Steel On Steel Persecution Update September 14, 2010 Top Stories: 3. Zanzibar Muslims, Officials Stop Church Building, Erect Mosque 4. Church Building in Bogor, Indonesia Re-opens – for a Day City officials order security police to close church under cover of darkness. By Victor Raqual JAKARTA, Indonesia, September 8 (Compass Direct News) – 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. 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.” Extremists in Kandhamal vowed to kill a Christian around date of Hindu leader’s death. By Shireen Bhatia
Wednesday, 15 September 2010
1. France: Priests and bishops refuse to baptize Muslim converts to
Christianity, for fear of the consequences. www.jihadwatch.org
2. Muslim Protestors Surround Worshipers in Bekasi, Indonesia
5. Christian Assaulted in Orissa State, India
6. Court in India Convicts Legislator in Second Murder Case
1. France: Priests and bishops refuse to baptize Muslim converts to Christianity, for fear of the consequences.
Why do Muslims engage in violent intimidation? Because it works. Until people are willing to stand up and defy it, it will continue to work. "Christians and Muslims from Algeria to Italy in the footsteps of Saint Augustine," from Asia News,August 13 (thanks to Twostellas):
Rome (AsiaNews) - A group of Christians and Muslims from Algeria, Morocco and France have planned a pilgrimage in the footsteps of Saint Augustine, their countryman, that will lead them to Milan and Pavia, where the remains of the North African saint of Hippo lie. There are several Muslim converts to Christianity among the group, some for over 40 years, others for just over a year. It is the first time that Christians of North Africa have ever organized a similar pilgrimage. It will take them from August 26 to 28 to Milan, where Augustine was baptized by Ambrose in 387, to Pavia and the basilica of san Pietro in Ciel d'Oro (see photo), which houses his remains in time to take part in local celebrations, the feast of the saint on August 28. The group has long desired to make this pilgrimage and had also wanted to include an audience with the pope. Among the pilgrims, 17 are of North African origin, 14 are converts from Islam and two are catechumens. There is also a future seminarian; the other 10 are of French origin, all accompanied by Fr Alexis Doucet, S.J. To mark the occasion a medal bearing a Berber cross was coined, which will be handed to participants at the end of the pilgrimage. Among the expressed intentions of the pilgrimage is that "Muslims who have heard the call of the Lord Jesus should not be prohibited from entering the Church." The idea refers to some episodes that have occurred in France and Algeria, where many Muslims who wanted to be baptized, have been impeded by priests and bishops, fearful of the consequences and overly precautious....
2. Muslim Protestors Surround Worshipers in Bekasi, Indonesia
Tensions mount as congregation asserts right to worship.
By Sarah Page
DUBLIN, August 4 (Compass Direct News) – Around 300 Muslim protestors and 300 police officers surrounded members of the Batak Christian Protestant Church (Huria Kristen Batak Protestan or HKBP) on Sunday (Aug. 1) as they worshiped in an open field in Ciketing, Bekasi, local sources said. “There were many police on guard, but the attackers were able to get very close to the congregation,” Theophilus Bela, president of the Jakarta Christian Communication Forum, said in a statement to international government and advocacy groups. “We are afraid that they will attack the church again next Sunday.” He added that a protestor hit the Rev. Luspida Simanjuntak on the cheek. Police held back the shouting protestors while the church worshiped, but at one point they allowed Murhali Barda, leader of the Front Pembela Islam (FPI or Islamic Defenders Front) in Bekasi, through the cordon for an angry confrontation with church leaders, Voice of America reported. The 1,500-strong congregation has been waiting for local officials to respond to a building permit application filed in 2006. When Muslim neighbors in December objected to the meetings in a housing complex on the grounds that the church had no permit, officials banned church members from meeting there. With its building permit application delayed, the church ignored the ban, leading officials to seal the building on June 20. Bekasi Mayor Mochtar Mohammad on July 9 reportedly said he would allow the congregation to meet in public areas or at the city hall, and Pastor Simanjuntak moved worship to the proposed building site. Her church has now filed a case against the Bekasi administration. “I fully support any efforts to take this to the courts,” a local Christian leader who preferred to remain unnamed told Compass. “We need to respond through legal channels and let the government know that these attacks are a gross human rights violation.”
3. Zanzibar Muslims, Officials Stop Church Building, Erect Mosque
Islamists demolish foundation; police withhold crime report from court.
By Simba Tian
NAIROBI, Kenya, Aug. 6 (Compass Direct News) – On an island off the coast of East Africa where the local government limits the ability of Christians to obtain land, officials in one town have colluded with area Muslims to erect a mosque in place of a planned church building. On the Tanzanian island of Zanzibar, Pastor Paulo Kamole Masegi of the Evangelistic Assemblies of God had purchased land in April 2007 for a church building in Mwanyanya-Mtoni, and by November of that year he had built a house that served as a temporary worship center, he said. Soon area Muslim residents objected, said Pastor Lucian Mgaywa of the Church of God in Tanzania. In August 2009, local Muslims began to build a mosque just three feet away from the church plot. In November 2009, Pastor Masegi began building a permanent church structure. Angry Muslims invaded the compound and destroyed the structure’s foundation, the pastors said. Church leaders reported the destruction to police, who took no action – and also refused to release the crime report, so that the case could not go to court, Pastor Masegi said. “It’s not possible to take the file to the court, because doing so would amount to defending Christianity,” the station police chief told Pastor Masegi, the clergyman said. Meantime, construction of the mosque was completed in December 2009. The planned church building’s fate appeared to have been sealed earlier this year when Western District Commissioner Ali Mohammed Ali notified Pastor Masegi that he had no right to hold worship in a house. “Now the Christian faithful are feeling targeted even by the government officials,” said Pastor Masegi.
4. Church Building in Bogor, Indonesia Re-opens – for a Day
5. Christian Assaulted in Orissa State, India
NEW DELHI, September 9 (Compass Direct News) – Suspected Hindu nationalists in an area of Orissa state still tense from 2008 anti-Christian violence beat a Catholic father of seven until he fell unconscious on Aug. 20, the 47-year-old victim said. Subhash Nayak told Compass that four unidentified men assaulted him as he made his way home to Laburi village from the hamlet of Kapingia in Kandhamal district. Hindu extremists in Kandhamal district killed more than 100 people in several weeks of attacks following the Aug. 23, 2008 murder of Hindu extremist leader Swami Laxamananda Saraswati. Area church leader Biswajit Pani of Khurda told Compass that villagers in Laburi have planned to attack at least one Christian around that date every year. Pani and another area Christian, retired school teacher Tarsish Nayak, said they also had heard Hindu nationalists spreading this message. Nayak said the assailants left him for dead. Asserting that no one had any personal enmity toward him, Nayak said that Hindu extremists in Kandhamal district have been telling people, “We destroyed and burned their houses and churches, which they have rebuilt, but now we will attack their lives, which they cannot rebuild.” Nayak recalled that a year ago, while returning to his village at night around the anniversary of Saraswati’s murder, he heard someone whispering, “Here he comes … He is coming near,” at which point he fled. “There were people hiding, seeking to attack me,” he said.
6. Court in India Convicts Legislator in Second Murder Case
Manoj Pradhan arrested; three more cases pending against Hindu nationalist.
By Vishal Arora
NEW DELHI, September 10 (Compass Direct News) – A Hindu nationalist legislator was arrested yesterday after a court pronounced him guilty of playing a major role in the murder of a Christian during anti-Christian carnage in Orissa state’s Kandhamal district in August 2008. The Fast Track Court II in Kandhamal convicted Manoj Pradhan of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the murder of a 30-year-old Christian, Bikram Nayak, who succumbed to head injuries two days after an attack by a mob in Budedi village on Aug. 25, 2008. Judge Chitta Ranjan Das sentenced Pradhan to six years of rigorous imprisonment for “culpable homicide not amounting to murder” under Section 304 of the Indian Penal Code and imposed a fine of 15,500 rupees (US$335) for setting houses ablaze. Pradhan, who contested and won the April 2009 state assembly election from jail representing Kandhamal’s G. Udayagiri constituency, was not initially accused in the police complaint in Nayak’s murder, but his role emerged during the investigation, according to The Hindu. In spite of the conviction, the Orissa state unit of the BJP said the case against Pradhan was weak. “Pradhan was merely present at the scene of crime,” Orissa BJP President Jual Oram told Compass. Last month Kanaka Rekha Nayak, widow of the murdered Parikhita Nayak, complained that despite a previous conviction of Pradhan and an accomplice in that case, they were immediately given bail and continued to roam the area, often intimidating her. Rekha Nayak was among 43 survivors who on Aug. 22-24 testified before the National People’s Tribunal, a private hearing of victims of the Kandhamal violence organized by the National Solidarity Forum. Nayak said local politicians, including Pradhan, hit her husband with an axe. Her husband’s body was later chopped into pieces, she said.
For more information concerning the persecution of Christians around the world, please contact:
Compass Direct at www.compassdirect.org
Open Doors at www.opendoorsusa.org
Frontline Fellowship at www.frontlinefellowship.net
The Voice of the Martyrs at www.persecution.com
Christian Freedom International at www.christianfreedom.org
Jihad Watch at www.jihadwatch.org
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