BANGLADESH
Buddhist Extremists Beat, Take Christians Captive
April 23 (Compass Direct News) - Buddhist members of an armed rebel group and their sympathizers are holding three tribal Christians captive in a pagoda in southeastern Bangladesh after severely beating them in an attempt to force them to return to Buddhism, Christian sources said. Held captive since April 16 are Pastor Shushil Jibon Talukder, 55; Bimol Kanti Chakma, 50; and Laksmi Bilas Chakma, 40, of Maddha Lemuchari Baptist Church in Lemuchari village, in Mohalchari sub-district of the mountainous Khagrachari district, some 300 kilometers (186 miles) southeast of Dhaka.
They are to be kept in the pagoda for 15 to 20 days as punishment for having left the Buddhist religion, the sources said. Local Buddhists are considered powerful as they have ties with the United Peoples Democratic Front (UPDF), an armed group in the hill districts. After taking the Christians captive on April 16, the sources said, the next day the armed Buddhist extremists forced other Christians of Maddha Lemuchari Baptist Church to demolish their church building by their own hands. The sources said Pastor Talukder was bludgeoned nearly to death and had to be taken by wooden stretcher to the pagoda. Regional Sub-district Chairman Sona Ratan Chakma told Compass that the "three renegade Buddhists" are being kept in the pagoda for religious indoctrination. "They became Christian, and they were breaking the rules and customs of the Buddhist society, so elders of the society were angry with them," Chakma said. "That is why they were sent to a pagoda for 15 to 20 days for their spiritual enlightenment, so that they can come back to their previous place [Buddhism]."
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CHINA
Christian Rights Activist Gao Zhisheng Released
April 9 (Compass Direct News) - Christian human rights activist Gao Zhisheng, kidnapped by state security agents on Feb. 4, 2009, has been released, though he appears unable to move or speak freely. On Tuesday (April 6), Gao told Bob Fu, president of the U.S.-based China Aid Association (CAA), by telephone that he had just returned to his Beijing apartment from his guarded location in Shanxi Province. "Gao Zhisheng and his family have suffered deeply from the long separation," Fu stated on CAA's website. "Despite the persecution, he continues to trust the Lord." Gao's, wife, daughter and son escaped to the United States in March 2009. With Fu and with reporters from The Associated Press (AP) this week, Gao declined to discuss his physical condition or how he was treated during his captivity. He told the AP that by leaving his role as a critic of human rights violations in China, he hopes to be re-united with his family. Gao's disappearance had drawn protests from international human rights groups, U.S. and British officials and the United Nations. He has defended house church Christians and coal miners as well as members of the banned Falun Gong. In an earlier report, CAA noted that Chinese Christians can expect more attacks on large urban churches, harsher punishments for house church leaders and tighter control of registered churches this year. Authorities last year targeted house church leaders, sometimes handing out harsh sentences and fines; carried out violent raids on large urban churches; attempted to disrupt regular worship meetings and tightened control of churches registered with the government-approved Three-Self Protestant Movement, and CAA said more of the same is expected this year.
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CHINA
Authorities Move Uyghur Christian Prisoner, Allow Family Visit
April 29 (Compass Direct News) - Authorities in Xinjiang Province recently moved Uyghur Christian Alimjan Yimit from a prison in Kashgar to a prison in the provincial capital Urumqi and allowed the first visit from family members since his arrest in January 2008, according to Compass sources. Alimjan (Alimujiang Yimiti in Chinese) was noticeably thinner but in good spirits, the family told friends after their brief visit to him in Xinjiang No. 3 prison on April 20, one source told Compass. They were allowed only 15 minutes to speak with Alimjan via telephone through a glass barrier, the source said. But Alimjan's lawyers, Li Baiguang and Liu Peifu, were prohibited from meeting with him, despite gaining permission from the Xinjiang Bureau of Prison Management, the China Aid Association reported on Saturday (April 24). Officials have now granted Alimjan's wife Gulnur (Chinese spelling Gulinuer) and other close family members permission to visit him once a month. Alimjan and Gulnur pastored a Uyghur ethnic house church in Xinjiang prior to his arrest in January 2008. Attorney Li told Radio Free Asia earlier this month that while the initial charges against Alimjan were both "instigating separatism" and "leaking state secrets" to foreign organizations, his actual offense was talking to visiting Christians from the United States. The Kashgar Intermediate Court found Alimjan guilty of "leaking state secrets" on Oct. 27, 2009 and gave him a 15-year sentence. His lawyers appealed the sentence, but the People's High Court of Xinjiang upheld the original verdict on March 16. "This decision is illegal and void because it never succeeded in showing how Alimjan supplied state secrets to people overseas," Li told Radio Free Asia.
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ETHIOPIA
Christians In Town Hit By Unexpected Attack
April 15 (Compass Direct News) - Evangelical Christians in an area of Ethiopia unaccustomed to anti-Christian hostility have come under attack from Ethiopian Orthodox Church (EOC) members threatened by their existence, Christian leaders said. In Olenkomi, about 65 kilometers (40 miles) west of the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, two church buildings were attacked by an EOC mob in Olenkomi town, Oromia Region, on Jan. 27 - leaving one evangelist unconscious and other Christians fearful of Orthodox hostility. Area Christians fear the assailants will not face justice due to the EOC's powerful presence and officials' desire for calm ahead of May 23 elections. A Mekane Yesus Church building was destroyed in the assault, while a Brethren Church structure suffered damages. The attacks came after an accidental fire from liturgical candles burned an EOC building. EOC members blamed evangelicals, and in the ensuing attacks visiting evangelist Abera Ongeremu was so badly beaten the mob left him for dead. Another three Christians also sustained minor injuries. After the mob stoned the Brethren Church, they next targeted Mekane Yesus Church, where Ongeremu was staying in guest quarters. A member of the mob took a Bible from his guest room and told him to burn it. He refused, and they bound his hands and legs and threw him back into the room, sprinkling diesel on the walls and roof and locking him in before setting it on fire, he said. But some of the assailants argued that Ongeremu should not die by burning but by beating, and two of them dragged him out of the room and continuously beat him. "After repeated beatings I lost consciousness," he said. "I didn't know how and when they left me. I only recall they argued about how to kill me."
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INDIA
Signs Of Witness Intimidation Mount In Orissa
April 2 (Compass Direct News) - Due in part to intimidation of witnesses in Kandhamal district, a judge this week granted a change of venue for the trial of men accused of gang-raping a nun during anti-Christian attacks in Orissa in 2008. The trial will be transferred from Baliguda, Kandhamal to Cuttack, near the Orissa state capital of Bhubaneshwar. Justice Indrajit Mohanty of the Orissa High Court on Tuesday (March 30) ordered the inter-district transfer of the trial. The nun, Meena Lalita Barwa, had argued that witnesses would be intimidated into refraining from testifying if the trial were held in Kandhamal district. After a series of trials in which murder suspects in the 2008 Kandhamal district violence have gone free as Hindu extremist threats have kept witnesses from testifying, a 6-year-old girl has identified a powerful local politician as the man who killed her father. In testimony at Fast Track Court No. 1 on March 14, Lipsa Nayak of Kandhamal identified Manoj Pradhan, a member of the Legislative Assembly of Orissa, as the man who cut and burned her father to death when Hindu extremists attacked Christians following the Aug. 23, 2008 death of a local Hindu leader. Lipsa's mother, 32-year-old Kanak Rekha Nayak, has said that Pradhan and his associates have threatened to harm her family if they identified him as the killer. When a judge asked Lipsa if she could identify the killer of her father, the 6-year-old pointed to Pradhan. "There has been no conviction in any case of murder," said Dr. John Dayal, a member of the National Integration Council. "More than 70 people were killed, and trial is being held only for 38 or so of those deaths. Eleven murder cases have been tried with no one being indicted or sentenced for murder so far - because of terrible investigation by the police, a poor show by the prosecuting lawyers and shoddy judicial process."
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INDIA
Theology Student Dies In Attack In Madhya Pradesh ***
April 27 (Compass Direct News) - Hindu extremists raided Christian events in India's Madhya Pradesh state this month, leaving a visiting theology student dead and several other Christians injured. The body of 23-year-old Amit Gilbert was recovered from a water well 25 feet from the site of a Christian revival meeting that 15 to 20 Hindu extremists attacked on April 17 in Gram Fallaiya, Post Pathakheda, Betul district. With covered heads and carrying iron rods and bamboo clubs, members of the Hindu extremist Dharam Sena and Bajrang Dal cut electricity at the night-time event and began striking, sending the more than 400 in attendance running, Christian leaders said. Eyewitnesses said the assailants chased Gilbert, of Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh state, and beat him mainly on his legs. Police in the state controlled by the Hindu extremist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said that for the moment they believe Gilbert accidentally fell into the well amid the chaos, but Christians present said that is unlikely. His body was found with his head and legs submerged in the 1.5-meter deep water of the well, yet he had no water in his lungs or stomach when Christians drew him out, said Pastor Santwan Lal, organizer of the April 15-17 revival event, suggesting that Gilbert was dead before being thrown in. In Balaghat on April 14 and 15, Hindu extremists attacked a three-day gospel meeting with fuel-bombs in spite of the presence of police summoned beforehand to provide security. Police increased security for the April 15 meeting, but as it was drawing to a close about 150 BJP and Bajrang Dal members surrounded the stadium. "Christians who were returning from the meeting and attempting to get away from Balaghat as soon as possible were attacked and beaten with sticks and pelted with stones," said Dr. Amos Singh of Jeevan Jyoti Ministries.
*** Photos of Amit Gilbert and the venues of the attacks are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.
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INDIA
Briefs: Recent Incidents Of Persecution
Uttarakhand, April 30 (Compass Direct News) - Police arrested Pastor Jaswant Singh after extremists from the Hindu Jagrang Manch (Hindu Awareness Platform) filed a complaint against him of forceful conversion on April 25 in Rooria, Haridwar. A source told Compass that the extremists disrupted the prayer meeting of a house church service the pastor was leading, insulted the Christians' faith and accused Pastor Singh of forcibly converting people. Police arrived and arrested Pastor Singh under Sections 107 and 10 of the Criminal Procedure Code for security and "keeping the peace," and he was sent to Roorkie district jail. The pastor was released on bail the next day. - MS
Karnataka - Police on April 19 detained Christians after local extremists filed a false complaint of forcible conversion against them in Hagare village in Hassan district. The Global Council of Indian Christians reported that a Christian identified only as Venkatesh invited two Christians, Guru Gowraiah and Puttuswamy Bhadraiah, to a prayer meeting at Basavaraj Pura. At about 7 p.m. a group of local extremists led by Hindu nationalists identified only as Mohan and Thammaiah disrupted the meeting, verbally abused the 20 people present and falsely accused Gowraiah and Bhadraiah of forcible conversion. Halebeedu police arrived and arrested Gowraiah and Bhadraiah. A police inspector identified only as Ramachandran M. told Compass that they were questioned and released after the complaint against them proved false. - BW
Uttar Pradesh - Police arrested two Christians after Hindu extremists filed a complaint against them of making derogatory remarks against Hindu gods on April 15 in the Mohan area of Unnao. The Evangelical Fellowship of India reported that police arrested Budhi Ram and Vijay Phule of the Church of God as they were leading a prayer meeting. The two Christians were taken to Hassan Ganch police station and released on bail the next day. The Christians denied making any derogatory remarks against Hindu gods. - MS
Chhattisgarh - Police on April 15 arrested four Christians in Bhilai after Hindu nationalists filed a complaint against them of forcible conversion in Bhilai. The Global Council of Indian Christians reported that a group of young members of the Brethren Assembly were distributing Christian literature when a mob of nearly 40 Hindu nationalists from the extremist Bajrang Dal and Dharam Sena attacked them. The Christians suffered cuts and bruises. Police arrived and took both parties to the police station. The All India Christian Council reported that on hearing the news of the attack, local Christian policeman G. Samuel went to help and was also hit with a false allegation of forceful conversion under Chhattisgarh's "anti-conversion" law. The Christians were released on bail on April 22. - BW
Karnataka - Hindu extremists on April 12 stopped a prayer meeting and accused Christians of forceful conversion in Chandapur, near Bangalore. The All India Christian Council reported that the intolerant Hindus beat the Christians, who sustained minor injuries. Police refused to file a complaint by the Christians. - MS
Kerala - Hindu extremists from the Bajrang Dal accused a Christian media team of forceful conversion and beat them on April 12 in Perambra, Calicut. The All India Christian Council reported that the extremists attacked the media team of the Assemblies of God church while they were screening films on Jesus and a documentary on cancer. After the film ended, the enraged extremists stoned the house of a pastor identified only as Ponnachen and accused him of forceful conversion. They further threatened to set the pastor and his vehicle on fire if he screens Christian films again. - MS
Karnataka - About 50 Hindu nationalists from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh attacked a house meeting of an Indian Pentecostal Church on April 11 in Horalhalli, Kanakapur, on the outskirts of Bangalore. The All India Christian Council reported that the Hindu extremists barged into the church's worship service and accused Pastor K. Subhash of forceful conversion, threatened to beat him and warned him against leading any future house meeting services. Officers arrested Pastor Subhash, and he was released only after the station police inspector warned him not to conduct any future house church meetings while telling the extremists not to disturb the Christians. - MS
Karnataka - Hindu extremists accompanied by police roughed up 12 pastors and accused them of forceful conversion on April 5 in Karmoda, Kodagu. The Global Council of Indian Christians reported that the mob stormed into the Christians' meeting in the home of a Christian identified only as Vijay and took them to Ponnampet police station. After questioning, the Christians were charged with uttering words intending to hurt the religious feelings of others, defiling a place of worship, intent to insult the beliefs of others, intention to provoke a breach of peace and criminal intimidation and sent them to Virajpet jail. - MS
Chhattisgarh - Police arrested three Christians based on a complaint of forceful conversion by Hindu nationalists on April 4 in Durg. The Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI) reported that police arrested Pastor Premlal Chhatriys and two Christians identified only as Umabai and Sulanbai of the Evangelical Christian Church of India. The Hindu extremists had encouraged a Hindu woman, Agasia Bai, to file the complaint as she had attended the church twice last year seeking healing for her sick daughter. In February her daughter died, and the Hindu nationalists massed at Bai's house and forced her to write a police complaint against the Christians of forceful conversion, according to EFI. She submitted a complaint claiming that the Christians had offered her 5,000 rupees (US$112)to convert and another 5,000 rupees after conversion, and that a pastor identified only as Chhatriys had forced her to eat beef on her two visits to the church in July of last year. With area leaders' intervention, the Christians were released on bail on April 6. - MS
Chhattisgarh - Hindu nationalists from the Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council) disrupted Easter Sunday worship (April 4) of a Church of North India in Parsapani, Bilaspur, and accused pastor Bhaktu Lakda and others of forceful conversion. The Evangelical Fellowship of India reported that the extremists tore Christian pictures, seized Bibles and other gospel literature and beat the Christians. The Hindu extremists were accompanied by some local residents. Police arrived and made an inquiry. - MS
Uttarakhand - A mob of Hindu extremists accused Pastor Vinay Tanganiya of forceful conversion and beat him on March 30 in Barkote. The general secretary of the Christian Legal Association, Tehmina Arora, told Compass that the pastor, who also runs a school, fled to Barkote police station after the Hindu extremist mob beat him, but police refused to take his complaint and threatened to beat him further. The pastor was badly bruised. - MS
Kerala - Police on March 29 detained a pastor and an evangelist along with their family members, including a 4-month-old baby, on false charges of denigrating Hindu gods in Ambalavayal police station in Wayanand. The Global Council of Indian Christians reported that the Hindu extremists, accompanied by police officials, stopped the Christians on their way back home after the screening of a gospel film in the Madakara area and started beating them. Pastor Eassow Varghese and Baiju P. George had obtained permission from the villagers to screen the film. The villagers testified that the allegations of the Hindu extremists were baseless. Police also seized the Christians' film projector and van. After four hours, the Christians and their family members were released without charges. - MS
Andhra Pradesh - Hindu extremists on March 25 disrupted a prayer meeting and beat Christians for their faith in Kadim, Alidabad. The All India Christian Council reported that the extremists, led by Anjane Yulu, stormed into the prayer meeting as church members were singing. The extremists beat two pastors identified only as John and Prabudas of the Indian Evangelical Team, as well as other church members, and verbally abused them for their Christian activities. The Christians sought the help of the village head, but the intolerant Hindus continued to beat them even in his presence. Police refused to take the complaint of the Christians. - MS
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INDONESIA
Official Orders Halt To Beleaguered Church
April 20 (Compass Direct News) - A local government official in Bekasi, West Java last week forbid all worship of the Filadelfia Huria Kristen Batak Protestan Church in Jejalan village. Regent Sa'duddin on April 12 ordered a halt to all activities of the church, including worship services that have been held on a strip of roadside land since the government on Jan. 12 summarily sealed the church's building, which was under construction. Announcing the order at a meeting of government officials with the Rev. Palti Panjaitan, Vice-Regent Darip Mulyana said the reason for the closure of the church's makeshift site was that worship interfered with "community activities," though the site is on a nearly deserted roadside bordering vacant fields. Mulyana said that Sa'duddin had ruled that the church needs to find a new place to construct its prospective permanent church building because local residents had rejected it - even though the church had secured approval from local residents when it submitted its application for a permit in 2008. The government has never acted on the application, and since then Islamic organizations have organized protests to try to pressure government officials to deny approval. The church on March 30 filed suit against Sa'duddin for unilaterally closing their church building under construction.
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IRAN
Authorities Release Assyrian Pastor On Bail
April 5 (Compass Direct News) - An Assyrian pastor the Iranian government accused of "converting Muslims" has been released from prison on bail and is awaiting trial. The Rev. Wilson Issavi, 65, was released from Dastgard prison in Isfahan last week. Conflicting reports indicated Issavi was released sometime between Sunday (March 28) and Tuesday morning (March 30). State Security Investigations agents arrested Issavi shortly after he finished a house meeting at a friend's home in Isfahan on Feb. 2. Along with the accusation of "converting Muslims," the pastor was charged with not co-operating with police, presumably for continuing to hold such house meetings after police sealed the Evangelical Church of Kermanshah and ordered him not to reopen it. After his arrest, Issavi was held at an unmarked prison facility in Isfahan and apparently tortured, according to a Christian woman who fled Iran and knows Issavi and his family. The Christian woman, who requested anonymity for security reasons, said Issavi's wife, Medline Nazanin, visited the pastor at the unmarked facility. Nazanin said it was obvious Issavi had been tortured, the Christian told Compass. Issavi's confinement cells were so filthy he contracted a life-threatening infection, Nazanin told the Christian woman. During Issavi's imprisonment, authorities threatened to execute him, sources close to the case said. The joy of Issavi's family at his release was tinged with fear as they waited in agony for the possibility of him being killed by Islamic extremists, as is common in Iran when Christians are detained for religious reasons and then released. "Sometimes they release you just to kill you," the Christian source said.
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ISRAEL
Messianic Jews Seek Public Apology For Attack ***
April 23 (Compass Direct News) - After a final court hearing in Israel last week, a church of Messianic Jews awaits a judge's decision that could force an ultra-orthodox Jewish organization to publicly apologize to them for starting a riot and ransacking a baptismal service. In 2006 Howard Bass, pastor of Yeshua's Inheritance church, filed suit against Yehuda Deri, chief Sephardic rabbi in the city of Beer Sheva, and Yad L'Achim, an organization that fights against Messianic Jews, for allegedly inciting a riot at a December 2005 service that Bass was leading. Bass has demanded either a public apology for the attack or 1.5 million shekels (US$401,040) from the rabbi and Yad L'Achim. The case, Bass said, was ultimately about "defending the name of Yeshua [Jesus]" and making sure that Deri, the leadership of Yad L'Achim and those that support them know they have to obey the law and respect the right of people to worship. "They are trying to get away from having any responsibility," Bass said. The 2005 incident wasn't the first time the church had to deal with a riotous attack after Yad L'Achim disseminated false information about their activities. On Nov. 28, 1998, a crowd of roughly 1,000 protestors broke up a Yeshua's Inheritance service after the anti-Christian group spread a rumor that three busloads of kidnapped Jewish minors were being brought in for baptism. The assailants threw rocks, spit on parishioners and attempted to seize some of their children, Bass said.
*** Photos of the 2005 riot at Yeshua's Inheritance are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.
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NIGERIA
Pastor, Wife Killed In North
April 20 (Compass Direct News) - Suspected Islamic extremists last week abducted and killed a Church of Christ in Nigeria pastor and his wife in Boto village, Bauchi state in northern Nigeria. The Rev. Ishaku Kadah, 48, and his 45-year-old wife Selina were buried on Saturday (April 17) after unidentified assailants reportedly whisked them from their church headquarters home on Tuesday (April 13) and killed them. Their burnt bodies were found hours later. On Jan. 22, suspected Islamic extremists had set fire to their church building days after Christians displaced by violence in Plateau state had taken refuge on the church premises. Police have reportedly arrested two suspects and have launched a man-hunt for several other accomplices. Authorities are not releasing the names of the suspects. The murdered couple's son, Simeon Kadah, said an eyewitness who had come to the church premises to collect some rented chairs saw men dragging the pastor and his wife out of their house. Kadah said the men asked the eyewitness if he was a Muslim, and when he told them that he was, the kidnappers told him to leave the area and tell no one what he had seen. "This is yet another case of unprovoked killing of Christians, which we condemn, and demand that the law enforcement agents must fish out the perpetrators of this act," Bishop Musa Fula, state chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria in Bauchi state, told Compass.
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NIGERIA
Two Church Of Christ In Nigeria Journalists Killed In Jos ***
April 27 (Compass Direct News) - The killing of Christians in Jos, Plateau state in Nigeria continued over the weekend with two journalists and five other persons falling victim to Muslim youth gangs. Nathan S. Dabak, an assistant editor at a newspaper of the Church of Christ in Nigeria (COCIN) called The Light Bearer, and Sunday Gyang Bwede, a reporter at the publication, were stabbed to death on Saturday (April 24) at Gado-Bako in Jos North Local Government Area along with an unidentified motorcyclist. "The staff of the church were murdered in cold blood by some Hausa Muslim youths," the Rev. Pandang Yamsat, president of COCIN, told Compass today. "This is clear because they have been using the hand phones of the deceased journalists and boasting that they are the ones that killed them." The young Muslim men have been boldly answering calls to the cell phones of the deceased journalists, he said; when a friend of Dabak called his cell phone number, an unknown voice responded, "We have killed all of them - you can do your worst!" Four other Christians also were killed on Saturday (April 24) in the Dutse Uku district of Jos' Nasarawa Gwom area in a revenge attack following the discovery of the corpse of a teenager Muslim who had been declared missing. Their names were not released at press time. The four Christians reportedly died, three of them stabbed to death, when hundreds of Muslim youths rampaged throughout the area in protest.
*** Photos of the two deceased Christian journalists are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.
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NORTH KOREA
'pinpricks' Of Truth Making Way Into Country
April 26 (Compass Direct News) - As refugees from North Korea and activists from Non-Governmental Organizations gather in Seoul, South Korea this week to highlight human rights violations in the hermit kingdom, there are signs that North Korean citizens are accessing more truth than was previously thought. A recent survey by the Peterson Institute found that a startling 60 percent of North Koreans now have access to information outside of government propaganda. "North Koreans are increasingly finding out that their misery is a direct result of the Kim Jong-Il regime, not South Korea and America as we were brainwashed from birth to believe," Kim Seung Min of Free North Korea Radio said in a press statement. The radio station is a partner in the North Korea Freedom Coalition (NKFC), which is holding its annual North Korea Freedom Week in Seoul rather than Washington, D.C. for the first time in the seven-year history of the event. "We set out to double the radio listenership of 8 or 9 percent, and we've seen a dramatic increase in the number of people who have access to information," said NKFC Co-Chair Suzanne Scholte. She described the flow of information as "pinpricks in a dark veil over North Korea. Now those pinpricks are becoming huge holes." The radio station now air-drops radios into North Korea and broadcasts into the country for five hours a day, adding to information gleaned by refugees and merchants who cross the border regularly to buy Chinese goods. "This is a spiritual conflict as well as a physical one - some people didn't want us to call it freedom week," she said. "But we're making a statement ... God gives us freedom by the very nature of being human and North Koreans are entitled to that too."
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PAKISTAN
Muslim Prohibits Burial In Christian Graveyard
April 1 (Compass Direct News) - A Muslim land owner who effectively seized a Christian graveyard here refused to allow the burial of a young Christian at the site on Sunday (March 28). Christians in Noshera Virkan, Gujranwala, have only one graveyard measuring little more than one acre. This longstanding disadvantage turned into a nightmare when Muhammad Boota, who owns much of the land in the area, prohibited Christians from burying the body of 25-year-old Riaz Masih there on Sunday (March 28). Social worker Sajjad Masih told Compass that in the midst of the dispute, police from Saddar police station arrived and sided with Boota. "You may burn your dead, but you cannot bury them in this graveyard," Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) Asif Cheema told mourners while beating them and pushing them out of the graveyard, according to Masih. After a two-hour protest on Monday (March 29), police accompanied the mourners to the graveyard to allow the burial. Khalid Gill, chief organizer in Punjab Province of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance, said the graveyard has a long history as a Christian burial site, but in 1997 Boota obtained one-fourth of it and then immediately filed a court case for full possession, bringing an interim stay order until the case is decided. Pakistan civil cases often go on for decades, Gill said, and the case is still pending. He said that Boota turned part of the graveyard land that he obtained into a bus stop and used another part for his residence.
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PAKISTAN
False Charges Filed Against 47 Christians ***
April 8 (Compass Direct News) - Police here filed false charges of alcohol possession against 47 Christians, including women and children, on March 28 in an attempt to intimidate and bribe them, Christian leaders said. Police broke into and ransacked the home of Shaukat Masih at 10:15 p.m. on Palm Sunday, manhandled his wife Parveen Bibi, and threatened to charge them and 45 other area Christians with alcohol possession if they did not pay a bribe, said attorney Albert Patras. The Christians refused. Those charged include two children and eight women. None of the Christians has been arrested, as police are interested only in extorting money from them, Patras said. Non-Muslims with a permit are allowed to possess and drink alcohol in Pakistan, and Shaukat Masih has such a government permit, Patras said, thus making the possession charge baseless. "No longer using just 'blasphemy' laws, police and fanatical Muslims have begun to use alcohol laws, Section 3/4 of the Pakistan Penal Code, to persecute the destitute Christians of Pakistan," Patras said. "Only Christians in Pakistan are allowed to keep and drink alcohol, so Pakistani police can apprehend any Christian and then level section 3/4 of PPC against him or her." In other Easter week incidents, in Rawalpindi law enforcement agents secured the liberty of Christian hostages held by several armed Muslim militants, including at least five burqa-clad women, who attacked a church building after a Good Friday (April 2) service. Khalid Gill, head of Lahore zone of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance, said the assailants armed with automatic rifles and pistols desecrated Gordon College Chapel of Robinson Community Development Ministries Church. The assailants also entered nearby residences and reprimanded adults and children for their faith in Christ, besides looting many of the homes, Gill said. Two Christians, Shaban Gill and Imran Nazir, were scaling the wall of their property to enter their home when the Muslim militants opened fire on them, hitting Nazir. The militants held his wife and two daughters, one 4 years old and the other 18 months, at gunpoint. A heavy contingent of police from City Police Station Raja Bazaar arrived and secured the liberty of all three Christian hostages; they arrested at least 10 suspects.
*** A photo of the chapel site is available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.
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PAKISTAN
Young Christian Woman Allegedly Abducted
April 13 (Compass Direct News) - A Muslim tricked a 19-year-old Christian woman into leaving her house here on April 1, and he and a car full of friends took her away, according to her family. Sonia Mohan's family said they fear the Muslim, Ali Raza, will force her to convert to Islam and marry him. Raza came to their home in Lahore's Nishtar Colony claiming that her brother, Johnson Parvaiz, wanted to see her outside, Parvaiz said. "Sonia would not have gone with them if he hadn't told her that I wanted to see her," Parvaiz said. "Ali Raza came to our home and told Sonia that I had asked for her, and she went out of the house with him. They had parked a vehicle outside and left, and afterwards we never heard from her." After two days he was able to reach her by cell phone, he said, and she told him not to call her, that she was very happy and that they should not try to find her. "It was obvious from her voice that she had been forced to say that," Parvaiz said. Nishtar Colony Station House Officer Munawar Doggar told Compass that it did not appear that Mohan, who along with the rest of her family belongs to the American Reformed Presbyterian Church, went with Raza willingly. He said he had delayed registering a case on behalf of Mohan's family only because Raza's family had filed a complaint that Raza himself had been abducted. In a bizarre attempt to delay police action against Raza, Parvaiz said Raza's uncle Zaffar Jamil had filed a complaint that Raza had been kidnapped - by the very accomplices who allegedly helped Raza kidnap Mohan.
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PAKISTAN
Brothers Threaten Family Of Catholic Who Wed Muslim
April 19 (Compass Direct News) - Family members of a Muslim woman who married a Roman Catholic here have threatened to kidnap the groom's mother and sister and kill the newlyweds and other relatives, the Christian family members said. Muslims have heavily bribed police to allow the crimes, sources told the Christian family. The brothers of Sadia Bashir, the 22-year-old Muslim woman who married the Christian, issued the same threats most recently on April 12, said her father, Mushtaq Bhatti. After the young couple wed in court on May 16, the Muslim family accused the groom, 24-year-old Jibran Masih, and his mother and father of kidnapping, for which they languished in jail for several months last year. Masih, his mother Nargis Bibi and Bhatti could have been sentenced to death, a life sentence or a fine had the Lahore High Court not declared them innocent in December. On Jan. 18, Bhatti said, Bashir's brothers tried to kidnap his wife, Jibran Masih's mother, on a Sargodha street. The brothers, Muhammad Arif and Muhammad Tariq, tore off her blouse as she struggled to keep from being put in the car, Nargis Bibi said. She managed to escape, but police were slow to register a First Information Report (FIR) on the incident, she said. Police reluctantly registered charges of abducting for the purposes of adultery, she said, but they have not arrested the brothers. "The culprits who tried to kidnap me are still at large, and the Muslim family members with the approval of the police are hurling threats to kill us or abduct our college student daughter," Nargis Bibi told Compass.
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PAKISTAN
Muslims Severely Beat, Sodomize Christian Barber
April 28 (Compass Direct News) - A Christian barber in this Punjab Province city is stillrecovering from broken bones and other injuries sustained earlier this month after eight Muslims allegedly beat and sodomized him for cutting the beard of a Muslim. Marwat Masih, 29, initially refused the request of 19-year-old Qandeel Cheema to cut his beard in Sargodha's Gulshan-e-Bashir town on April 13, knowing that area Sunni Muslims believe the Quran prohibits it. But Cheema, a high school student, told Masih that he had lived and studied in Lahore and therefore wanted a more modern look, the bed-ridden and feeble Masih told Compass. As Masih was cutting Cheema's beard, the client's older brother - local radical Muslim land owner Shakeel Cheema - discovered them and began ransacking his barbershop and beating him with his shoes, Masih said. Ordering his younger brother to go to Lahore, Cheema and his companions blindfolded Masih, and he later found himself in a locked room, where they broke his ribs, as well as bones in his wrist and legs. "Shakeel Cheema said, 'Now we are going to teach you a real lesson for shaving the beard of a Muslim man," Masih said, and after a long, pained pause he related how Cheema and the seven others sodomized him. "I started bleeding and fell unconscious." Police have refused family requests to file a First Information Report against Cheema and his accomplices, who all remained at large at press time.
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PAKISTAN
Authorities Allegedly Torture Christian Girl, Family ***
April 29 (Compass Direct News) - Local authorities on Monday (April 26) recovered a 14-year-old Christian girl from Pakistan Air Force (PAF) police who allegedly tortured her and her family for five days as Christian "soft targets" over false theft allegations, sources said. Islamabad police in predominantly Sunni Muslim Pakistan removed Sumera Pervaiz from a PAF hospital, where she was recovering from injuries that a doctor said could cripple her for life. Earlier this month, according to family and police sources, PAF police were said to have illegally detained her and members of her family after PAF Wing Commander Faheem Cheema, who had hired Sumera as a maid, found gold ornaments and other valuables missing from his home in PAF Colony, Islamabad. Cheema filed a theft complaint with local police without naming any suspects, but without informing local officers the wing commander on April 15 allegedly directed PAF police to illegally detain Sumera and four members of her family - Pervaiz Masih, Sana Bibi, Parveen Masih and Kala Masih - who live in PAF Colony in Islamabad. Cheema has denied that he ordered PAF police to detain the girl and her family members. When District and Session Court Judge Mazhar Hussain Barlas ordered Sumera to appear at a hearing on April 22, she testified that on April 15 three persons who were not in uniform arrived at her house at midnight and detained her, her father Pervaiz Masih and the other family members. "For many days we remained in the custody of those people, who severely tortured me during their 'interrogation,'" she said.
*** A photo of Sumera with her father is available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.
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TURKEY
New Evidence Stalls Murder Trial In Malatya ***
April 21 (Compass Direct News) - On the eve of three-year commemorations of the murders of three Christians in southeast Turkey, defense lawyers' absence and new evidence kept a Malatya court from concluding the case here on Thursday (April 15). Two defense lawyers excused themselves from the hearing, rendering the judges unable to issue a verdict to the five defendants charged with the murders of three Christians in Malatya on April 18, 2007. Turkish Christians Necati Aydin and Ugur Yuksel and German Christian Tilmann Geske, who worked at a publishing house that distributed Christian material in this southeastern Turkish city, were found murdered three years ago. At Thursday's hearing, prosecuting lawyers presented a 28-page detailed request that the Malatya case be joined to a plot called Cage Plan, believed to be part of Ergenekon, a "deep state" operation to destabilize the government led by a cabal of retired generals, politicians and other key figures. In churches and at various memorial services on Sunday (April 18), Christians around Turkey commemorated the deaths of the three slain men. Scores of people came to the graves of Aydin in Izmir, Tilmann in Malatya and Yuksel in Elazig, an hour northeast of Malatya, to commemorate the deaths. The Malatya murders have become a milestone for the Turkish church, which is also eager for closure on the murder case and justice for those responsible. "For the church, it's another one of those events in life which we don't understand but entrust it to the hands of a loving God who we believe in," said Zekai Tanyar, chairman of the Association of Protestant Churches in Turkey.
*** Photos of graveside commemorations and of lawyers Erdal Dogan and Orhan Kemal Cengiz are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.
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VIETNAM
Christian, Family, Forced Into Hiding
April 1 (Compass Direct News) - Suffering severe abuse from villagers and local Vietnamese officials, Hmong Christian Sung Cua Po fled into the forest with his family on March 19. An expulsion order had been issued to his family, an area Christian leader said. Po, who embraced Christianity in November, was badly beaten after local officials in northwest Vietnam's Dien Bien Province arrested him on Dec. 1, 2009; since then he suffered physical attacks by police of Nam Son Commune on Feb. 10. The Christian leader said police have threatened that if he did not recant they would beat him till only his tongue was intact. Around the Lunar New Year in mid-February, Po had an altercation with his father over offerings to family ancestors; Po held fast to his allegiance to Christ, refusing to sacrifice to his ancestors. On Feb. 20, Nam Son district police were authorized by Dien Bien Dong district authorities to demolish Po's house if deemed necessary. On Feb. 21, community members backed by police confiscated 40 sacks of paddy rice, the family's one-year supply. In Phu Yen Province in the south of Vietnam, religious intolerance was also on display as local police dragged a pastor behind a motorbike, Christian leaders reported. Village police summoned Y Du, a 55-year-old pastor also from the Ede ethnic group, to a police station for questioning on Jan. 27. While driving his motorbike to the station, Pastor Du was stopped by village police who chained his hands together and then attached the chain by rope to his motorbike. Christian sources said they forced Pastor Du to run behind the motorbike that they had commandeered, and he fell over many times, dragged along the ground. He was beaten and forced to keep running. He was later jailed without charges.
*** A photo of Sung Cua Po is available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.
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