Insurrection Arrests and Related News
Donald Trump Impeachment
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Insurrection in the US
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How does the 25th Amendment work, and can it be used to remove Trump from office after US Capitol attack?
Probal Rashid/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Stephanie Newbold, Rutgers University – Newark
A day after President Donald Trump incited supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol, Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer called on Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove Trump from office, saying “This president should not hold office one day longer.”
The 25th Amendment, ratified by the states in 1967, declares that upon the removal, resignation or death of the president, the vice president assumes the presidency.
Commonly referred to as the Disability Clause, this constitutional provision also specifies that if the president is unable to perform the functions of his office, the vice president will serve as acting president.
If the president is unable to determine his own decision-making capacity, it is possible – though this is an untested area of law – that the vice president, independently or in consultation with the Cabinet, would determine if he himself assumes the role of acting president.
Removal, resignation or death
The 25th Amendment has been invoked only a few times in history.
In 2002 and 2007, President George W. Bush invoked the Disability Clause prior to scheduled colonoscopy procedures that required anesthesia and sedation. During this limited time, Vice President Dick Cheney became acting president.
Tim Sloan/AFP/Getty Images
But there is no precedent for the type of situation currently facing the United States. Trump refuses to concede his loss in the 2020 presidential election and encouraged a mob who share his belief that the vote was “rigged” to attack Washington, D.C. On Jan. 7, Trump issued a brief statement promising an “orderly transition” on Jan. 20 but pledging to “continue our fight.”
The 25th Amendment contains no precise legal language that expressly outlines what the procedural processes should be if the president cannot determine his own fitness for office. Its lack of specificity about such a situation means that a potential constitutional crisis could result if it is invoked to remove an unfit president who is unwilling to give up power.
Line of succession
Should the president be incapacitated in office, there is legislation that clarifies the line of succession.
The 1886 Succession Act made members of the president’s Cabinet direct successors if the vice president could not serve.
Upon assuming the presidency in 1945 after President Franklin Roosevelt’s death, Harry Truman requested Congress to amend the 1886 Succession Act to provide greater clarification of succession protocol. Truman wanted that succession to place the speaker of the house second in line after the vice president. After several years of negotiation, both houses of Congress agreed to this revision and passed the Presidential Succession Act in 1947.
The legislation specified that the line of succession begins with the vice president and is followed by the speaker of the House of Representatives, the president pro tempore of the Senate, the secretary of the U.S. Department of State, the secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the remaining secretaries of Cabinet departments in the order of when they were established as executive branch agencies.
Neither the Succession Act nor the 25th Amendment has ever been invoked for longer than a few hours. There are nearly two weeks left in Trump’s term.
This is an updated and condensed version of an article originally published on Oct. 4, 2020.
Stephanie Newbold, Associate Professor, Public Affairs and Administration, Rutgers University – Newark
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Why were the Capitol rioters so angry? Because they’re scared of losing grip on their perverse idea of democracy
Jordan McSwiney, University of Sydney
Hundreds of pro-Trump rioters today charged into the US Capitol, where Congress was set to certify Joe Biden’s presidency. Four people have reportedly died in relation to this protest, including a woman who was shot.
The protesters included “Proud Boys”, QAnon supporters and those who aren’t necessarily affiliated with a group but have engaged with these far-right ideologies.
The riot marked a disturbing escalation in the willingness and ability for the far right to mobilise against liberal democratic institutions, inspired by baseless claims peddled by the president: that this has been a stolen, fraudulent election.
It culminates years of President Donald Trump’s incitement and endorsement of these groups. Recall his endorsement of neo-Nazis in Charlottesville (“there are very fine people on both sides”) and his refusal to condemn the Proud Boys (“stand back and stand by”). He even affirmed the Capitol building protesters, calling them “very special” and “great patriots”.
Certainly the way Trump is responding has only served to embolden the protesters and inflame the situation.
While there’s no doubt that some of the protesters were individual citizens, members of far-right extremist groups played an important, visible role in the riots. So who are the far-right rioters, and why are they so angry?
Violence is their bread and butter
The Proud Boys are one of the significant groups driving the protests, known for using violence to achieve their political ends. They describe themselves as a men’s fraternity of “Western chauvinists”, but are effectively a white nationalist gang predicated on violence.
Read more:
Why Australia should be wary of the Proud Boys and their violent, alt-right views
As Proud Boys founder Gavin McGuinnes described in 2017, to reach the highest level of the organisation’s hierarchy a member must “kick the crap out of an antifa” (anti-fascist).
However, the most direct antecedent to what we’re seeing today is the storming of the Michigan State House last month by armed men involved in militia groups and other Trump-supporting protesters.
The events in Michigan followed a series of tweets by Trump, one of which urged his followers to “LIBERATE MICHIGAN” in response to stay-at-home orders issued to combat rising numbers of COVID-19 infections.
What’s fuelling their anger?
The general appeal of groups like the Proud Boys is the retaliation to a perceived loss of white male supremacy and the erosion of privileges that were exclusively for the white man.
More specifically, in relation to what’s happening in Washington, their anger is fuelled by Trump’s claims of election fraud and a stolen election, including the baseless “Dominion” theory — a QAnon-related conspiracy about voting machines from Dominion Voting Systems involving Hugo Chavez and George Soros.
There is a wide spectrum of messaging from Trump’s supporters in today’s riots in Washington and outside other statehouses around America, from the comparatively banal claims of election fraud to dangerously unhinged calls for violence.
For example, Nick Fuentes, a white supremacist podcaster and “Groyper” (a network of “alt-right” figures), yesterday called for his followers to kill legislators during a live stream.
But behind their anger is almost a perverse democratic sentiment. Many no doubt genuinely believe their democratic rights have been subverted by liberal elites and “traitor Republicans” who don’t buy into Trump’s messages.
And so along with anger, there is also a sense of fear: fear that American democracy has been overturned at the hands of their “opponents”, even as they themselves actively undermine liberal democratic values and institutions.
Misinformation, conspiracies and false flags
Already, conspiracy theories and misinformation about today’s protests are being widely disseminated online. In particular, the riots are being spun as a “false flag”, with claims the rioters were actually antifascist provocateurs wanting to make Trump look bad.
Crucially, this isn’t just fringe internet conspiracy, but one being pushed by people with institutional clout. For example, Lin Wood, an attorney who until recently was embedded in Trump’s legal team, has spread this particular theory on Twitter, while alternative news outlets such as Newsmax repeated this line in their live coverage of the protest.
Misinformation plays a huge role in garnering extremist right wing views, and is being distributed widely across Facebook and other social media, as well as in mainstream press. And it’s not only in the US. Sky News in Australia, to give a local example, has been repeating without any clarification Trump’s lies of election fraud.
Unfortunately, tech companies have shown they’re unwilling to address this tidal wave of misinformation in a meaningful way.
Twitter will now slap a warning on a Trump post, and recently suspended his account for 12 hours — a temporary move followed by Facebook and Instagram. But countless white supremacists are still on there. For example, American white supremacist and founding figure of the “alt-right” Richard Spencer is still active on Twitter.
This a real danger, not only for the US, but for liberal democracies around the world, as misinformation continues to erode trust in institutions and stoke violent action.
So how do we begin addressing the far right?
To start, news and social media outlets must begin to take misinformation and hateful and extremist content seriously. This could be through more serious investment in content moderation for social media platforms, and refusing to uncritically publish patently false information, such as claims of voter fraud, for news media.
Similarly, a president who refuses to endorse organised white supremacists or conspiracy communities like QAnon would help reduce their legitimacy. As long as Trump continues speak of a “stolen election” and “very fine people”, the far right will feel validated in their violent actions and words.
Read more:
Australia isn’t taking the national security threat from far-right extremism seriously enough
While it is important security agencies take the very real threat of far-right violence seriously, we should look to other approaches to address and disrupt the far right beyond policing.
In Germany, for example, there has been some success with intervention at the interpersonal level. Educating role models for young people such as teachers and sports coaches to act as circuit breakers in the radicalisation process will help stem the flow of new recruits.
Young people are often targeted by far-right groups for recruitment. So role models like teachers are given skills to identify early signs of radicalisation, such as certain symbols or even fashion brands. They can engage with an individual who may be on the precipice of extremism, and offer them another path.
Given the very real danger posed by the far right, there needs to be a more rigorous approach to combating the allure of far-right extremist misinformation.
Read more:
Biden’s job gets easier after Senate wins in Georgia – but don’t expect a progressive revolution
Jordan McSwiney, PhD Candidate, University of Sydney
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Social media giants have finally confronted Trump’s lies. But why wait until there was a riot in the Capitol?
Timothy Graham, Queensland University of Technology
Amid the chaos in the US Capitol, stoked largely by rhetoric from President Donald Trump, Twitter has locked his account, with 88.7 million followers, for 12 hours.
Facebook and Instagram quickly followed suit, locking Trump’s accounts — with 35.2 million followers and 24.5 million, respectively — for at least two weeks, the remainder of his presidency. This ban was extended from 24 hours.
The locks are the latest effort by social media platforms to clamp down on Trump’s misinformation and baseless claims of election fraud.
They came after Twitter labelled a video posted by Trump and said it posed a “risk of violence”. Twitter removed users’ ability to retweet, like or comment on the post — the first time this has been done.
In the video, Trump told the agitators at the Capitol to go home, but at the same time called them “very special” and said he loved them for disrupting the Congressional certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s win.
That tweet has since been taken down for “repeated and severe violations” of Twitter’s civic integrity policy. YouTube and Facebook have also removed copies of the video.
But as people across the world scramble to make sense of what’s going on, one thing stands out: the events that transpired today were not unexpected.
Given the lack of regulation and responsibility shown by platforms over the past few years, it’s fair to say the writing was on the wall.
The real, violent consequences of misinformation
While Trump is no stranger to contentious and even racist remarks on social media, Twitter’s action to lock the president’s account is a first.
The line was arguably crossed by Trump’s implicit incitement of violence and disorder within the halls of the US Capitol itself.
Nevertheless, it would have been a difficult decision for Twitter (and Facebook and Instagram), with several factors at play. Some of these are short-term, such as the immediate potential for further violence.
Then there’s the question of whether tighter regulation could further incite rioting Trump supporters by feeding into their theories claiming the existence of a large-scale “deep state” plot against the president. It’s possible.
Read more:
QAnon believers will likely outlast and outsmart Twitter’s bans
But a longer-term consideration — and perhaps one at the forefront of the platforms’ priorities — is how these actions will affect their value as commercial assets.
I believe the platforms’ biggest concern is their own bottom line. They are commercial companies legally obliged to pursue profits for shareholders. Commercial imperatives and user engagement are at the forefront of their decisions.
What happens when you censor a Republican president? You can lose a huge chunk of your conservative user base, or upset your shareholders.
Despite what we think of them, or how we might use them, platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube aren’t set up in the public interest.
For them, it’s risky to censor a head of state when they know that content is profitable. Doing it involves a complex risk calculus — with priorities being shareholders, the companies’ market value and their reputation.
Read more:
Reddit removes millions of pro-Trump posts. But advertisers, not values, rule the day
Walking a tightrope
The platforms’ decisions to not only force the removal of several of Trump’s posts but also to lock his accounts carries enormous potential loss of revenue. It’s a major and irreversible step.
And they are now forced to keep a close eye on one another. If one appears too “strict” in its censorship, it may attract criticism and lose user engagement and ultimately profit. At the same time, if platforms are too loose with their content regulation, they must weather the storm of public critique.
You don’t want to be the last organisation to make the tough decision, but you don’t necessarily want to be the first, either — because then you’re the “trial balloon” who volunteered to potentially harm the bottom line.
For all major platforms, the past few years have presented high stakes. Yet there have been plenty of opportunities to stop the situation snowballing to where it is now.
From Trump’s baseless election fraud claims to his false ideas about the coronavirus, time and again platforms have turned a blind eye to serious cases of mis- and disinformation.
The storming of the Capitol is a logical consequence of what has arguably been a long time coming.
The coronavirus pandemic illustrated this. While Trump was partially censored by Twitter and Facebook for misinformation, the platforms failed to take lasting action to deal with the issue at its core.
In the past, platforms have cited constitutional reasons to justify not censoring politicians. They have claimed a civic duty to give elected officials an unfiltered voice.
This line of argument should have ended with the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville in August 2017, when Trump responded to the killing of an anti-fascism protester by claiming there were “very fine people on both sides”.
An age of QAnon, Proud Boys and neo-Nazis
While there’s no silver bullet for online misinformation and extremist content, there’s also no doubt platforms could have done more in the past that may have prevented the scenes witnessed in Washington DC.
In a crisis, there’s a rush to make sense of everything. But we need only look at what led us to this point. Experts on disinformation have been crying out for platforms to do more to combat disinformation and its growing domestic roots.
Now, in 2021, extremists such as neo-Nazis and QAnon believers no longer have to lurk in the depths of online forums or commit lone acts of violence. Instead, they can violently storm the Capitol.
It would be a cardinal error to not appraise the severity and importance of the neglect that led us here. In some ways, perhaps that’s the biggest lesson we can learn.
This article has been updated to reflect the news that Facebook and Instagram extended their 24-hour ban on President Trump’s accounts.
Timothy Graham, Senior Lecturer, Queensland University of Technology
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
‘Delighting in causing complete chaos’: what’s behind Trump supporters’ brazen storming of the Capitol
David Smith, University of Sydney
After weeks of President Donald Trump’s baseless claims about voter fraud and other improprieties costing him the presidential election, Washington erupted in chaos today as his supporters stormed the Capitol during a joint session of Congress to certify the results.
While shocking to watch, in hindsight, today’s riots feel almost inevitable.
Trump has spent weeks insisting the election was stolen, with very little push-back from the Republican Party. There have been some notable people who have challenged him, but even while this riot was going on, there were more than 100 Republican lawmakers trying to block certification of the election. This has been a highly opportunistic process on the part of Republican legislators.
For Trump, this is the whole game; at this point, it seems there is nothing else he cares about. He is desperately trying to hang on to power.
Amid all of this, it was inevitable at least some Americans would take the word of their current president very seriously. Having fired them up in this way, it becomes much harder to control mob behaviour. His belated tweet telling protesters to go home and go in peace (now removed by Twitter) was far too little, too late.
Looking at some of these images coming in from Washington, there is almost an element of “cosplay” (“costume play”). A lot of the rioters were dressed up in bizarre paraphernalia. On some level, I think they know they can’t actually seize power. There’s almost this carnival element to it of these people delighting in causing complete chaos.
Whether it’s Trump or his rioting supporters, if they can’t get their own way, if they can’t win, they’ll just create as much chaos as possible and revel in the absurdity of it.
Another thing that’s very obvious is these protesters didn’t fear the police. They were able to push their way past the police, they were able to force entry into the Capitol building and they’re then making jokes with reporters. They believed the police would not retaliate against them fatally — although four people died, including one woman who was shot by police.
The contrast with the Black Lives Matter protests is striking. A Black Lives Matter protest would never have been allowed to get that close to the Capitol. These are people acting with all kinds of impunity.
Undermining election results at all costs
In storming the Capitol and trying to stop a legitimate process of certifying the election, the rioters are following the lead of Trump and many congressional Republicans. It’s been trend for a while for Republicans that if they lose an election, they do as much as possible to nullify the results.
This is not necessarily trying to overturn the result. But if you look at recent elections in North Carolina and Wisconsin where Democratic governors won, that was followed by Republicans in the legislatures stripping as much power as possible from the governorship.
This idea that an election is only legitimate if we win has been put into practice by Republican legislators across the country for quite a while now.
With Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in November, there have been very few Republicans who have actually acknowledged this was the will of the people.
Part of that is because Trump’s victory four years ago was so unexpected, a lot of Republicans believe this was a new era in American politics. Part of that was the ability of Trump to win without actually winning the popular vote. Now that Biden has won, there’s a real unwillingness to acknowledge elections can still be lost legitimately by Republicans.
John Minchillo/AP
A failure of leadership from senior Republicans
From the beginning, Kevin McCarthy, the number one Republican in the House of Representatives, was absolutely behind these ridiculous stolen election claims. He’s never backed away from them.
Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, let these things go on for weeks before he made the most minimal statement that the Electoral College has spoken. It is no surprise that McConnell was then completely unable to control Republicans in the Senate who wanted to contest the certification of the election results.
Republicans have learned the lesson that the way to get the most attention, the way to further your career, is to take the most pro-Trump stance possible. So, it was no surprise so many lawmakers would back this effort to block certification of the election. They’re raising money off this, they’re creating YouTube videos to show their supporters.
It’s become Trump’s party. A lot of people see the path to political advancement backing Trump at every point.
There were a lot of Republican legislators who hoped Trump would eventually give up. In the days after the election, some were saying we should let Trump play out his legal options, he will do the right thing eventually and he’ll step aside for the good of the nation.
Jacquelyn Martin/AP
But he was never, ever, ever going to step aside or concede. What he does is he just keeps people on board with him. Anyone who waits for Trump to do the right thing inevitably ends up supporting him when he does the wrong thing.
This is a lesson Republicans should have learned, but they’re scared of his supporters. None of them have supporters who would potentially risk their lives to storm the Capitol building.
The best check on power? The people
There have been surprises in both the strengths and weaknesses of America’s institutions over the last few years. For example, federalism has turned out to be quite an effective check on presidential power when it’s been exercised by someone like Trump, which is perhaps not something Democrats would have necessarily believed before.
On the other hand, we’ve seen this massive erosion of norms, especially in Congress. This has been going on for quite a while and McConnell has been one of the major eroders of norms for a long time. Congress was never really an effective check on Trump.
Ultimately, after the election, it was local and state officials like Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Aaron Van Langevelde, a member of Michigan’s board of state canvassers, who said enough is enough when members of Congress weren’t doing it.
And despite the fact Trump has packed the federal courts and Supreme Court with conservative judges, none of his legal challenges went anywhere.
But in the end, the lesson is the most effective check is the election. It is the voice of the people. For every norm that Trump broke, for every anti-democratic thing he did, there was a bigger backlash.
We saw an election with one of the biggest turnouts in history. We had four years of pretty consistent protests in the streets. And in the end, this is the most important check on the presidency that there is.
David Smith, Associate Professor in American Politics and Foreign Policy, US Studies Centre, University of Sydney
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Rugby League: A Win is a Win – Just
India Briefs
Recent Incidents of Persecution
Karnataka, India, April 15 (CDN) — Police on April 10 arrested a pastor and other Christians of the New India Church in Mysore after some 25 Hindu extremists from the Sreeram Sena attacked their Sunday service, accusing them of forcible conversions, reported the Mathrubhumi daily. Pastor Vinod Chacko was leading the service when the Hindu nationalists barged into the church, stopped the prayer service and complained to police of alleged forcible conversions. The Global Council of Indian Christians reported that the extremists along with police detained the worshippers inside the church building, including 20 women and 10 children, taking down personal details about them and asking them whether they were paid money or otherwise lured to attend. Police also seized vehicles belonging to the church and those attending the service. Police charged Pastor Chacko, his wife Asha and others identified only as Sabu, Simon and Sayazu under section 295A of the Indian Penal Code with “deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings.”
New Delhi – A mob of about 150 Hindu extremists on April 9 attacked a Christian worship meeting in Bhajanpura, East Delhi, beating Christians with clubs and stones, including women and children. Pastor Solomon King told Compass that the Assembly of God church organized an open-air “Festival of Deliverance” meeting at which he was speaking; there were about 150 people in the arena when he arrived with 40 choir members. After the meeting began at about 6 p.m., some present suddenly shouted “Jai Shri Ram [Praise Lord Ram]” and started beating the Christians. Two Christians identified only as Prabhu and Abhisek sustained head injuries and received hospital treatment. Pastor King, his wife and other Christians also suffered bruises. The intolerant Hindus also destroyed furniture, a sound system, a generator and some Christians’ vehicle. The Christians had received permission from government officials to conduct the worship meeting, and five police officers were on duty to protect it; the Hindu extremists also severely beat them. The attack lasted for about an hour before police reinforcements arrived, and the extremists fled. Police were able to arrest two of the assailants.
Madhya Pradesh – An enraged mob of Hindu extremists on April 7 stormed into the prayer meeting of a Christian Assembly house church shouting anti-Christian slogans and filed a police complaint of forceful conversion against those present in Sagar. The Hindu extremists accused Pastor Joy Thomas Philip of forceful conversion, Pastor C.P. Mathew of Bhopal told Compass. Police arrived and took Pastor Philip and three other Christians into custody for questioning but claimed it was a protective measure. After area Christian leaders’ intervention, the Christians were released on bail on April 9.
Karnataka – Mulki Circle police officials on April 4 forcibly took church documents from Hebron Assembly Church in Mulki and told the pastor not to allow any Hindus to enter. The Global Council of Indian Christians reported that officials identified only as Inspector Shivaprakash and Sub-Inspector Neelakanta, along with five police officers, verbally abused Pastor I.D. Prasanna and harshly denigrated church activities. Police officials questioned Pastor Prasanna for three hours, telling him what church activities he can and cannot undertake, and threatening to close the church if he disobeyed. They also ordered the pastor to give detailed information about the families that attended the church service.
Karnataka – Police in Shimago on April 3 detained Pastor Abraham K.G. and a Christian identified only as Eerappa for their faith in Christ. The Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC) reported that Hindu extremists led by area Bajrang Dal member Subbraya Shetty interrupted the worship meeting of the Jehovah Nizzi church and warned them to stop meeting. The extremists had been harassing the pastor since March 27, reported the GCIC. As the April 3 service started at about 10:30 a.m., a sub-inspector from the Hosanagara police station arrived in a Jeep with three other police officers to make the arrests. When the Christians asked about the reasons, the officials said without basis that the Christians were using abusive language. Later that evening, police released the Christians without charges after taking a statement from them pledging that they would conduct no future worship meetings – and that they should leave the area.
Report from Compass Direct News
http://www.compassdirect.org
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
Spate of Attacks on Christians Erupts in Orissa, India
Christian leaders fear large-scale violence like that of Kandhamal in 2008.
NEW DELHI, March 4 (CDN) — Hindu extremists have attacked Koya tribal Christians in villages in a remote area of Orissa state at least 15 times since Dec. 8, 2010, Christian leaders said.
In the latest incident in Murliguda, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) from Malkangiri town, about 60 assailants from the Hindu extremist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh on Feb. 23 damaged the eardrums of Bhadan Hontal and beat another Christian, Markari Soma, until he fell unconscious, according to a report by the Malkangiri District Christian Manch (MDCM, with Manch meaning “Forum”).
Christian women, some pregnant, as well as children were among those injured in the attacks on churches, reported Pastor Vijay Purusu of Bethel Church and president of the MDCM. The spate of attacks began on Dec. 8 in Katanpali village, when about 35 Hindu extremists stormed the house of Pastor Mark Markani and beat him.
“Police action was delayed, so it resulted in more attacks against the Christians,” Pastor Purusu told Compass.
On Dec. 25, some 200 extremists barged into a Christmas Day celebration at a church in Koyi Konda village, beat the worshippers and destroyed furniture. Some church members received serious injuries on their hands, head and chest. About 10 houses belonging to Christians and their crops were destroyed, according to the MDCM.
The Christians filed a police complaint, but no action was taken, the forum reported.
“Persecution against the Christians has become a daily occurrence in the area,” Pastor Purusu said.
Christians have suffered midnight raids on prayer meetings in which they have been beaten, he said, resulting in some Christians fleeing their homes and going into hiding. At least four families have left their village and not returned due to extremist warnings, reported the MDCM.
“There is great fear among the people because of the threats they received from the extremists,” Pastor Purusu said.
At the same time, Hindu extremists have forced about 25 people to convert into Hinduism in the Mottu area, the forum reported.
Church leaders said increased attacks on Christians are a symptom of fear and envy among Hindu extremists, who perceive that Christianity is spreading in many areas and who mistake Christian social and educational ministries as illegally “luring” people to convert.
The MDCM last month met with the district collector and superintendent of police, and Christian leaders had submitted a memorandum to the state chief minister on Jan. 27.
“Delayed action of the police, and less police force on duty aggravated the matter,” the Rev. Rendang Remo Paul stated in the MDCM report. He led a team consisting of representatives of the National Council of Churches in India, Church of South India and the Indian Missionaries Society that met with district collector on Feb. 3.
“We told the district collector that the situation must not become another Kandhamal [where large-scale violence broke out in Orissa in 2008], and the district administrator is responsible to curb the situation,” Pastor Paul stated. “To our plea he said, ‘Let’s see, because it has just started.’”
The local Christian community has met with various district authorities to address the situation, including the chief minister, said Tehmina Arora, advocacy director of the Evangelical Fellowship of India.
“However, the situation in Malkangiri is very tense, and the police do not have control over large portions of the district due to Naxalites [Communist militants],” she said. “This is the biggest hurdle in controlling the situation.”
Yesterday (March 3) area Christian leaders again met with the area district collector, who assured them that immediate action would be taken. Meantime, village Christians received rice and some essential items from the administration.
Area Christians fear that Malkangiri may see the same kind of eruption of violence that killed at least 100 people in Kandhamal district, as the same officials – R. Vineel Khrishna, district collector; Anurudh Kumar Singh, superintendent of police; a second officer of Mottu police station identified only as Jaal; and a project director, Gobinda Dansena – have been transferred from Kandhamal to Malkangiri district, Pastor Paul reported.
Report from Compass Direct News
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