ISTANBUL, July 3 (Compass Direct News) – A court in western Algeria convicted two Muslim converts to Christianity yesterday for illegally spreading their faith. The court in Tissemsilt, 110 miles southwest of Algiers, handed Rachid Muhammad Essaghir, 37, and Djallal Dhamani six-month suspended sentences and 100,000-dinar (US$1,660) fines. The men were found guilty of “distributing documents to shake the faith of Muslims.” The case has received both local and international publicity following a wave of trials this year against Algerian Christians for evangelism and illegally practicing their faith. Essaghir has now moved from Tiaret to the coastal city of Oran with his wife and 1-year-old daughter after police shut down his Internet café in April. Officials closed the business for failure to obtain necessary written permission from local police, but Essaghir said that this was an excuse to harass him for his work as an evangelist, as many Internet cafés in Algeria function without such permission. “Essaghir is doing very well, it’s a miracle,” said a close friend who spoke with the Christian following yesterday’s trial. Despite his numerous convictions, the friend said, “he doesn’t care anymore; God is in control.”
Thu, 03 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0200 ISTANBUL, July 3 (Compass Direct News) – After four weeks in police custody, Iranian Christian Mohsen Namvar was released “temporarily” last week to return to his home in Tehran. A doctor summoned to Namvar’s home after his release last Thursday (June 26) administered medicines and serum to treat the badly beaten prisoner. Arrested on May 31 from his home in Tehran, the convert from Islam was kept incommunicado until his release. “They put a great deal of pressure on his body and his mind,” an Iranian Christian told Compass. “No one knows exactly what they did to him during those four weeks.” Noting that government authorities know a great deal about Namvar’s Christian activities and want to punish him, the source said, “We praise the Lord that they have not killed him.” Last week local secret police authorities demanded that Namvar’s family put up just over US$43,000 in bail to secure his release. When relatives requested a receipt for the cash they handed over, police refused. “Don’t say anything,” a police official reportedly ordered them. “Give thanks to God that we are not keeping him under arrest.” Thu, 03 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0200 NEW DELHI, July 1 (Compass Direct News) – At least 36 Christian families whose houses were burned during Christmas season violence in Orissa’s Kandhamal district have been evicted from their damaged homes. The tribal (aboriginal) Christian families were still living in the houses, which were being repaired after Hindu extremists torched them during a weeklong spate of violence that began on December 24. The Christians had been living in the houses for four decades, according to the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC). The Kandhamal district administration demolished the 26 houses in which 36 Christian families were living in Barakhama village on June 24, said Dr. Sajan K. George, GCIC national president. He said the timing of the demolition indicated that the administration gave in to pressure from Hindu extremists. “It is also a sign of the fact that normalcy has not returned,” he said, “and extremists are still threatening Christians with attacks in Kandhamal.” Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0200 BOGOTÁ, June 30 (Compass Direct News) – A series of death threats against a pastor in a working-class Medellín neighborhood prompted him to abandon his home and ministry last month and flee with his family to Colombia’s capital. For three years, 31-year-old Wilmer Ribón pastored Rios de Agua Viva (Rivers of Living Water), a church in a paramilitary-controlled neighborhood with many displaced persons and high violent crime rate. During his tenure as pastor, Ribón had launched several public outreach programs, including a sports club and a project that offered food, medical and economic help to the needy. In 2006 Ribón began half-hour weekly evangelistic impactos – playing Christian music on sidewalks and preaching brief, uplifting messages of God’s love. His last such evangelistic outreach took place during Holy Week, when a two-month series of death threats began. “You ratted on me and told the paramilitaries, and now they’re looking to get me,” a caller told him, “so I warn you that if something happens to me, something will happen to you as well.” Ribón and his family now live in a cold, windowless half-finished warehouse they share with another family.
Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0200 Fri, 27 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0200 ISTANBUL, June 26 (Compass Direct News) – Twenty months after two Turkish Christians went on trial for allegedly “insulting Turkishness and Islam,” a local criminal court has requested a Justice Ministry review of one of three charges in the case. On Tuesday (June 24), Silivri Criminal Court Judge Mehmet Ali Ozcan ordered a review of the two Christian converts’ alleged violations of the controversial Article 301 of the Turkish penal code. Accused of spreading Christianity by illegal methods, Hakan Tastan and Turan Topal were charged in October 2006 under Turkey’s Article 301 for denigrating “Turkishness.” Regardless of the Justice Ministry decision on the Article 301 charges against Tastan and Topal, the Silivri court will continue its prosecution of the case under the other two charges: reviling Islam and compiling information files on private citizens. Oddly, both teenage witnesses for the prosecution testified that they did not know the defendants and had never even seen them before facing them in the courtroom on Tuesday. “Neither the defendants nor anyone else has tried to approach me with propaganda about the Christian religion, and no one has given me written or visual materials,” 18-year-old Emin Demirci told the court.
Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0200 JAKARTA, June 24 (Compass Direct News) – Local authorities accompanied by an Islamist mob attempted to demolish two buildings in a church compound used by three congregations in Jatimulya village, West Java province on June 14. The initial dismantling of a roof, doors and fence came to a halt after one of several Public Order officers from Bekasi Regency fell from the roof of one of the buildings. Authorities had sealed the buildings shut since 2005. Since then, church members have been meeting in homes. On June 10 officials had informed church leaders and their lawyers that the buildings would be destroyed on June 14. When the pastors pointed out that demolition would be in violation of a 2005 agreement, authorities told them the agreement was no longer in force. The day of the planned demolition, a pastor of one of the churches, the Rev. Pestaria Hutajulu, released a statement saying, “Jesus taught us to obey the government. However, ‘Whoever destroys the temple of God will be destroyed by the Lord.’”
Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0200 LOS ANGELES, June 25 (Compass Direct News) – Security police officials in Tehran this month tortured a newly converted couple and threatened to put their 4-year-old daughter in an institution after arresting them for holding Bible studies and attending a house church. A Christian source in Iran said that 28-year-old Tina Rad was charged with “activities against the holy religion of Islam” for reading the Bible with Muslims in her home in east Tehran and trying to convert them. Officials charged her husband, 31-year-old Makan Arya, with “activities against national security” after seizing the couple from their home on June 3, forcing them to leave their 4-year-old daughter ill and unattended. Authorities kept them in an unknown jail for four days, which left them badly bruised from beatings, said the source. Rad was released on bail of US$30,000 bail, and her husband was freed on payment of US$20,000. “The next time there may also be an apostasy charge, if you don’t stop with your Jesus,” a female security police officer told Rad during interrogation, according to the source. Under Iran’s strict Islamic laws, Muslims who convert from Islam to another religion can be executed.
Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0200 NEW DELHI, June 20 (Compass Direct News) – Preliminary findings of an ongoing study on gender violence shows that female victims of attacks in Orissa state last Christmas season are struggling with post-traumatic disorders. The study, conducted by local Christians and led by Dr. John Dayal, secretary general of the All India Christian Council, records accounts of premature births, sexual molestation and attempted rape during the violence that began on Christmas Eve and lasted for more than a week in Kandhamal district. The violence, allegedly led by extremists of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council), left at least four Christians dead and 730 houses and 95 churches burned. According to the study, at least seven Christian women victims are facing psychological disorders. “Even nuns suffered physical attacks in the Kandhamal violence,” Dayal told Compass. According to the study, at least four Christian women gave premature births in abject conditions in jungles and without medical attention in the December cold. Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0200 LOS ANGELES, June 20 (Compass Direct News) – A hearing expected yesterday by relatives of Christian bookstore owner Shi Weihan, detained in a Chinese prison without charges, did not take place. Sources in China had said that a court date was expected as yesterday marked the end of three months of his detention without charges. Public Security Bureau (PSB) forces are prohibited from holding Chinese citizens for more than two months without formal charges. Police initially arrested Shi on November 28, 2007, charging him with “illegal business practices,” but officials ordered his release on January 4, citing insufficient evidence. He was arrested again on March 19 and police have held him virtually incommunicado, denying all but one visit from his lawyer, and refusing family visits. “Despite having held Shi beyond the time legally allowed, absent formal charges or a court hearing, the PSB still refuses to allow his family or attorney to see him,” said a source close to Shi’s lawyer. “Claiming an ongoing investigation in what they are calling ‘a complex case,’ they have managed to hold the owner of a legally registered Christian bookstore in an undisclosed location without giving any assurances that he is receiving his needed diabetic medicine.”
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