask the reason for the event. Muslims are more radical and sometimes they are brutal.”

At press time Compass was unable to reach Terry by phone or e-mail for a reply to the Middle Eastern Christians’ complaints about the planned protests, but after he staged a Sept. 11 Quran-tearing event he released a statement expressing “great sadness” over the deaths that followed while denying that it was right for Muslims to react violently to such protests.

“Such logic is like saying that a woman who is abused by her boyfriend or husband is guilty of bringing violence on herself because she said or did something that irritated him,” Terry stated.

In the weeks leading up to the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attack, Terry Jones, leader of a small congregation in Gainesville, Fla., made his mark in the media by threatening to burn a stack of Qurans in protest of Islam. At the last minute, after wide condemnation from around the world, Jones stated that he felt “God is telling us to stop” and backed out of the protest.

Despite Jones’ retreat, protestors unaffiliated with him burned Qurans in New York and Tennessee, and demonstrations swept across the Muslim world. In the relatively isolated attacks that ensued, protestors set fire to a Christian school and various government buildings, burning the school and the other structures to the ground. In Kashmir, 17 people were killed in Islamic assaults, and two protestors were killed in demonstrations in Afghanistan.

Report from Compass Direct News

Time to Reassess Afghan Policy

There is no doubt in my mind as to the complete separation of the state and the Christian church. The United States government, the Australian government and all other governments involved in the war against terror are not acting as Christian Crusaders, but as responsible modern nations seeking to bring freedom from terror to oppressed peoples around the world. Having said that, in light of such articles as that previous in this Blog, perhaps it is time that the allies in the war on terror, reassess their policy on Afghanistan (and the same would be true of Iraq and Pakistan). Clearly, should the allies withdraw from the country, it seems relatively clear that it would only be a matter of time before the country moves towards an oppressive Islamic regime.

Why should western nations promoting human rights, democracy, freedom from terror and other worthwhile goals, continue to pour resources (human, financial, etc) into a country where overall, its citizens continue to espouse the rhetoric and policies of the enemy?  Already it seems clear that the principles of our freedoms are despised by the vast majority of the Afghan nation. Without a long-term commitment to police the country and keep the policies being promoted by the western allies, there is no point continuing the current mission in Afghanistan (or Iraq, Pakistan, etc). Do we have the capacity and the stomach to pay the price for such a continuing mission, when the undoubted price in human lives, finances and other resources, will continue to mount and become such that our own people will be unable to bear the dearness of the cost?

Deadline for re-registration passes; churches face illegal status

Oppressive new laws in Azerbaijan and Tajikistan required religious communities to re-register with the government by January 1, 2010 or face illegal status. As of December 16, only about 100 of Azerbaijan’s 534 religious communities had been able to do so. Fewer than half of Tajikistan’s religious communities re-registered, reports MNN.

According to Joel Griffith of Slavic Gospel Association, officials place obstructions in the paths of churches trying to re-register.

"They will find some technicality or basically any reason to deny registration. So even if some of the groups actually follow the law to the letter and meet the requirements, it just seems very arbitrary and capricious as to whether the officials will agree to register to not," he explained.

It’s unclear how strictly the governments of the two nations will enforce their laws.

"In the worst case scenario…they could basically close congregations down and impose pretty stiff penalties," Griffith said. "In the best case scenario…unless they agree to fully repeal these statues or amend these laws, I think we need to just hope and pray that even though they’re on the books, these things won’t be enforced."

That’s often the case in countries that have similar laws. The new laws include other burdensome requirements in addition to the re-registration mandate. Azerbaijan’s law requires religious communities to provide more information for registration and to obtain approval to build or rebuild places of worship. It also prohibits the sale of religious literature in unapproved locations and religious activity outside registered addresses.

Tajikistan’s religion law censors religious literature, bans state officials from founding religious communities, requires state approval to invite foreigners for religious visits or to travel abroad for religious events, and restricts children’s religious activity and education.

Christians in Azerbaijan are especially concerned about how courts might interpret unclear provisions in the law. They fear a loose interpretation could penalize "peaceful religious activity." Griffith quoted a passage from the law and explained the issue.

"‘The community formulates its relations with other religious confessions on the basis of religious toleration (tolerance), respect and the avoidance of conflict,’ and the community cannot use violence or the threat of violence in proclaiming its faith. Well, if you don’t define those terms, such as ‘respect and the avoidance of conflict’…you could almost say that Christian evangelism could even be illegal under a formulation like that."

Since Christians believe in only one means of salvation — Jesus Christ — it would be entirely possible for disagreement with other religious groups to be interpreted as "conflict." However, Christians are not the only people worried about the potential impact of the law.

"It’s not just Christians that are concerned; we’ve got Muslim groups that are concerned. These are largely Muslim nations," Griffith said. "I think there are a number of people that are concerned about what this will possibly do down the road."

No matter what does happen, the Christian church will remain committed to the Gospel.

"Regardless of what happens in these countries, the churches still have their marching orders from the Lord: to proclaim the Gospel," Griffith said. "And no matter what man does, they’re going to continue to proclaim the Gospel."

Christians in Tajikistan and Azerbaijan need the prayers and support of their fellow believers. SGA has been supporting churches in the former Soviet Union for 75 years, and it continues to support churches in these two countries.

"It’s important to help them take advantage of every open door they can find to share the Gospel," Griffith said. "It might be through supporting a church-planting missionary; it might be through providing Russian-language Bibles and literature; it may be through helping to support in-country training, and sometimes that training has to take place quietly…. But for churches here in the West that have the resources, it’s important to support our brothers and sisters there who don’t have the resources that we do."

Report from the Christian Telegraph