Federal government pre-empts national cabinet to raise the cap for returning Australians

Michelle Grattan, University of Canberra

The federal government, under pressure to expand and accelerate the return of stranded Australians, has pre-empted national cabinet by announcing the “cap” on these arrivals will be expanded from about 4,000 up to 6,000 a week.

After the announcement Western Australia immediately hit out, saying the national cabinet process was being flouted.

More than 25,000 people are presently registered as having expressed a wish to return, and there have been numerous hardship cases in the media and in representations to MPs offices.

The government says the new weekly caps will be: NSW 2,950 (present cap is 2,450), Queensland 1,000 (500), South Australia 600 (500), and Western 1,025 (525). Victoria, struggling out of its second wave, will not have any arrivals.

This adds up to only 5,575 but the government hopes the other jurisdictions will take some people, although there are not commercial airline services into the ACT, the Northern Territory or Tasmania.

The government wants the higher numbers operating by late this month.

The caps were imposed at the request of states, which were concerned at pressure on their quarantine facilities, in particular when Victoria, where there was a quarantine breakdown triggering the second wave crisis, stopped taking any returnees.

People wanting to come home are not just facing the problem of the cap but the difficulty of securing flights, and at reasonable prices.

Unveiling the higher cap Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack, who has responsibility for aviation, said he had written to premiers and territory leaders to tell them the caps for international flights based on quarantine levels.

“Not every Australian will be able to come home by Christmas, I accept that. But we want to get as many of those who need to come home, want to come home, paid for a ticket to come home, to be able to do so”, McCormack said.

The federal government says it has constitutional power over quarantine, and so does not need the states’ approval. But it will take the new quotas to Friday’s national cabinet.

Under the existing deal the states make the quarantine arrangements and carry the cost – although they are now charging returnees.

The opposition has called for the government to use RAAF planes to return some people. But the government says there are thousands of unused commercial seats, and the VIP fleet has only very small capacity. It also rejects calls for the use of federal facilities for some of the returnees, saying they are not available or suitable.

Attorney-General Christian Porter, asked on Perth radio whether WA had agreed, said he did not know but “we very much hope they will”.

WA premier Mark McGowan said he had not known about the announcement beforehand and described it as “very directly outside the spirit of the national cabinet”.

“I don’t really like the fact that this has been sprung via a press conference without a discussion with the people actually required to implement it,” McGowan said.

He warned of the risks of putting pressure on hotel quarantine and said using Commonwealth facilities should be looked at.

The federal government says it would consider ADF assistance with more quarantine, noting ADF personnel have been helping WA with hotel quarantine for weeks.

WA Health Minister Roger Cook said it was extraordinary the matter was being dealt with through a letter from McCormack and said Scott Morrison should call “his dogs off” and work with the premiers.

NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian said that after a request from the prime minister “I consulted my relevant ministers and the police commissioner, who is in charge of quarantine, and everybody said they could take on that extra load”. Her agreement was on the basis other states agreed.

Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk also indicated her government was willing to take more people.

Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

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

Number of Australian returnees allowed each week slashed to 4175, as Victoria records 288 new cases

AAP/James Gourley

Michelle Grattan, University of Canberra

The number of Australian citizens and residents allowed to return to Australia each week is to be cut to 4175, after agreement by national cabinet on Friday.

States will also move to a uniform model for charging these travellers for their quarantine costs.

The new caps, agreed to apply from Monday, are

• Perth – a maximum of 525 international arrivals a week

• Brisbane – a cap of 500 international arrivals a week

• Sydney – a cap of 450 international arrivals a day will continue – as announced on July 4 – with a view to further reductions in later weeks.

According to figures from the prime minister’s office, arrivals were more than 6500 in a week, before Melbourne stopped accepting flights. Border Force told the Australian Financial Review more than 8450 people arrived in the week July 1 to 7.

The tough line on returnees comes as Victoria announced its latest daily tally of a record 288 new COVID cases.

Victorian premier Daniel Andrews said Victoria – from which returning flights were diverted in the wake of the new wave – would not accept such flights for the foreseeable future.

National cabinet also asked former health department head Jane Halton to undertake an inquiry into hotel quarantine arrangements around the country.

Her inquiry will look at, among other things, infection prevention and control training, compliance with infection prevention and control requirements, and evidence of community cases attributed to cases in international travellers in hotel quarantine.

A lapse in quarantine administration led to an outbreak in Melbourne.

Morrison strongly appealed to Australians everywhere, including where the virus is not known to be present, to observe social distancing.

The national cabinet expressed concern there had been “a relaxation in community attitudes towards social distancing in some states and territories”. The health advisors are particularly worried about the reduction in adherence to social distancing amongst younger people.

Morrison said: “We need to be very careful to protect against complacency in other parts of the country.

When we’re at home and there are people around, we still have to practise the social distancing. It is still not OK for hugs and handshakes.”

The Victorian government is telling people to wear masks when they are out if they not able to maintain social distance. It is ordering millions of masks that it will distribute.

Of the new Victorian cases, 14 are health workers. There are now 1172 active cases in Victoria, and more than 5,000 close contacts of these cases.

Victorian chief health officer Brett Sutton said “the ICU numbers have gone up significantly and the hospitalised numbers have gone up significantly,” and predicted more deaths.

The national cabinet was addressed by the head of the Productivity Commission, Michael Brennan, who spoke on the regulatory challenges. Morrison said:

He made … very important points that more flexible economies would be the most successful in recovering from the COVID-19 recession around the world and how we manage regulation and deregulation is very important to maintaining and achieving that flexibility to support our economic recovery.“

His recommendations had been referred to treasurers. In particular, “the changes that have been made to regulation for a limited time in relation to COVID-19 across a whole range of economic activity, and the potential for those to be extended out further and potentially even extended indefinitely.

“Because in many cases they have had quite a positive economic impact,” Morrison said.

Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

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

Scott Morrison set to slow the arrival home of Australians amid coronavirus fears

Michelle Grattan, University of Canberra

Scott Morrison will take a proposal to Friday’s national cabinet to slow arrivals of Australians returning from overseas.

Morrison’s proposal followed this week’s request from Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan for a cap on international flights landing in Perth to relieve pressure on resources, and the earlier diversion of flights from landing in Melbourne because of the new outbreak.

There is already a cap applying to NSW, and the WA government has said the federal government has responded favourably to its representation. Queensland also wants limits.

The prime minister told a news conference his proposal would be to contain the flow rather than pause it. He said the numbers coming in were very low “but at this time, we don’t want to put any more pressure on the system than is absolutely necessary”.

New Zealand has moved to slow the flow of returnees.

Morrison also said the federal government would support state governments charging travellers returning from abroad for their quarantine.

It was up to the states but “if they wish to do that, then the Commonwealth would have no objection to that”.

“I think that would be a completely understandable proposition for people who have been away for some time.”

There had been “many opportunities for people to return. If they’re choosing to do so now, they have obviously delayed that decision for a period,” he told a news conference.

Queensland is already charging – $2,800 for one adult, $3,710 for two adults, and $4,620 for two adults and two children, with some provision for waivers. The Northern Territory also charges.

As Victoria announced 134 new cases, Morrison’s message to Melburnians facing the six-week lockdown was: “It’s tough. And it will test you and it will strain, but you have done it once before and you will be able to do it again because you have proven that”.

“We’re all Melburnians now when it comes to the challenges we face. We’re all Victorians now because we’re all Australians.”

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said the cost to the economy of the Victorian re-imposed lockdown would now be factored into the government’s July 23 economic statement. It would affect forecasts for growth and unemployment. “Victoria is a big part of the national economy” and “the cost to Victoria is up to a billion dollars a week and that will fall heavily on businesses”.

“This is a major challenge to the economic recovery. This is going to have an impact well beyond the Victorian border. It’s already starting to play out in consumer confidence numbers that have been down in the last two weeks, ” Frydenberg said.

“We have been there with JobKeeper and the cash flow boost, which together have provided more than $10 billion into the Victorian economy,” he said.

“We’re ready to do what is required to support Victoria, and Daniel Andrews himself has said whenever he’s asked the Prime Minister for support the answer has been an unequivocal yes.”

Frydenberg confirmed there will be another phase of income support for the period beyond September when JobKeeper is due to finish. The future support would be temporary and targeted, he said. The higher JobSeeker payment is also scheduled to snap back at the end of September, although it is not expected to return to the old rate.

Frydenberg also indicated the government was considering bringing forward the next round of the legislated tax cuts. “We are looking at that issue, and the timing of those tax cuts, because we do want to boost aggregate demand, boost consumption, put more money in people’s pockets, and that is one way to do it”.

NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian told people in communities along the NSW-Victorian border not to move outside their “bubble”; nor should people go into these areas. She warned “the probability of contagion in NSW given what’s happening in Victoria is extremely high”.

The ACT has three new cases, the first in more than a month. Two arrived from a Melbourne hot spot and the third is a household contact.

Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

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

Preventing foreign fighters from returning home could be dangerous to national security

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton is pushing to have new security laws passed by parliament as quickly as possible.
Dean Lewins/AAP

Greg Barton, Deakin University

A key element in the success of countering terrorism in Australia has been a series of new and amended pieces of legislation – at least 75 – developed to respond to an evolving threat.

This includes legislation produced in October 2014 (Section 119.2 and 119.3 of the Criminal Code) that declared areas of Iraq and Syria, including the city of Raqqa, the de facto capital of the so-called Islamic State (IS) caliphate, illegal for Australian citizens to enter. Anyone who has lived in this territory and seeks to return to Australia will have to prove they were not assisting IS or face prosecution and a possible punishment of up to 25 years in prison.

Innovative pieces of legislation like the proposed Temporary Exclusion Orders (TEO) bill introduced by Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton are difficult to argue with. Existing national security laws already place Australia in a much stronger position than any other Western nation when it comes to managing the prosecution and detention of returning IS fighters.

Nevertheless, there is a limit to what legislation itself can do. Moreover, for every possible advantage, there are also possible disadvantages that need to be weighed up.

There is not a whole lot more the new TEO bill can be reasonably expected to achieve. And as the weight of legislation increases, there are reasonable questions to be asked about checks and balances and proportionate implementation.

In other words, the devil is very much in the detail.

Questions that need answering

Three questions need to be asked:

• First, what is the actual need for this bill? And what is the likelihood the proposed legislation can meet this need?

• Second, what are the potential downsides that might come with enacting this legislation?

• Third, in the light of the first two questions, what then should be done?

There is no question, that with at least 80 individuals who have fought with IS now in a position to possibly return, any legislative tool that can help manage this risk is worth considering.

Specifically, there is clearly a benefit to being able to delay somebody’s return by at least two years, and through a process of extensions perhaps many more years. There is also an advantage, when they do return, of being able to legally impose conditions on who they meet with and where they go.

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Read more:
There’s no clear need for Peter Dutton’s new bill excluding citizens from Australia

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The government has pointed out that around 40 Australians have already returned from Syria and Iraq under suspicion of being involved with terrorist groups. To have been able to delay and then manage the return of these 40 fighters clearly would have been very useful.

But what has not been explained by the government is that these 40 individuals came back to Australia more than six years ago, and only a couple have so far been successfully prosecuted.

If the need was so urgent, why wasn’t a temporary exclusion order introduced in late 2014 when we first began to process a raft of counter-terrorism bills and amendments? Or in 2015 when the UK introduced similar legislation?

First line of defence

There is, in fact, no immediate crisis, and undue haste in passing further security legislation should be avoided because it is very dangerous to national security.

If TEOs are applied excessively, and without sufficient discrimination, a number of risks arise. Individuals currently detained in overcrowded detention centres in Syria or Iraq might be released if their repatriation to Australia is delayed by years.

Or, they could be broken out of detention by IS insurgents, who remain deadly and numerous. This happened on dozens of occasions when IS needed to replenish its ranks.

Allowing our citizens to be somebody else’s problem, out of sight and out of mind, does not actually make the security risk to Australians go away. Leaving them offshore leaves open the very real possibility that they will eventually slip away into the terrorist underground or rejoin the IS insurgency.

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Read more:
How Indonesia is dealing with the new threat posed by returning Islamic State fighters

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Should they do so, they immediately become a risk through their ability to influence others online and via social media.

It is likely that TEOs will be also applied to women and children we really should be repatriating. This would pass the buck to others to look after and secure these women and children, such as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who are already overstretched and unable to deal with the burden of indefinitely detaining those who have fled the decaying IS caliphate.

There is also a real risk this legislation, much like other bills that allow Dutton to strip somebody of their citizenship on the grounds they potentially have access to alternative citizenship, could undermine confidence and trust within key communities in Australia.

As then-Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said after the murder of Sydney police accountant Curtis Cheng by a 15-year-old recruited by IS supporters in 2015, our first line of defence in fighting groups like Islamic State is the Muslim community.

Intelligence is key to countering terrorism and working with communities and families to encourage people to speak up when they see something of concern. To the extent that trust and confidence are eroded, national security will be directly diminished.

Amendments that could help

So what should be done?

Speaking last week at his farewell dinner, outgoing Labor Senator Doug Cameron spelled out the larger issues that need to be addressed.

Our existing oversight is inferior and, in my view, almost non-existent. This is unacceptable and we should ensure our inferior parliamentary oversight of security agencies is changed and oversight is enhanced.

Cameron is not the only one to express concerns. This bill was first introduced into the 45th Parliament. The Liberal-dominated Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) produced an extensive review and a detailed report on the bill.

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Read more:
Why is it so difficult to prosecute returning fighters?

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Labor Senator Kristina Keneally, a member of the PJCIS, has since complained that the government had

rejected four of the PJCIS recommendations in whole, rejected six in part and ignored one.

This, despite the fact that these recommendations came as a result of the considered reasoning of senior figures from both the Liberals and Labor.

One of the key amendments recommenced by the PJCIS is that the minister of home affairs should only be empowered to order a temporary exclusion order if he or she

reasonably suspects the person is, or has been, involved in terrorism-related activities outside Australia

And that a TEO should only be made

if it would substantially assist in preventing the provision of support for, or the facilitation of, a terrorist act.

The principle of being able to impose TEOs certainly bears consideration. While this is no “silver bullet”, there is a case for passing the bill after including the amendments thoughtfully proposed by the PJCIS.

Without a better system of oversight, we risk undermining community trust and confidence by setting in place policy that leads to dire consequences and diminishes our national security.

Now is not the time to make haste at the expense of national security, as well as the very values that define us as Australians.

Greg Barton, Chair in Global Islamic Politics, Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University

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

How Indonesia is dealing with the new threat posed by returning Islamic State fighters

Joshua Roose, Australian Catholic University

It was no coincidence that Sunday’s suicide attacks on three Catholic churches in Indonesia came as Muslims began the holy month of Ramadan.

For the observant, this is a time of charity, introspection, renewal and closeness to God. For Islamic State, however, Ramadan has become a strategic time in which to strike, inspired by the Battle of Badr in the year 624, when the Prophet Muhammad and his army defeated a vastly superior force and laid the foundation for the growth of Islam.

Around the time of Ramadan last year, the Islamic State claimed over 300 separate attacks worldwide.

The gruesome church attack on Sunday, which involved using children as suicide bombers and left 13 people dead and more than 40 injured, also follows another pattern – an uptick of violence linked to the terrorist group in Southeast Asia.

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Read more:
To fight terrorism, Indonesia needs to move beyond security measures

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As Islamic State has lost vast swathes of territory it once controlled in Iraq and Syria, it has actively sought to mobilise support with Jihadist groups in other countries such as Libya, Yemen, Nigeria and Bangladesh.

Southeast Asia, particularly the Philippines and Indonesia, was also identified as a core target of the group in an article in the Islamic State magazine Rumiyah in 2017. And in a worrying sign for the region, the number of attacks has been on the rise, driven in part by the return of fighters from the front lines of Islamic State’s battles in the Middle East.

Returning foreign fighters

Conservative estimates suggest more than 1,000 fighters have travelled to the Middle East from Southeast Asia to join Islamic State over the past five years. Of these, [700 are estimated] to have come from Indonesia, about half of whom were male fighters, the other half women and children joining their husbands. Another 75 Indonesian fighters were deported from Turkey before they could travel to Syria.

Considering Indonesia is home to 225 million Muslims, the number of Indonesians who fought in Iraq and Syria is remarkably low. (Australia, with just over 604,000 Muslims, has seen more than 100 of its citizens join the fight, with up to 87 deaths at last count).

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Read more:
Should we worry about Islamism in Indonesia?

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Journalists and scholars have argued that Indonesia’s pluralism has played a significant role in limiting the outflow of fighters to the Middle East.

However, as has been made painfully clear in attacks like the one on the Bataclan theatre in Paris in 2015, the actions of just a handful of trained Islamic State fighters can have a devastating impact – both in terms of casualties and the wider political fallout.

Though Indonesian intelligence forces are well-trained and have been working with countries like Australia to improve the sharing of information across borders, there are no laws prohibiting Indonesians from travelling overseas to join the Islamic State. Nor is it illegal to express support for the group.

Adding to the problem is the fact that Indonesia’s borders are exceptionally porous, making it almost impossible to prevent returning fighters from slipping back into the country unnoticed.

The threat from within

It was initially reported by media outlets that the family responsible for the church bombings on Sunday had also fought in Syria, a claim that has now been retracted.

But they were linked with Jemaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), an umbrella organisation consisting of up to two dozen affiliated militant groups. The leader of JAD, Aman Abdurrahman, is being held at the prison that was the scene of deadly riots by Islamic State followers a week ago and led to the deaths of several prison guards.

The militant groups operating within the JAD umbrella are relatively autonomous and don’t have a great deal of interaction with one another. However, it is almost certain, though difficult to substantiate, that fighters returning from Iraq and Syria have joined up with a number of them, bringing their battlefield experience and militant skill sets with them.

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Read more:
Insecure jobs and incomes carry risk of radicalisation for young Indonesian workers

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JAD has also pledged its support to the Islamic State. This pledge of allegiance, or bayat, to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi requires followers to follow Al-Baghdadi’s orders but gives them autonomy to conduct terrorist operations against the state, rejectionists and apostates.

The Islamic state continues to enjoy a sizeable level of support among everyday Indonesians, as well. A Pew Research study found that 4% of Indonesians have a favourable opinion of the group, which may seem small, but in numerical terms, constitutes over 9 million people. As Indonesian society has slowly become more conservative in recent years, this support is sure to grow.

The Indonesian government faces a significant challenge overcoming the simultaneous problems of returning foreign fighters and home-grown violent extremism.

But no nation can battle terrorism alone. Though Australia and Indonesia have been working well together on counter-terrorism initiatives, a senior Australian government official told The Australian on Monday that Canberra would “double down” on its cooperation with Jakarta to tackle the issue of returning foreign fighters.

Joshua Roose, Director, Institute for Religion, Politics and Society, Australian Catholic University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Why is it so difficult to prosecute returning fighters?

Mosul, in Iraq, is one of two declared ‘no-go’ zones.
Reuters/Alaa Al-Marjani

Keiran Hardy, Griffith University

As the terrorist organisation Islamic State (IS) suffers further losses in Syria and Iraq, increasing numbers of Australians fighting in those conflicts will likely seek to return home. Around 100 Australians are fighting with IS in the Middle East, and around 40 have already returned.

Reports that only two of these 40 fighters have been prosecuted on return are concerning. This suggests there are serious deficiencies in the government’s ability to successfully prosecute fighters returning from these foreign war zones.

This is despite recent changes to the law in which the federal parliament strengthened many foreign incursion offences. It is an offence for a person to enter a foreign country with intent to engage in hostile activity, or even to prepare to do so. Both these offences are punishable by life imprisonment.

So what makes it so difficult to prosecute returning foreign fighters? And what other options are available?

Foreign evidence

When police investigate a terrorism plot within Australia, they can collect a wide range of evidence to later prove terrorism offences in the courtroom.

Depending on what an investigation uncovers, this evidence can include weapons and ammunition, extremist material stored on CDs and computer hard drives, and bomb-making materials.

A significant category of evidence used in terrorism trials is transcripts of conversations that Australian police or intelligence agencies have covertly recorded. The statements of witnesses, including undercover intelligence officers, can also be used to prove a person’s guilt.

In theory, similar kinds of evidence could be obtained from overseas and used in an Australian courtroom. Amendments made in 2014 to the Foreign Evidence Act allow for foreign evidence to be adduced in terrorism trials, provided the evidence would not have a “substantial adverse” impact on the ability of the accused to receive a fair trial.

Foreign evidence will not be admissible if the judge is satisfied it was obtained through torture or duress.
In reality, collecting evidence in a foreign war zone is near impossible. Ordinarily, evidence could be provided to the Australian government by a foreign authority, collected through a joint operation with a foreign police service, or recorded on surveillance devices with the consent of an appropriate foreign official.

Syria and Iraq remain in a serious state of armed conflict and lack the governance structures for these to be realistic possibilities.

Another obstacle is that much of the information about Australians fighting overseas comes from foreign intelligence services, including the UK’s MI6 and the US Central Intelligence Agency. Conditions imposed on the sharing of this material mean the vast majority of it cannot be used as evidence in case it is exposed in open court.

Witness statements could be used to support claims of Australians engaging in terrorism overseas, but unless these are from reliable eyewitnesses, much of this could be excluded as hearsay.

In short, in the absence of an admission, confession or guilty plea, it is likely to prove extremely difficult to prosecute fighters returning from Syria and Iraq.

Declared area offence

The most viable option would be to prosecute a returning foreign fighter for entering or remaining in a declared area. This offence, punishable by ten years’ imprisonment, was introduced in 2014. It does not require proof that an individual engaged in hostile activity. It merely requires that the person was present in an area that the foreign minister has declared a “no-go” zone.

Currently, the only declared areas are al-Raqqa province in Syria and the city of Mosul in Iraq. It may still be very difficult to prove that a fighter was in one of these areas. It is possible that video evidence could provide proof, if somebody happened to film a fighter in a recognisable location and the footage was posted online or could otherwise be reliably obtained.

What other options are available?

The difficulties in prosecuting returning foreign fighters does not mean Australia faces a “deluge” of foreign fighters “roaming free” without consequence. Many more may still be killed overseas, and others may choose not to return.

At a minimum, those who do return will be subject to close scrutiny and surveillance by ASIO and the Australian Federal Police. If their behaviour becomes criminal – and there is a long list of broad terrorism offences – prosecution could become viable.

Returning foreign fighters may also be subject to control orders. These court-imposed orders enforce requirements such as abiding by a curfew, reporting regularly to police, and wearing an electronic monitoring bracelet.

A control order does not require proof that a person has committed a criminal offence. If a person breaches the conditions of an order, they will face five years in prison.

Australian police and intelligence agencies will explore these and other possibilities to ensure returning foreign fighters do not cause harm to the community. It is possible that prosecution may still be the intended strategy in many cases. But it takes time to build a solid case given the difficulties of gathering evidence.

Even so, the apparent challenges with prosecution suggest that returning fighters will pose a difficult security challenge for Australia in coming years. Surveillance of large numbers of returning fighters will be expensive and require significant resources, so this is not a realistic long-term solution.

These difficulties also demonstrate the limits in continually responding to terrorism with ever-stronger counter-terrorism powers. Many of the laws now proving difficult to prosecute were framed by the Abbott government as an urgent and necessary response to terrorism.

Keiran Hardy, Lecturer, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice and Member, Griffith Criminology Institute, Griffith University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Egypt: Repression Returning

The link below is to an article looking at the growing repression in Egypt – so much for the Arab Spring?

For more visit:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/31/egypt-crackdown-opposition-figures

Harold Camping: Fall Out from False Prediction of the End Continues

The latest in End Times predictions by a PreMillenialist has ended in falsehood yet again. This should come as no surprise, given that no-one on earth serves in any role on the Lord’s ‘returning to earth committee (not that there is such a committee I should make clear).’ The day is not known to anybody, whether saved or unsaved and will not be made known until such time as it actually happens. Of all the difficuties surrounding the interpretations of End Times Eschatology, surely that is one of the clearer areas that most Christians should be able to agree upon.

Sadly there are too many who are willing to presume a role in deciding the time of the Lord’s return and yet again we have another example of such a delusion causing the name of the Lord and His followers to be mocked on the earth. This is all that can happen from such flights of deluded fancy, excepting the destruction wrought in the faith of some believers that are caught up in such delusive predictions.

For more on the fall out of Harold Camping’s falsehood see:
http://www.christianpost.com/news/harold-camping-bashed-as-false-prophet-on-family-radio-airwaves-50713/

 

India Briefs: Recent Incidents of Persecution

Karnataka, India, April 8 (CDN) — Four Christians, including a police constable, were beaten on April 1 in Madikeri district on allegations of “religious conversion abetment,” as if conversion were illegal in India. Daijiworld Media Network reported that K. Nidugane villagers were enraged when a Christian constable identified only as Prasanna, along with three others identified only as Diwakar, Lawrence and Dias, went door-to-door distributing pamphlets and books in Nandimotte village. A few enraged Hindu villagers beat them, tore their clothes half-off, and brought them to a police station. Hindu extremist leaders who found out rushed to the village, but before they could manhandle the four, policemen intervened and took the accused Christians into custody. Deputy Superintendent of Police J.D. Prakash said that a recommendation had been sent to the superintendent of police seeking Prasanna’s suspension from service, the Daijiworld report stated. Diwakar, along with his wife Telcy Diwakar, had also been arrested and released on bail when they visited Devastoor village on March 26. A police official told Compass that the Christians have been charged with “deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs.”

Karnataka – Police on April 1 arrested Christians after Hindu nationalists registered false complaints of “conversion” against them (religious conversion is legal in India) in Kodihalli, Bangalore. The Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC) reported that citizens identified only as Vincent, Johnson, Satyan and Naveenand Vinod were at a prayer and fellowship meeting in the home of a Christian when area Hindu extremists led by a person identified only Prashanth stormed the house, made the accusation and forced them to the Kodihalli police station. A GCIC coordinator told Compass that the intolerant Hindus shouted anti-Christian rants along the way, and that police were mute spectators as the extremists mocked the Christians at the police station. Police charged the Christians with “deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs.”

Himachal Pradesh – On March 17 at Rekong Peo in Kinnur district, Hindu extremists ostracized the Christian community and warned them under threat of violence to conduct no future worship meetings. The All India Christian Council (AICC) reported that Hindu nationalist extremists barred Christians from using a public road, collecting drinking water and entering a local forest. A group of 20 Christians filed a complaint at the Bhavannagar police station, but officials failed to protect the victims at the behest of the local Hindu extremists. AICC submitted a detailed report to the National Commission for Minorities, requesting an investigation.

Kerala – On March 31 on Kara Beach Road, Kodungallur, Hindu extremists attacked Pastor N.V. Eliyas and Pastor Milton George of New India Church of God as they were returning home with their families from a house dedication prayer service. The extremists shouted slogans against the Christians as they accused them of “forceful conversions,” reported the Global Council of Indian Christians. The Hindu extremists damaged the Christians’ vehicles. Pastor Eliyas sustained injuries on his head and ear and was rushed to the Kodungallur Government Hospital. Police arrested 35 Hindu extremists who were involved in the incident.

Uttar Pradesh – On March 20 in Lonianpurawa, Balrampur district, an irate mob of 60 Hindu extremists barged into the worship meeting of The Healing Church and beat those present. An earlier incident had taken place the previous Sunday (March 13), when Hindu extremists threatened the worship led by convert Gudgi Verma and his wife Saroja Verma, according to the Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI). Opposing their thriving ministry in the area, local Member of the Legislative Assembly Gorakhnath Baba allegedly had sent about 25 Hindu extremists to the church to deliver the warning to discontinue church services. The Christians continued, and on March 16 Baba and 50 Hindu extremists went to the site, urged the couple to stop all Christian worship meetings and restore Hindu idols to the house, give offerings to the temple and observe all Hindu festivals, according to EFI. Evangelists Abhay Kumar and Keshov Parsad went to Lonianpurawa on March 20 to lead worship, and the Hindu extremists suddenly barged in, verbally abused the Christians for their faith and beat them. The situation in the area is reported as tense, and local Christians are praying to be able to resume regular Sunday worship meetings.  

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

Christian Woman Freed from Muslim Kidnappers in Pakistan

Captors tried to force mother of seven to convert to Islam.

LAHORE, Pakistan, March 11 (CDN) — A Christian mother of seven here who last August was kidnapped, raped, sold into marriage and threatened with death if she did not convert to Islam was freed this week.

After she refused to convert and accept the marriage, human traffickers had threatened to kill Shaheen Bibi, 40, and throw her body into the Sindh River if her father, Manna Masih, did not pay a ransom of 100,000 rupees (US$1,170) by Saturday (March 5), the released woman told Compass.   

Drugged into unconsciousness, Shaheen Bibi said that when she awoke in Sadiqabad, her captors told her she had been sold and given in marriage.

“I asked them who they were,” she said. “They said that they were Muslims, to which I told them that I was a married Christian woman with seven children, so it was impossible for me to marry someone, especially a Muslim.”

Giving her a prayer rug (musalla), her captors – Ahmed Baksh, Muhammad Amin and Jaam Ijaz – tried to force her to convert to Islam and told her to recite a Muslim prayer, she said.

“I took the musalla but prayed to Jesus Christ for help,” she said. “They realized that I should be returned to my family.”

A member of St. Joseph Catholic Church in Lahore, Shaheen Bibi said she was kidnapped in August 2010 after she met a woman named Parveen on a bus on her way to work. She said Parveen learned where she worked and later showed up there in a car with two men identified as Muhammad Zulfiqar and Shah. They offered her a job at double her salary and took her to nearby Thokar Niaz Baig.

There she was given tea with some drug in it, and she began to fall unconscious as the two men raped her, she said. Shaheen Bibi was unconscious when they put her in a vehicle, and they gave her sedation injections whenever she regained her senses, she said.

When she awoke in Sadiqabad, Baksh, Amin and Ijaz informed her that she had been sold into marriage with Baksh. They showed her legal documents in which she was given a Muslim name, Sughran Bibi daughter of Siddiq Ali. After Baksh had twice raped her, she said, his mother interjected that she was a “persistent Christian” and that therefore he should stay away from her.

Shaheen Bibi, separated from an abusive husband who had left her for another woman, said that after Baksh’s mother intervened, her captors stopped hurting her but kept her in chains.

 

Release

Her father, Masih, asked police to take action, but they did nothing as her captors had taken her to a remote area between the cities of Rahim Yar Khan and Sadiqabad, considered a “no-go” area ruled by dangerous criminals.

Masih then sought legal assistance from the Community Development Initiative (CDI), a human rights affiliate of the European Center for Law & Justice. With the kidnappers giving Saturday (March 5) as a deadline for payment of the ransom, CDI attorneys brought the issue to the notice of high police officials in Lahore and on March 4 obtained urgent legal orders from Model Town Superintendent of Police Haidar Ashraf to recover Shaheen, according to a CDI source.

The order ultimately went to Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) Asghar Jutt of the Nashtar police station. Police accompanied by a CDI field officer raided the home of a contact person for the captors in Lahore, Naheed Bibi, the CDI source said, and officers arrested her in Awami Colony, Lahore.

With Naheed Bibi along, CDI Field Officer Haroon Tazeem and Masih accompanied five policemen, including ASI Jutt, on March 5 to Khan Baila, near Rahim Yar Khan – a journey of 370 miles, arriving that evening. Area police were not willing to cooperate and accompany them, telling them that Khan Baila was a “no-go area” they did not enter even during daytime, much less at night.

Jutt told area police that he had orders from high officials to recover Shaheen Bib, and that he and Tazeem would lead the raid, the CDI source said. With Nashtar police also daring them to help, five local policemen decided to go with them for the operation, he said.

At midnight on Sunday (March 6), after some encounters and raids in a jungle area where houses are miles apart, the rescue team managed to get hold of Shaheen Bibi, the CDI source said. The captors handed over Shaheen Bibi on the condition that they would not be the targets of further legal action, the CDI source said.

Sensing that their foray into the danger zone had gone on long enough, Tazeem and Jutt decided to leave but told them that those who had sold Shaheen Bib in Lahore would be brought to justice.

Fatigued and fragile when she arrived in Lahore on Monday (March 7), Shaheen Bibi told CDN through her attorneys that she would pursue legal action against those who sold her fraudulently into slavery and humiliation.

She said that she had been chained to a tree outside a house, where she prayed continually that God would help her out of the seemingly impossible situation. After the kidnappers gave her father the March 5 deadline last week, Shaheen Bibi said, at one point she lifted her eyes in prayer, saw a cross in the sky and was comforted that God’s mighty hand would release her even though her father had no money to pay ransom.

On four previous occasions, she said, her captors had decided to kill her and had changed their mind.

Shaheen Bibi said there were about 10 other women in captivity with her, some whose hands or legs were broken because they had refused to be forcibly given in marriage. Among the women was one from Bangladesh who had abandoned hope of ever returning home as she had reached her 60s in captivity.

Masih told CDN that he had prayed that God would send help, as he had no money to pay the ransom. The day before the deadline for paying the ransom, he said, he had 100 rupees (less than US$2) in his pocket.

Report from Compass Direct News