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Steel On Steel Persecution Update October 21, 2010 Edited by: Donald McElvaney, www.missionbarnabas.org Top Stories: 1. Chinese Christians Blocked from Attending Lausanne Congres 2. Church in Indonesia Forced to Accept Worship Terms of Islamists 3. Christian in Bhutan Imprisoned for Showing Film on Christ 4. Christians in Turkey Acquitted of ‘Insulting Turkishness’ 5. Pakistani Muslims Beat Elderly Christian Couple Unconscious 6. Alleged ‘Middleman’ Arrested in Malatya, Turkey Murders 1. Chinese Christians Blocked from Attending Lausanne Congress Police threaten or detain some 200 house church members who planned to attend. By Sarah Page DUBLIN, October 15 (Compass Direct News) – As organizers prepared for the opening of the Third Lausanne International Congress on World Evangelization tomorrow in Cape Town, South Africa, Chinese police threatened or detained some 200 delegates who had hoped to attend. House church groups in China had raised significant funds to pay the expenses of their chosen delegates, a source told Compass. When house church member Abraham Liu Guan and four other delegates attempted to leave China via Beijing airport on Sunday (Oct. 10), authorities refused to allow them through customs, reported the Chinese-language Ming Pao News. Officials detained one delegate and confiscated the passports of the other four until Oct. 25, the closing date of the conference. China’s State Administration for Religious Affairs and the Ministry of Public Security had notified border control staff that the participation of Chinese Christians in the conference threatened state security and ordered them not to allow delegates to leave, Liu told U.S.-based National Public Radio. The China Aid Association reported that on Wednesday (Oct. 13), approximately 1,000 police officers were stationed at Beijing International Airport to restrain an estimated 100 house church members who planned to leave for the Congress via Beijing. China accused the Lausanne committee of not issuing an invitation to China’s state-controlled church, but according to the Ming Pao report, delegates were required to sign a document expressing their commitment to evangelism, which members of the state-controlled churches could not do because of regulations such as an upper limit on the number of people in each church, state certification for preachers, and the confinement of preaching to designated churches in designated areas. 2. Church in Indonesia Forced to Accept Worship Terms of Islamists Muslim groups, city officials dictate where church can hold services. By Victor Raqual JAKARTA, Indonesia, October 15 (Compass Direct News) – A church in Banten Province that has been in conflict with Muslim groups for more than two years was compelled to cease meeting in the pastor’s home last week in a bid to put an end to harassment and threats. The Sepatan Baptist Christian Church (GKB Sepatan) in Pisangan Jaya village, Sepatan, in Tangerang district, conceded that it would no longer worship in the home of the Rev. Bedali Hulu but rather in the facilities of two other churches. In exchange, officials agreed to process a temporary worship permit that would presumably remove the pretext for Islamic protests against the church, but they refused to accept a deadline for doing so. Pastor Hulu argued at the Oct. 7 meeting with officials and Islamic groups that local government officials be given a three-month deadline for granting the temporary worship permit, but the officials insisted on a “flexible” time for issuing the permit. Pastor Hulu said he felt forced to accept the terms of officials and the Islamic groups represented by the Communication Forum for Religious Harmony of Tangerang City. Under the agreement, the congregation is to worship temporarily at the nearest church buildings, which are seven kilometers (nearly four miles) away in Kedaung, East Sepatan and belong to the Assemblies of God and Pentecostal Church in Indonesia. Those buildings are occupied during his church’s usual worship time, Pastor Hulu said, and family customs do not allow it to worship at later hours. Although the Muslim groups and city officials were able to dictate where the church should worship in the coming months, they allowed the congregation to worship in one of the church members’ homes on Sunday (Oct. 10), as long as it wasn’t Pastor Hulu’s house. “Next week, if the local government has not been able to facilitate a place of worship to us, then we will worship from house to house,” the pastor said. 3. Christian in Bhutan Imprisoned for Showing Film on Christ Court sentences him to three years on dubious charge of ‘attempt to promote civil unrest.’ By Vishal Arora NEW DELHI, October 18 (Compass Direct News) – A court in predominantly Buddhist Bhutan has sentenced a Christian to three years in prison for “attempting to promote civil unrest” by screening films on Christianity. A local court in Gelephu convicted Prem Singh Gurung, a 40-year-old ethnic Nepalese citizen from Sarpang district in south Bhutan, on Oct. 6, according to the government-run daily Kuensel. Gurung was arrested four months ago after local residents complained that he was showing Christian films in Gonggaon and Simkharkha villages in Jigmecholing block. Gurung invited villagers to watch Nepali movies, and between each feature he showed films on Christianity. Government attorneys could not prove “beyond reasonable doubt” that Gurung promoted civil unrest, and therefore “he was charged with an attempt to promote civil unrest,” the daily reported. Gurung was also charged with violation of a Bhutanese law requiring authorities to examine all films before public screening. Buddhism is the state religion in Bhutan, and the government is mandated to preserve its culture and religion according to the 2008 constitution. As in other parts of South Asia, people in Bhutan mistakenly believe that Christianity is a Western faith and that missionaries give monetary benefits to convert people from other religions. A Christian from Bhutan’s capital, Thimphu, told Compass that the conviction of Gurung disturbed area villagers. 4. Christians in Turkey Acquitted of ‘Insulting Turkishness’ But court heavily fines them for dubious conviction of collecting personal data. By Damaris Kremida ISTANBUL, October 19 (Compass Direct News) – After four years of legal battle in a Turkish court, a judge acquitted two Christians of insulting Turkey and its people by spreading Christianity, but not without slapping them with a hefty fine for a spurious charge. Four years ago, gendarmerie officers produced false witnesses to accuse Turan Topal, 50, and Hakan Tastan, 41, of spreading their faith and allegedly “insulting Turkishness, the military and Islam.” At the Silivri court an hour west of Istanbul, Judge Hayrettin Sevim on Thursday (Oct. 14) acquitted the defendants of two charges that they had insulted the Turkish state (Article 301) and that they had insulted its people (Article 216) by spreading Christianity. Sevim cited lack of evidence. He found them guilty, however, of collecting information on citizens without permission (Article 135). They were sentenced to seven months of imprisonment each, but the court ruled that the two men instead could each pay a 4,500 lira (US$3,170) fine instead of serving time, said their lawyer Haydar Polat. Tastan expressed mixed feelings about the verdicts. “For both Turan and I, being found innocent from the accusation that we insulted the Turkish people was the most important thing for us, because we’ve always said we’re proud to be Turks,” Tastan said by telephone. “But it is unjust that they are sentencing us for collecting people’s information.” The charge was based on the fact that people interested in Christianity voluntarily provided contact information about themselves to a research center where the two men had worked as volunteers. Their lawyer said they will appeal the unjust conviction. 5. Pakistani Muslims Beat Elderly Christian Couple Unconscious 80-year-old’s bones broken after he refused prostitute that four men offered. By Jawad Mazhar SARGODHA, Pakistan, October 21 (Compass Direct News) – An 80-year-old Christian in southern Punjab Province said Muslims beat him and his 75-year-old wife, breaking his arms and legs and her skull, because he refused a prostitute they had offered him. From his hospital bed in Vehari, Emmanuel Masih told Compass by telephone that two powerful Muslim land owners in the area, brothers Muhammad Malik Jutt and Muhammad Khaliq Jutt, accompanied by two other unidentified men, brought a prostitute to his house on Oct. 8. Targeting him as a Christian on the premise that he would not have the social status to fight back legally, the men ordered him to have sex with the woman at his residence in village 489-EB, he said. District Headquarters Hospital Vehari officials confirmed that he suffered broken hip, arm and leg bones in the subsequent attack. The couple was initially rushed to Tehsil Headquarters Hospital Burewala in critical condition, but doctors there turned them away at the behest of the Jutt brothers, according to the couple’s attorney, Rani Berkat. Berkat said the Muslim assailants initially intimidated Fateh Shah police into refraining from filing charges against them, but after intervention by Berkat and Albert Patras, director of human rights group Social Environment Protection, police reluctantly registered a case against the suspects for attempted murder and “assisting to devise a crime.” Station House Officer Mirza Muhammad Jamil of the Fateh Shah police station declined to speak with Compass about the case. 6. Alleged ‘Middleman’ Arrested in Malatya, Turkey Murders Two key witnesses’ testimonies connect suspects to higher-level ‘masterminds.’ By Damaris Kremida ISTANBUL, October 21 (Compass Direct News) – 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. A key witness, Orhan Kartal, said that while in prison with Aral, Aral detailed how he had planned the attack on the Zirve publishing house by psychologically preparing five young men for the gruesome act. In Kartal’s account, Aral also claimed that there was a higher figure behind him, retired Gen. Veli Kucuk. A second witness, Erhan Ozen, 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 was convincing because he gave many details that were coherent and that confirm each other, so his testimony seems to me authentic,” attorney Orhan Kemal Cengiz said. For more information concerning the persecution of Christians around the world, please contact: Compass Direct at www.compassdirect.org Frontline Fellowship at www.frontlinefellowship.net Christian Freedom International at www.christianfreedom.org Jihad Watch at www.jihadwatch.org Open Doors at www.opendoorsusa.org The Voice of the Martyrs at www.persecution.com Gospel for Asia at www.gfa.org