Alleged ‘Middleman’ Arrested in Malatya, Turkey Murders

Two key witnesses’ testimonies connect suspects to higher-level ‘masterminds.’

ISTANBUL, October 21 (CDN) — A court in southeast Turkey on Friday (Oct. 15) ordered the arrest of a suspected “middleman” linking the murder of three Christian men to alleged high-level masterminds.

The arrest order came after the testimonies of a former prison inmate and an incarcerated ex-gendarmerie intelligence worker at Friday’s hearing. Journalist Varol Bulent Aral – one of the suspected “middlemen” who allegedly incited five young men to stab to death Turkish Christians Necati Aydin and Ugur Yuksel and German Christian Tilmann Geske at the Zirve Publishing Co. in Malatya – was re-arrested at the hearing.  

The three Christians were bound and tortured before they were murdered on April 18, 2007, at the Christian publishing house, where they worked. Suspects Salih Guler, Cuma Ozdemir, Hamit Ceker, Abuzer Yildirim and alleged ring-leader Emre Gunaydin were caught trying to escape from the scene of the crime.

Attorneys said the last hearing of the Malatya murders was productive in tracing links between the five murderers and political masterminds whom prosecution lawyers claim are behind the slayings. A key witness, Orhan Kartal, was instrumental in proving that Aral was behind the murders, lawyers said.

“Not only this witness, but Emre also accused Aral before and then changed his statement,” said one of the prosecuting lawyers, Orhan Kemal Cengiz. “Before he retracted his statement, he gave details that couldn’t have been fabricated. So from the beginning we saw Aral was involved but couldn’t prove it.”

Kartal spent two months in prison with Aral in Adiyaman in 2008, where they were both held for crimes not related to the Zirve murders. Kartal said that while in prison together Aral detailed how he had planned the attack on the Zirve publishing house by psychologically preparing the five young murderers for the gruesome act. According to Kartal, Aral said he gave the young men the weapons they used to kill the three Christians.

In Kartal’s account, Aral also claimed that there was a higher figure behind him, retired Gen. Veli Kucuk. This year Aral completed his previous prison sentence. He is now again in prison as a key suspect in the Malatya murders.

In a previous statement, Aral had complained that retired Gen. Kucuk had threatened him about testifying. Gen. Kucuk has been arrested in connection with Ergenekon, a loose collection of ultra-nationalist generals, businessmen, mafia and journalists who planned to destabilize the government. Evidence in Malatya hearings over the past three years suggests that the murders were instigated by Ergenekon.

Aral has also been implicated in the Ergenekon case, the hearings of which are underway.

Prosecutors believe the Malatya murders are directly linked with a military operation called the Cage Plan within the scope of Ergenekon activities. A document entitled “Cage Plan,” found on a retired general’s computer, described assassinations that targeted the country’s small Christian communities. The document referred to the Malatya murders as a “successful operation.”

A second witness, Erhan Ozen, also in prison for other offenses, worked for the clandestine Gendarmerie Intelligence Organization (JITEM). He said that as early as 2004, JITEM personnel were planning the Malatya murders and the assassination of Armenian editor Hrant Dink.

Ozen said that after a meeting, some co-workers talked about how they were organizing an operation against the three Christians in Malatya in an effort to portray the state as ineffectual. He also testified that the rector of the local university and JITEM were monitoring the activities of the three Christian men.

“He was convincing because he gave many details that were coherent and that confirm each other, so his testimony seems to me authentic,” attorney Cengiz said. “But of course, we will see.”

In April the Malatya court added the Cage Plan indictment to its case file.

Prosecuting lawyer Erdogan Dogan told Compass that this is clear evidence linking the Malatya murders to the Cage Plan. For almost a year, prosecution lawyers have tried to make the case that the two court cases should be merged.

“We had progress in the case,” Dogan said of the two testimonies on Friday. “They might decide to join the two cases in the next court hearing.”

Judges had found the phone numbers of ultranationalist lawyer Kemal Kerincsiz and Sevgi Erenerol, spokesperson for the Turkish Orthodox Church – a Turkish nationalist denomination –in Aral’s personal phone book. Both figures are accused of playing leading roles in Ergenekon and spearheaded prosecution of Christians Hakan Tastan and Turan Topal for speaking to people about their faith.

This week various media released autopsy pictures and images of police videos showing the five suspects as they walk through the blood-stained Zirve office explaining how they committed the crime.

Lawyers said they did not know who leaked these to the press, but they didn’t think the images would affect the case.

“These will, however, show the country how the young men were incited and murdered the men, full of racism and hatred,” said Dogan. “This will be obvious and should be noted. The state needs to urgently address the fact that these youngsters, or anyone, can become so filled with racism and hatred.”

He said that acceptance and tolerance of other people’s thoughts and beliefs is fundamental, and that the state should teach these values to its people.  

The next hearing of the Malatya murders case is on Dec. 3.

Report from Compass Direct News

Sheikh Incites Muslims to Attack Christians in Egypt

Assault on community center, church, homes leaves 24 Copts wounded.

ISTANBUL, March 17 (CDN) — A mob of enraged Muslims attacked a Coptic Christian community in a coastal town in northern Egypt last weekend, wreaking havoc for hours and injuring 24 Copts before security forces contained them.

The violence erupted on Friday (March 12) afternoon after the sheikh of a neighborhood mosque incited Muslims over a loudspeaker, proclaiming jihad against Christians in Marsa Matrouh, in Reefiya district, 320 kilometers (200 miles) west of Alexandria, according to reports.

The angry crowd hurled rocks at the district church, Christians and their properties, looted homes and set fires that evening. The mob was reportedly infuriated over the building of a wall around newly-bought land adjacent to the Reefiya Church building. The building, called al Malak al Khairy, translated Angel’s Charity, also houses a clinic and community center.

“I was very surprised by the degree of hatred that people had toward Christians,” said a reporter for online Coptic news source Theban Legion, who visited Reefiya after the attack. “The hate and the disgust were obvious.”

The attack was a rarity for a northern coastal resort town in Egypt; most tensions between Copts and Muslims erupt in southern towns of the country.

According to a worker building the wall around the newly-bought plot, local Sheikh Khamis along with a dozen “bearded” men accused the church and workers of blocking a road early on Friday, staff members of Watani newspaper said.

Worried that the dispute could erupt into violence, one of the priests ordered the workers to take the wall down.

The governor of Marsa Matrouh approved the building of the church center and granted a security permit to conduct religious services in 2009.

Following afternoon mosque prayers, Sheikh Khamis rallied neighborhood Muslims, gathering more than 300 people. The mob broke into groups, attacking the church and nearby houses of the Coptic Christian community. There are nearly 2,000 Coptic Christians in Reefiya.

Around 400 Copts fled into the church building while the rioting mob looted and destroyed 17 houses, 12 cars and two motorcycles, according to Watani.

Local security forces were unable to contain the attack and called-in back up from nearby Alexandria. At nearly 1:30 a.m. on Sunday (March 14) they managed to contain the crowd and let the Christians out of the church.

Police arrested 16 young Christian men among those who were inside the church building, according to Watani. Later, four of them who were released because they were underage told reporters that security forces beat them. Police also arrested 18 of the assailants.

Some of the attackers and security forces were also wounded in the altercation. Of the wounded Copts, two were reportedly rushed to a hospital in Alexandria in critical condition. Sobhy Girgis, 33, was taken to Alexandria’s Victoria Hospital for internal bleeding in the kidney from injuries sustained from rocks the crowd threw at him, and Mounir Naguib, 41, was treated for multiple stab wounds, according to Watani.

Naguib, a teacher, said he was accosted while on his way to the Angel’s Charity building, with a knife-wielding member of the mob asking him if he was a Christian. When he said he was, the Muslim told him to convert to Islam by pronouncing the two testimonies of the Muslim faith (that there is no God but Allah and that Muhammad is his messenger).

“When I refused, he stabbed me in the thigh and hit me on the head,” Naguib told Watani.

One Copt, Nabil Wahba, told of how his house was destroyed. Wahba said he came home at 6 p.m. to find around 40 men hurling stones at his house. At 9 p.m. they came back with clubs and iron pipes, ripping the windows open and throwing fireballs into the house.

“When we tried to put out the fire, they hurled stones at us, while others were pulling down the garden fence and setting the other side of the house aflame,” Wahba told Watani. 

Security forces pulled Wahba and his sister out of his blazing house.

On the same day that violence erupted in Marsa Matrouh, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released a report denouncing Egypt’s legal system for not bringing people to justice for violent acts against Christians and their property.

According to the report, in the last year there have been more than a dozen incidents in which Coptic Christians have been targets of violence.

“This upsurge in violence and the failure to prosecute those responsible fosters a growing climate of impunity,” USCIRF Chairman Leonard Leo states in the report.

Since 2002, Egypt has been on the USCIRF “Watch List” as a country with serious religious freedom violations, including widespread problems of discrimination, intolerance and other human rights violations against members of religious minorities, according to the report.

Commenting on the Marsa Matrouh attack, the Theban Legion reporter stated that among the mob were members of Bedouin communities who are intolerant of plurality and diversity in society.

“The law of the land is supposed to be a civil law, and we would like to see a civil law applying to everybody,” he said.

Report from Compass Direct News 

Algerian Muslims Block Christmas Service

Neighborhood residents protest new church building in Kabylie region.

ISTANBUL, December 31 (CDN) — Nearly 50 Muslim members of a community in northern Algeria blocked Christians from holding a Christmas service on Saturday (Dec. 26) to protest a new church building in their neighborhood.

As Algerian Christian converts gathered for their weekly meeting and Christmas celebration that morning, they were confronted by protestors barring the doors of their church building. Tafat Church is located in Tizi-Ouzou, a city 100 kilometers (62 miles) east of the Algerian capital, Algiers. Established five years ago, the church belongs to the Protestant Church of Algeria (EPA). Until recently it met in a small rented building. In November it opened its doors in a new location to accommodate the growing needs of its nearly 350 congregants.

The local residents protesting were reportedly irritated at finding that a church building with many visitors from outside the area had opened near their houses, according to an El Watan report on Sunday (Dec. 27). The daily newspaper highlighted that the residents feared their youth would be lured to the church with promises of money or cell phones.

“This land is the land of Islam! Go pray somewhere else,” some of the protestors said, according to El Watan. Protestors also reportedly threatened to kill the church pastor.

The protestors stayed outside the church until Monday (Dec. 28), and that evening some of them broke into the new building and stole the church microphones and speakers, according to the pastor, Mustafa Krireche. As of yesterday (Dec. 30) the church building’s electricity was cut.

One of Algeria’s Christian leaders, Youssef Ourahmane, said he could not recall another display of such outrage from Algerians against Christians.

“It was shocking, and it was the first time to my knowledge that this happened,” said Ourahmane. “And there weren’t just a few people, but 50. That’s quite a big number … the thing that happened on Saturday was a little unusual for Algeria and for the believers as well.”

A few weeks before the Saturday incident, local residents signed a petition saying they did not want the church to operate near their homes and wanted it to be closed. Local authorities presented it to the church, but Ourahmane said the fellowship, which is legally authorized to exist under the EPA, does not plan to respond to it.

On Saturday church leaders called police, who arrived at the scene and told the Christians to go away so they could talk to the protestors, whom they did not evacuate from the premises, according to local news website Kabyles.net. The story Kabyles.net published on Sunday was entitled, “Islamic tolerance in action at Tizi-Ouzou.”

“In that area where the church is located, I’m sure the people have noticed something happening,” said Ourahmane. “Having hundreds of Christians coming to meet and different activities in the week, this is very difficult for Muslims to see happening there next door, and especially having all these Muslim converts. This is the problem.”

A local Muslim from the neighborhood explained that residents had protested construction of the church building in a residential area, according to El Watan.

“What’s happening over there is a shame and an offense to Muslims,” he told El Watan. “We found an old woman kissing a cross … they could offer money or mobile phones to students to win their sympathies and sign them up. We won’t let them exercise their faith even if they have authorization. There’s a mosque for those who want to pray to God. This is the land of Islam.” 

Behind the Scenes

Ourahmane said he believes that Islamists, and maybe even the government, were behind the protests.

“Maybe this is a new tactic they are trying to use to prevent churches from meeting,” he said. “Instead of coming by force and closing the church, the local police use the Muslim fundamentalists. That’s my analysis, anyhow.”

In February 2008 the government applied measures to better control non-Muslim groups through Ordinance 06-03. Authorities ordered the closure of 26 churches in the Kabylie region, both buildings and house churches, maintaining that they were not registered under the ordinance.

Despite efforts to comply with the ordinance, many Christian groups indicated they were blocked by lack of information, bureaucratic processes or resistance to their applications, according to this year’s International Religious Freedom Report by the U.S. Department of State. None of the churches have closed since then, but their status continues to remain questionable and only valid through registration with the EPA.

“If we have the right to exercise our faith, let them tell us so,” Pastor Krireche told El Watan. “If the authorities want to dissolve our association through legal means, let them do so.”

Recent growth of the church in Algeria is difficult for Muslims to accept, according to Ourahmane, despite public discourse among the nation’s intellectuals advocating for religious freedoms. Unofficial estimates of Christians and Jews combined range from 12,000 to 40,000, according to the state department report. Local leaders believe the number of Algerian Christians could be as many as 65,000.

Increasing numbers of people who come from Islam are like a stab for the Muslim community, said Ourahmane.

“It’s hard for them to accept that hundreds of Christians gather to worship every week,” he said. “It’s not easy. There are no words to explain it. It’s like a knife and you see someone bleeding … They see the church as a danger to Algerian culture.”

The Algerian government has the responsibility to face up to the changing face of its country and to grant Christians the freedom to meet and worship, said Ourahmane.

“The local authorities and especially the Algerian government need to be challenged in this all the time,” he said. “They have to be challenged: ‘Don’t you recognize the situation here?’ I mean we’re talking of tens of thousands of believers, not just a few.”

There are around 64 churches in the Kabylie region, where most Algerian Christians live, as well as house groups, according to Ourahmane. The Kabylie region is populated by Berbers, an indigenous people of North Africa.

“There are lots of healings and deliverance, and people are experiencing new things in their life,” Ourahmane said of the Algerian churches. “They are finding hope in Christ which they have never experienced before.”

There are half a dozen court cases against churches and Christians. None of these have been resolved, frozen in Algeria’s courts.

False Accusations

In ongoing negative media coverage of Christians, last month Algerian newspaper Echorouk published a story claiming that the former president of the EPA, who was deported in 2008, had returned to Algeria to visit churches, give advice and give them financial aid.

The report stated that the former EPA president, Hugh Johnson, was known for his evangelism and warned readers of his evangelizing “strategies.” 

Yesterday Johnson told Compass by telephone that the report was pure fabrication, and that he has not set foot in Algeria since he was deported.

Johnson’s lawyers are still trying to appeal his case in Algerian courts.

This year church groups stated that the government denied the visa applications of some religious workers, citing the government ban on proselytizing, according to the state department report.

Report from Compass Direct News 

Christian Official’s Death in India Called Divine Punishment

Hindu nationalists say Andhra Pradesh chief’s ‘conversion agenda’ led to copter crash.

NEW DELHI, September 14 (CDN) — Hindu nationalists are calling the helicopter-crash death of Andhra Pradesh state’s chief minister, a Christian, divine punishment for his so-called conversion agenda. The same allegation of a “conversion agenda” fueled persecution in the state for more than five years.

Yeduguri Sandinti Rajasekhara Reddy, a second-generation Christian in the Church of South India, and four officials were confirmed dead when their helicopter was found on Sept. 3 in the state’s dense forest area of Nallamalla.

Since Reddy, an official with the left-of-center Congress Party, became chief minister of the southern state in 2004, right-wing Hindu groups had been accusing him of helping Western missionaries to convert economically poor Hindus in the state. Hindu nationalists have been flooding the Internet with extremist comments saying the death of the 60-year-old Reddy, popularly known as YSR, was divine retribution.

“This is divine justice by Lord Srinivasa [One of the names of Hindu god Venkateshwara, an incarnation of Lord Vishnu],” commented Jayakumar on the Express Buzz news website. “It is good that it happened so swiftly. Obviously, [Congress Party President] Sonia Gandhi is worried that her plans of completely converting India into a Christian country have received a setback. Let all Hindu-baiters of this country perish like this. Very, very soon.”

A person who identified himself only as Prakash on the website of The Indian Express daily wrote, “Anti-god demons like YSR need to be punished like this.” Another writer identified as Kumar chimed in, “YSR is the ringleader for Christian conversions in Andhra Pradesh.” Enthused a writer identified only as Ravi, “It’s the best thing that happened to Andhra Pradesh in a long time, and Andhra Pradesh people must celebrate,” and Suman Malu exclaimed, “Thankfully our country has been spared of one anti-national, anti-Hindu chief minister. Thank God for that!”

Right-wing groups also have accused Sonia Gandhi, a Catholic born in Italy, of having a “conversion agenda” since she became president of the Congress Party in 1998. The rise of Christian persecution in India coincided with her appointment as party chief.

Dr. Sam Paul, national secretary for public affairs of the All India Christian Council, said two years ago that Hindu nationalists launched a massive campaign in 2004 to raise fears that Christian conversions would skyrocket in Andhra Pradesh due to the appointment of a Christian chief minister.

“Six years later, it is fully proven that those allegations were part of a political agenda to belittle the chief minister and his party,” Paul told Compass, adding that Reddy never preached his faith, “not even once.”

He pointed out, though, that the Indian Constitution permits all people to practice and propagate their faith.

Calling the extreme comments “very unfortunate,” Paul recalled that Reddy attended Muslim and Hindu functions and participated in ceremonial traditions such as offering Pattu Vastrams (silk dresses) to Lord Venkateshwara in Tirupati every year, a long-time tradition in the state.

In addition, in June 2007, the Reddy administration enacted a law prohibiting the propagation of any non-Hindu religion in the temple town of Tirupati-Tirumala, believed to be the abode of Lord Venkateshwara. At the same time, however, he had faced criticism for tightening government controls on the state’s numerous temples.

Official Condolences

Reddy had led his party to a second successive victory in Andhra Pradesh in May 2009. He was seen as a leader catering to the masses thanks to populist measures such as financial and power programs for farmers.

In stark contrast to the hostile sentiment voiced in the cyber-world, more than 60 admirers died of shock or committed suicide following news of his death. Indo-Asian News Service reported that the deaths of Reddy’s supporters occurred in 19 of the state’s 23 districts. While most of them suffered cardiac arrest after watching the news of his death on television, others committed suicide.

“Reddy dedicated his life to people, I am dedicating my life to him,” a young man wrote in his suicide note before consuming poison, reported the news service. A physically handicapped couple, pensioners under a welfare scheme, jumped into a river to try to end their lives, but fishermen saved them.

Officially, even Hindu nationalist groups offered their condolences, including the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), India’s largest conglomerate of right-wing groups, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), seen as the political arm of the RSS.

“We all share this unbearable pain with his family members, people of Andhra Pradesh and workers of the Congress Party,” the RSS announced in its weekly mouthpiece, the Organiser. “All the BJP-ruled state governments declared a two-day state mourning as a mark of respect to the departed soul.”

Reddy, along with his special secretary P. Subramanyam, the chief secretary ASC Wesley and Indian Air Force pilots S.K. Bhatia and M.S. Reddy, died in the crash as they flew from the state capital of Hyderabad to Chittoor district for a political function.

Hot-bed

Anti-Christian sentiment has fueled persecution in Andhra Pradesh for the last five years.

Most recently, suspected Hindu extremists burned down a newly built church building of the Best Friends Church in Mahasamudram area in Chittoor district on Aug. 20. On Aug. 1, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council or VHP) attacked Christians in Mahabubnagar district, accusing them of forceful conversion; they forced the Christians to wear tilak, a Hindu symbol on the forehead, and threatened to kill them if they went ahead with church construction.

Andhra Pradesh has witnessed three brutal murders of Christian workers since 2005. The body of a 29-year old pastor, Goda Israel, was found with stab wounds on Feb. 20, 2007 in a canal near his house in Pedapallparru village in Krishna district. In May 2005, two pastors, K. Daniel and K. Isaac Raju, were killed near Hyderabad, the state capital. Daniel went missing on May 21 and Raju on May 24. Their bodies were found on June 2 of that year.

The New Indian Express on June 27, 2005 quoted a man identified only as Goverdhan claiming that he and two friends had murdered the two preachers.

“I am not against Christianity, but Raju and Daniel converted hundreds of Hindu families,” Goverdhan said. “They enticed them with money. We have done this to prevent further conversions. This act should be a lesson for others.”

According to the Census of India 2001, Andhra Pradesh has a population of more than 76.2 million, of which only 1.18 million are Christian.

Report from Compass Direct News 

EGYPT: STABBING, BOMBING ATTACKS STRIKE NEAR TWO CHURCHES

Copt leaving sanctuary knifed in Minya; bomb explodes near venerable structure in Cairo.

ISTANBUL, May 22 (Compass Direct News) – In separate attacks in Egypt earlier this month, a Coptic Christian suffered severe stab wounds as he left a worship service in Minya, and a car-bombing outside a venerable church in Cairo disrupted a wedding.

Without provocation, three Muslims repeatedly stabbed Coptic Christian Girgis Yousry, 21, as the army conscript was leaving the gates of the church of Saint Mary in Minya, Upper Egypt on May 2, according to Copts United.

The assault left him with severe injuries to internal organs, and he was taken to the district hospital, where he was still receiving treatment at press time.

When Yousry’s father went to the police station to report the attack, the Intelligence Services officer in charge threw him out of the station. Three men implicated in the stabbing, Wael Mohammed Hagag, Mohammed Nasr Anwar and Shabaan Sayed Amin, were arrested on May 5 and have been given a 16-day initial incarceration while the investigation is underway.

All three men stand accused of attempted murder without premeditation, which carries a sentence of five to 15 years.

But Mamdouh Nakhla, president of the Al-Kalema Centre for Human Rights, said he thinks it unlikely that they will be convicted.

“From my experience over the last 15 years, in Minya in particular, all cases of attacks and murder against Christians either went without punishment and [the accused] were totally exonerated, or they were given suspended sentences,” he said.

Home to Egypt’s largest community of Copts (approximately 4 million), Minya is considered a hotbed of anti-Christian violence.

“I am aware of severe injustices happening to Christians who are being incarcerated for no reason,” said Nakhla. “This is my experience of Minya.”

Local sources told Compass that in the last few months there has been a wave of arrests of Christians who are held with no official charges. Sources spoke of cases where detainees are held for months in prison, where they are badly beaten and tortured.

“Police brutality is a widely practiced policy,” said one source, “especially in rural areas, group punishment and systematic intimidation and humiliation are expected practices against all citizens, Christians included.”

This month Compass learned of three illegal arrests of Christians that have taken place since November 2008. Two of the men who were detained have since been released.

“When people are released, they have been beaten and electrocuted so that they are hardly standing up,” said a local Christian.

Local church leaders believe recent pressure is a response to rumors of an increase in Christian converts in Egypt due to Christian satellite programming, although arrests go beyond converts to Coptic-born Christians.

Makeshift Bomb

In Cairo, a makeshift bomb placed under a car exploded outside a renowned Catholic church building in Zeitoun district on May 9, incinerating the vehicle but causing no injuries.

Panicked passersby called police when the small explosion caused the car to burst into flames outside Saint Mary Church, which Egypt’s Coptic community, citing numerous sightings of the Virgin Mary there in the late 1960s, considers a holy site.

Security forces arrived at the scene within minutes and sealed off the area. They found a second bomb, also planted beneath a car. Unable to disarm it, they were forced to detonate it in a controlled fashion, sources told Compass.

The explosion interrupted a wedding and a Bible study that were taking place inside the revered, historic building. Those in attendance were evacuated through a side gate as a precaution, reported Egyptian newspaper Watani. Boutros Gayed, the church’s priest, was unavailable for comment.

The bombs were rudimentary. Cell phones were used as detonators and placed with the explosive material into a bag containing shrapnel.

Police have yet to release information about possible suspects or motives, but newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm has stated security forces are investigating possible links to a Hezbollah cell, which uses similar explosive devices.

A spokesman for Hezbollah has denied its involvement, stating that the cell was focused on supporting Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and has never had plans to carry out operations in Egypt.

The head of the Orthodox Church, Pope Shenouda, condemned the attack as criminal and pointed to sectarian motives.

“[The bombers] are attempting to tamper with the future of this homeland that they do not deserve to belong to,” he said, according to Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram.

Similarities between this event and an explosion in February outside Al-Hussain Mosque, where one person was killed and 24 others wounded, have led to speculation that the attacks may be part of an attempt to inflame sectarian tensions.

Rumors also have been spread that “extremist Coptic groups” may have planted the devices in order to attract U.S. President Barack Obama’s attention to their plight on his planned June 4 visit to Cairo.

“This sounds like a ridiculous suggestion, because the Copts do not even respond to attacks against them,” said Ibrahim Habib, chairman of United Copts of Great Britain. “It is not in their agenda, and they have no precedence of violence.”

Report from Compass Direct News

INDONESIA: PASTOR ASSAULTED, THREATENED

Public Order official’s colleagues kick student ministry leader, issue more death threats.

JAKARTA, September 18 (Compass Direct News) – A Public Order official’s colleagues kicked Charles Hutahaean, chairman of the Indonesian Christian Students’ Movement (GMKI) in Jakarta, in the stomach last week and threatened to kill other GMKI staff members.

The Public Order official, Crisman Siregar, threatened to stab Hutahaean with a bayonet in the confrontation between him and his colleagues and the GMKI leader on Sept. 9. Previously Siregar had warned Hutahaean to “be careful with your life.”

Volunteer Public Order officials normally mediate local conflicts, among other community functions, but in this case have sided with a private company in a land dispute with GMKI. Land granted to the church was sold to a business venture, the Kencana Indotama Persada (KIP) Co., without the consent of GMKI, and construction workers have already partly demolished an old GMKI office building on the site.

GMKI now shares a newer office building with its parent ministry, the Alliance of Indonesian Churches (PGI). When KIP construction workers built a wall separating the new building from the old, GMKI students demolished it, sparking two violent attacks by Public Order officials on Aug. 26 and 28.

As GMKI staff members on Sept. 9 gathered to discuss these issues, two carloads of Public Order officials drove up and parked outside. Six men entered the premises and began tearing down banners erected inside the GMKI fence. The banners, which faced onto a busy road, protested the sale of the disputed land and accused Public Order officials of “masterminding” the August attacks.

When Hutahaen and other staff members tried to stop them, Siregar drew out a bayonet and threatened to stab the pastor. Following Siregar’s lead, the other officials threatened to kill GMKI members. They also kicked desks and chairs in the office building, causing minor damage.

GMKI staff members immediately reported the incident to the police, who arrived shortly after the attackers had left. Police officers, however, said it would be difficult to press charges since Siregar had not actually used the bayonet.

It was two weeks earlier, following the attacks on GMKI’s office, that Siregar had warned Hutahaean to “be careful with your life.” (See Compass Direct News, “Land Dispute Leads to Attacks on Christian Hub in Indonesia,” September 3.)

Compass sources said Public Order officials would likely benefit financially from protecting KIP’s business interests.

 

Mysterious Appropriation

The disputed property is a large piece of land originally granted by the Dutch colonial government to the Vereneging Christian School (VCS) Foundation. The VCS then gave the land to the Christian School Association, which in turn passed it on to a branch of its own association, the Christian Education Foundation (YBPK).

Although occupied by many Christian ministries and associations, including the Christian University of Indonesia and the Indonesia Bible Institute, sources said the land belonged to YBPK.

Under the terms of the land grant, the land could not legally be sold to business entities, according to GMKI lawyer Nikson Lalu. In August 2006, however, a board member of YBPK, acting independently of the board, sold a small plot of land to KIP. An old office belonging to GMKI was still standing on the plot of land, adjacent to a newer building shared by GMKI and PGI.

Compass sources noted that a gas station and business offices had replaced other ministry offices on the granted land. It was not clear, however, how the businesses had appropriated the land from YBPK.

Report from Compass Direct News

INDIA: HINDU EXTREMISTS SUSPECTED IN MURDER OF PRIEST

Body found in Andhra Pradesh state with 30 stab wounds, broken skull.

NEW DELHI, August 19 (Compass Direct News) – Christian leaders in Andhra Pradesh suspect the grisly murder of a Catholic priest was the work of Hindu extremists and that police have prematurely ruled out that possibility.

The battered body of Father Thomas Pandipally was found lying on a roadside in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh early on Sunday (August 17). The 38-year-old priest from the Carmelite of Mary Immaculate (CMI) order was killed while he was traveling by motorbike from the Lingampet area to Yellareddy village in Nizamabad district after 9:30 p.m. on August 16, reported Indian Catholic News Service (ICNS).

Fr. Pandipally, who was also the manager of a local school run by the CMI order, was to conduct the Sunday mass at St. Francis of Assisi Church in Yellareddy the following morning.

Nizamabad Superintendent of Police Rajesh Kumar told Compass that the murder had no religious motive. “There is communal harmony, and there has been no communal incident in the district at all,” he said.

There are only two possible angles in the murder case, Kumar said.

“One, the school where Fr. Pandipally was working is doing very well, and it also has a dispute with another school,” he said. “Second, Fr. Pandipally had expelled the driver of a school bus over some dispute on his salary.”

But the Rev. Father Alex Thannippara, a provincial superior of the CMI order, said he was in “complete disagreement” with Kumar’s claim of communal harmony in the area.

The Hindu extremist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or RSS, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council) and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (All India Students’ Council or ABVP, student wing of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party) are all violently active in Nizamabad, Fr. Thannippara said.

He pointed out that on January 16 a mob of around 500 people led by ABVP workers prevented the Hyderabad archbishop from blessing the new building of an HIV/AIDS care center run by the Franciscan Clarist Congregation (FCC) sisters in Lingampet.

“The crowd also indulged in vandalism and demolished a statue of Mother Mary,” Fr. Thannippara said. “The police had to lock up the building and take the keys with them to pacify the crowd.”

He added that the tensions erupted despite the support of district authorities for the center.

“Later, the FCC sisters filed a suit in the court of law against the protestors,” Fr. Thannippara said. “And the sisters started receiving threats on phone that if they did not withdraw the case, some members of their communities would be attacked.”

The school where the slain priest was working was also targeted around two years ago. “A huge crowd led by RSS supporters gathered around the school and tried to parade the then-principal naked under flimsy pretexts, but the police protected him,” he said.

Fr. Thannippara said the school had no dispute with any other school, though he acknowledged that other schools may be jealous of the CMI order. He added that Fr. Pandipally didn’t ask the school bus driver to leave but only refused to raise his salary.

When school workers heard about Fr. Pandipally’s murder, all staff members came except the driver, he said, but “that does not necessarily mean he is the culprit.”

“Fr. Pandipally was very humble,” Fr. Thannippara said. “Why should anyone kill him so brutally, I can’t understand.”

According to ICNS, there were more than 30 stab injuries on Fr. Pandipally’s body, especially in the abdomen.

“His head was hit with sticks and boulders, and the skull was split open,” ICNS reported. “All over his face, on his eyes, lips and cheeks, deep wounds were found. His motorcycle was thrown in bushes about four kilometers away. He was done to death in the forest, and his body was brought back and thrown in the middle of the road.”

ICNS also reported that Fr. Pandipally received a phone call inquiring when he was leaving for Yellareddy.

Archbishop Marampudi Joji of Hyderabad has also linked the murder to growing intolerance against Christians in parts of India.

“The Indian church is shocked and deeply saddened by this barbarous killing, which is the result of a growing climate of intolerance and violence against Christians in the country,” he told Asia News.

Brutal, Mysterious Murders

Andhra Pradesh has witnessed a strange trend of brutal and mysterious murders of Christian workers.

On June 8, 2006, the body of Prem Kumar, a 67-year-old preacher from the Church of South India, was found in a forest in the same district, Nizamabad. Kumar’s head was crushed beyond recognition, apparently with heavy stones. (See Compass Direct News, “Preacher Murdered in Andhra Pradesh, India,” June 12, 2006.)

A young man approached Kumar early in the morning requesting that he hold a prayer meeting in Rampur Thanda village later that day. He never returned from that “meeting” and was found murdered.

In May 2005, pastors K. Isaac Raju and K. Daniel were brutally murdered near the state capital, Hyderabad. (See Compass Direct News, “Second Pastor Found Dead in Andhra Pradesh, India,” June 6, 2005.) Unknown persons called both pastors by phone before they disappeared, asking if they would act as wedding celebrants. Raju went to meet a caller in Anantpur district on May 24, 2005 and disappeared; an unidentified caller then phoned the police on June 2, describing where to find Raju’s body.

Previously, on May 21, callers had put Daniel into a motorized rickshaw and taken him to a cemetery in Karwan, where they beat him severely before strangling him and dumping his body on the city outskirts.

An anonymous letter was sent to a local newspaper claiming the murders were carried out by an organization called the Anti-Christian Forum. The letter promised further killings.

An article in the New Indian Express on June 27, 2005, quoted a man identified only as Goverdhan, who along with his two friends allegedly murdered the two preachers.

“I am not against Christianity, but Raju and Daniel converted hundreds of Hindu families,” Goverdhan said. “They enticed them with money. We have done this to prevent further conversions. This act should be a lesson for others.”

In 2000, Pastor Yesu Dasu, 52, was killed in a similar fashion. Two people riding a motorbike came to his home on the evening of September 11 and asked for Dasu, saying someone wanted to speak with him.

Assailants then took Dasu to the outskirts of Mustabad in Karimnagar district. They bound his hands together and hit him repeatedly with an axe, eventually severing his head.

Dasu’s body was found in a pool of blood at a cattle shed near Kothakunta, along the Mustabad-Siddipet highway, three kilometers (nearly two miles) from Karimnagar. Several pieces of the body were found scattered at the murder scene.

Extremists had earlier warned Dasu to cease preaching or face the consequences. (See Compass Direct News, “Murder of Christian Preacher Remains Unsolved in India,” October 10, 2003.)

The Congress Party, with Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, a Christian, as the chief minister, rules Andhra Pradesh state. Hindu extremists have accused Reddy of giving a free hand to Christian missionaries in the state.  

Report from Compass Direct News