The following link is to an article conerning the deaths of two pastors accused of being thieves – they were burnt to death.
For more visit:
http://www.mnnonline.org/article/17212
Tag Archives: thieves
Church Building in Bogor, Indonesia Re-opens – for a Day
City officials order security police to close church under cover of darkness.
JAKARTA, Indonesia, September 8 (CDN) — The Bogor city government in West Java re-sealed the Gereja Kristen Indonesia (GKI) Yasmin Church on Aug. 28, one day after security police had removed the seal and lock.
Under cover of darkness, Bogor security police were ordered to secretly re-seal the church building at 11 p.m. the night before it was to be used for worship services.
Jayadi Damanik, a member of the GKI Yasmin legal team, said security police had removed the lock and seal after church talks with the district officer, the Bogor police chief, the head of the security police and citizens who live near the church. In those talks all parties agreed that there was no reason to question the construction and presence of the GKI Yasmin Church, he said.
The district officer and the Bogor police chief told church leaders that the original sealing of the church on April 11 was the unwarranted result of political pressure, he said.
After re-opening the church on Aug. 27, authorities placed a notice that read, “Because this Gereja Kristen Indonesia building has satisfied all of the requirements, it has a building permit, No. 645.8-372 Year 2006, and has been strengthened by the force of law according to the decision handed down by the Bandung State Court Number 41/G/2008/PTUN-BDG, which rescinded the Bogor City Government decree Number 503/208-DKTP dated Feb. 14 freezing the permit.”
But on Aug. 28 at about 4 a.m., unknown persons locked the gate of the GKI Yasmin fence and placed a banner on it that read, “Because this building is continuing to be processed under the law, it cannot be used.”
At 11 a.m. that day, the church took off the lock and removed the banner, but late that night security police resealed it with a new notice.
Besides sealing the building under cover of darkness, Damanik said, there was no formal notice and no church witnesses.
“Why did they do this at night, like thieves?” Damanik said. “Because of this, we do not accept the seal as legal.”
He added that the State Court had found the April 11 sealing was illegal.
After the resealing, the GKI legal team went to the office of the security police to ask about it. Yan Yan, head of the security police, said that his superiors, the Bogor municipal government, and the influential Bogor politicians had pressured him to re-seal it. He said his bosses had scolded him for taking off the seal on Aug. 27.
“I am astounded,” Damanik said. “Why should a security police officer who takes off a seal based on a legal decision be reprimanded rather than appreciated?”
Damanik said he appreciated the heart of the security chief, who understood that there was no reason for the Bogor government to seal the church on April 11.
“I am proud that Mr. Yan did the right thing and took off the seal, even though it was just for one day,” he said. “He did this because he understood the truth.”As a result of this incident, Damanik said he hopes that the political elites will repent and carry out the court’s order.
GKI Yasmin elder Thomas Wadu Dara said the church would protest the resealing.
“After this incident, we are going to write to the Indonesian president and the Parliament,” Wadu Dara said.
He said he hoped that the congregation would continue to be patient in meeting the challenges and not give up in their struggle for the truth.
“We are going to continue worshipping on Sunday at 8 o’clock,” he said.
Since April 11, the GKI Yasmin congregation has been allowed to worship only once every two weeks on the shoulder of the road bordering fence in front of the church building that the Bogor government sealed.
Report from Compass Direct News
Muslim extremists in Somalia enforce brutal sharia law
Open Doors reports that Islamic extremists in Somalia are beginning to enforce the brutal aspects of Sharia law. In March, Somalia’s cabinet voted to implement it throughout their country, reports MNN.
They’re responding to a recent case involving thieves who were punished by amputation. The punishment was carried out by members of al-Shabaab, an Arabic word meaning “The Lads,” who follow a strict version of Sharia law.
Al-Shabaad also took credit for the assasination of two legislators, the country’s security minister, a member of parliament, and 30 others. According to Compass Direct, it is clear Al-Shabaab has no intention of backing down but every intention of extending its rule politically and spiritually across Somalia.
The Open Doors team expressed concerns over the severity of the punishment for petty crime, wondering what it would be for forsaking Islam. The following story could likely be that answer:
Islamic extremists beheaded two young boys in Somalia because their Christian father refused to divulge information about a church leader; the killers are searching Kenya’s refugee camps to do the same to the boys’ father.
Across the country, evangelism is frowned upon and in many areas, prohibited. Somalia is almost exclusively Sunni Muslim, with 0.05 percent of the population Christian. The persecution of Christians is severe in most regions of Somalia, and many have fled to neighbouring countries.
Only a handful of Somalis are Christians, practicing their faith in secret.
Report from the Christian Telegraph
SRI LANKA: BUDDHIST MOBS ATTACK CHURCHES
Pastor threatened with death, historic Methodist sanctuary ransacked, during Holy Week.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, April 16 (Compass Direct News) – Buddhist mobs attacked several churches in Sri Lanka last week, threatening to kill a pastor in the southern province of Hambanthota and ransacking a 150-year-old Methodist church building in the capital.
On April 8, four Buddhist extremists approached the home of pastor Pradeep Kumara in Weeraketiya, Hambanthota district, calling for him to come out and threatening to kill him. The pastor said his wife, at home alone with their two children, phoned him immediately but by the time he returned, the men had left.
Half an hour later, Kumar said, the leader of the group phoned him and again threatened to kill him if he did not leave the village by the following morning. Later that night the group leader returned to the house and ordered the pastor to come out, shouting, “I didn’t bring my gun tonight because if I had it with me, I would use it!”
“My children were frightened,” Kumara said. “I tried to reason with him to go away, but he continued to bang on the door and threaten us.”
Police soon arrived on the scene and arrested the instigator but released him the following day.
Subsequently the attacker gathered Buddhist monks and other villagers together and asked them to sign a petition against the church, Kumar said. Protestors then warned the pastor’s landlord that they would destroy the house if he did not evict the pastor’s family by the end of the month.
Fearing violence, Kumara said he canceled Good Friday and Easter Sunday services and evacuated his children to a safer location.
Methodist Building Ransacked
Earlier, on Palm Sunday (April 5), another group of men broke into the 150-year-old Pepiliyana Methodist Church in Colombo after congregants concluded an Easter procession.
The gang entered through the back door and windows of the building late that night; witnesses said they saw them load goods into a white van parked outside the church early the next morning.
“They removed everything, including valuable musical instruments, a computer, Bibles, hymn books and all the church records,” said the Rev. Surangika Fernando.
The church had no known enemies and enjoyed a good relationship with other villagers, Rev. Fernando said, adding that the break-in appeared to be more than a simple robbery.
“My desk was completely cleaned out,” he said. “They took important documents with details of parishioners such as baptism and marriage records, which are of no value to thieves. They even took what was in my wastepaper basket.”
Local police agreed that robbery was an unlikely motive and that opponents from outside the area were the most likely culprits. Investigations were continuing at press time.
Finally, anti-Christian mobs in Vakarai, eastern Batticaloa district, intimidated church members gathering for several worship services during Holy Week.
“What can we do?” pastor Kanagalingam Muraleetharan told Compass. “The authorities and the police say we have the right to worship, but the reality is that people are threatened.”
The Easter incidents are the latest in a long series of attacks against churches and Christian individuals in recent years, many of them instigated by Buddhist monks who decry the growth of Christianity in the country.
Members of Sri Lanka’s Parliament may soon enact an anti-conversion bill designed to restrict religious conversions. Human rights organizations and Christian groups have criticized the vague terminology of the legislation that, if passed, may invite misapplication against religious activity.
The draft “Bill for the Prohibition of Forcible Conversions” was referred to a consultative committee of the Ministry of Religious Affairs in February for further deliberation, prior to a final reading and vote. (See http://www.compassdirect.org, “Parliament to Vote on Anti-Conversion Laws,” Jan. 26.)
According to the most recent government census, Protestant Christians number less than 1 percent of the total population in Sri Lanka, but they remain the primary target of religiously motivated violence and intimidation.
Report from Compass News Direct
INDIA: HINDUS IN ORISSA MAYHEM HELP PROTECT CHRISTIANS
Another inflammatory funeral procession planned for Sunday, in spite of ban.
BHUBANESWAR, September 5 (Compass Direct News) – Asserting that most area Hindus are tolerant and peaceable, victims of ongoing anti-Christian violence in the eastern state of Orissa blamed the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council or VHP) and other extremist groups for the terror of the past two weeks.
“The mobs that attacked our parishes and institutions were largely composed of extremists from the VHP and its youth wing, Bajrang Dal,” said Bishop Sarat Chandra Nayak of the Behrampore Catholic diocese.
At least four parishes, a presbytery and a youth hostel were destroyed in Munniguda town in Rayagada district under the Behrampore diocese in the spate of violence that began following the killing of a VHP leader, Laxmanananda Saraswati, and four of his associates in Kandhamal district on August 23. Christian leaders say more than 100 lives have been lost and thousands of houses, churches and institutions damaged or destroyed in the violence.
The state government attributed the assassination of the VHP leader and his associates to Maoists who have since claimed responsibility for the murders, but the Hindu extremist groups continue to blame Christians.
Asked if he condemned the violence on Christians, VHP Orissa State President Gauri Prasad Rath told Compass that he categorically did not.
“You should ask me to condemn the killing of Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati and his associates with AK-47s by Christians,” he said.
While the Global Council of Indian Christians says more than 100 people have been killed in the violence, the Kandhamal District Collector’s Office told Compass that the death toll is only 14 people. The office reports 22,685 people are in relief camps in Kandhamal. The same office has also reported that 2,400 buildings have been destroyed in the mayhem, though Christian leaders believe the total is much higher.
Hindus Protected Christians
Father Mathew Puthyadam, a Catholic priest in Phulbani town in Kandhamal district, told Compass that local Hindu families gave him shelter.
As mob of around 4,000 people was carrying the body of Saraswati in a procession outside his church on the night of August 24, he said, he first sought shelter with Christians.
“When the mob was destroying my parish [Christ the King Church], I went to the house of parish workers nearby and hid in a broken bathroom,” Fr. Puthyadam said. “The mob somehow came to know that the house belonged to Christians, and they launched an attack on it. They beat up the two boys who live there, but they managed to escape. Thankfully, they did not come to the bathroom.”
About an hour after the mob left, Fr. Puthyadam came out to the street to see if it was safe for him to leave.
“A Hindu lady told me some extremists were still roaming around,” he said. “She asked me to hide in her kitchen and gave me food to eat.”
Later, Fr. Puthyadam fled to a forest, and finally came to the Archbishop’s House in the state capital, Bhubaneswar.
“Many among the mob were goons and thieves who were seemingly led by extremist groups,” he recalled, saying he felt he had gotten a “second life” as he could have been killed.
Another priest who managed to reach Bhubaneswar after a seven-day journey from Onjamundi village in Kandhamal district praised local Hindu families for protecting him.
“On the evening of August 25, a mob of 300 people who were armed with pistols, chisels and sticks, started burning houses and churches,” said Father Laxmikant Pradhan, a Catholic priest. “We could see thick smoke rising from all around. But Hindu families in the village asked Fr. Prabodha Kumar, my associate, and I to hide in their homes.”
Ravindranath Pradhan, a 45-year-old former soldier of the Indian Army, told Compass that VHP supporters attacked Christian houses in his village of Gadragaon in the Rupagaon area of Kandhamal.
“We know the attackers – they are from the VHP,” he said. “We have named them in our police complaint.”
Pradhan and 113 others reached Bhubaneswar on August 28 after walking for four days from Gadragaon. The homeless Christians were given shelter in a YMCA center in the capital city.
Creating a Rift
Some Orissa locals believe the extremists meant to create a rift between Christian missionaries and lower-caste tribal peoples known as “Other Backward Classes” (OBCs).
Prabhu Kalyan Mahapatra, a local Hindu and freelance journalist, told Compass that he did not think the violence was the result of what media are portraying as a Hindu-Christian “clash.”
In Kandhamal, there are OBCs who are lower castes but not “outcasts,” Mahapatra said, noting that the OBCs were mainly traders, while Dalits and tribal peoples were laborers and the poorest of the poor. He said the OBCs exploited Dalit and tribal people.
“However, Christian missionaries provided education to Dalits and tribals, which was not liked by the OBCs for obvious reasons,” he said, pointing out that several people from Dalit and tribal backgrounds had risen to become bureaucrats and members of parliament because of education provided by Christian institutions. “And the VHP took advantage of the situation and created a rift between OBCs and Christian missionaries.”
Mahapatra said that locals’ tolerance for Christian converts made Hindu-Christian conflict an unlikely reason for the violence. A Christian convert, Madhusudan Das, was recognized by the people of all local communities as the “father of modern Orissa,” he said.
Das, a lawyer, social reformer and patriot, worked for the political, social and economical uplift of people of eastern India, especially Orissa, and contributed numerous articles and poems both in Oriya and English.
“If the people of these communities respect a convert [Das], how can you say the Hindus of Orissa are not tolerant?” he asked.
Mahapatra explained how the VHP extended Saraswati’s funeral procession to incite violence.
“The funeral was taken from Saraswati’s ashram [religious center] in Jalespeta to his other ashram in Chakapada in Kandhamal, covering around 134 kilometers, when the distance between the two ashrams is merely 70 kilometers,” he said.
The attacks on Christians began during the funeral procession, he added.
New Tensions Feared
The Orissa government yesterday put a ban on rally planned by the VHP to take the ashes of Saraswati in another public procession throughout Orissa villages beginning on Sunday (September 7), according to the Press Trust of India news agency.
The ban was announced by the state government in hearing of a petition filed by Archbishop Raphael Cheenath from Orissa in the Supreme Court of India. The state government, however, fears fresh trouble on Sunday, as it is believed that the VHP may still go ahead with the processions.
“The state government has decided to rush additional force to the riot-affected areas in view of VHP’s proposed ‘kalas puja’ [worship of the remains of a deceased] of slain Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati,” reported The Indian Express newspaper today.
According to the Evangelical Fellowship of India, mobs led by extremist groups are “roaming in Kandhamal and threatening the Christians to ‘reconvert’ or face death.”
Christians from various denominations will fast and pray for the Christians in Orissa on Sunday.
The VHP and the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, a partner of the ruling government led by the Biju Janata Dal party, continue to blame Christians for the killing of Saraswati and four others in spite of the Maoist claim of responsibility for the assassination.
Saraswati allegedly incited the attacks on Christians and their property in Kandhamal during last Christmas season. The violence lasted for more than a week beginning December 24, and killed at least four Christians and burned 730 houses and 95 churches.
The 2007 attacks were allegedly carried out mainly by VHP extremists under the pretext of avenging an alleged attack on Saraswati by local Christians. Hundreds of Christians were displaced by the violence in Kandhamal, and many are still in various relief camps set up by the state government.
Christians make up 2.4 percent of Orissa’s population, or 897,861 of the total 3.7 million people.
Report from Compass Direct News
Random Thoughts 