BANGLADESH
BUDDHIST EXTREMISTS DRIVE CHRISTIANS FROM VILLAGE ***
May 3 (Compass Direct News) - Four Christian families in southeastern Bangladesh left their village yesterday under mounting pressure by Buddhist extremists to give up their faith in Christ. Sources told Compass that 20 to 25 Buddhists brandishing sticks and bamboo clubs in Jamindhonpara village, 340 kilometres (211 miles) southeast of Dhaka, began patrolling streets on Friday (April 30) to keep the 11 members of the Lotiban Baptist Church from gathering for their weekly prayer meetings.
On Saturday, the Buddhist extremists captured four men and beat one woman who had gathered in a home, threatening to kill them if they did not become Buddhists within 24 hours. Yesterday, the Buddhist extremists attacked the homes of the Baptists two hours before their 1 p.m. worship service, sources said. "Just two hours before our church service, a group of people swooped into our houses and drove all of us out so we could not attend the church service," said one church member who requested anonymity. The Christians captured Saturday night were released after the extremists, who ripped crosses off the walls of their homes, threatened to kill them if they continued praying and worshipping in the area. After yesterday's attacks, all Christians in Jamindhonpara fled, taking shelter in another village, source said. Jamindhonpara is located in the Lotiban area, Panchari sub-district of Khagrachari district. "When they come, they do not listen to us," said the church member. "They arbitrarily do whatever they like. The situation is indescribable - they hunt us down the same way that one hunts down a mad dog to kill it."
*** Photos of the expelled Christians are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.
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CHINA
RIGHTS LAWYER GAO ZHISHENG MISSING AGAIN
May 7 (Compass Direct News) - Gao Zhisheng, a Christian human rights lawyer released by Chinese officials on April 6 and missing again since April 20, is "definitely in the hands of Chinese security forces," Bob Fu of the China Aid Association (CAA) told Compass today. "Right now nobody has been able to locate him," Fu said. "The Chinese security forces need to come up with an explanation." Gao, initially seized from his home in Shaanxi Province on Feb. 4, 2009 and held incommunicado by security officials for 13 months, was permitted to phone family members and colleagues in late March before officials finally returned him to his Beijing apartment on April 6. Gao had told a reporter from the South China Morning Post (SCMP) that he expected to travel to Urumqi within days of his release to visit his in-laws, and witnesses saw him leaving his apartment sometime between April 9 and 12 and getting into a vehicle parked outside his building, SCMP reported on April 30. Gao's father-in-law reportedly confirmed that Gao arrived at his home with an escort of four police officers but spent just one night there before police took him away again. Gao phoned his father-in-law shortly before he was due to board a flight back to Beijing on April 20. He promised to call again after returning home but failed to do so, according to the SCMP report. Fu said he believes that international pressure forced authorities to allow Gao a brief re-appearance to prove that he was alive before officials seized him again to prevent information leaking out about his experiences over the past year.
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EGYPT
CONVERT FROM ISLAM DEVASTATED BY 'DELAY TACTIC' ***
May 17 (Compass Direct News) - An Egyptian convert to Christianity said he is devastated by a recent court decision to suspend a lawsuit he filed to change the religion on his identification card from Muslim to Christian. The First District of the Court of the State Council on April 27 suspended Mohammed Ahmed Hegazy's case until the Constitutional Court rules on a challenge to Article 47, a section of the civil code that, in theory, allows Egyptians to change the religion listed on their ID card. Hegazy, 27, said the court's suspension endangers his children's welfare and will force them to lead a double life indefinitely. Because the religious designation on their ID cards is arbitrarily listed as "Muslim," Hegazy said, if they follow Jesus they will be declared "apostates" and be persecuted the rest of their lives for "leaving Islam." Hegazy, who has suffered severely after Egypt's religious authorities declared him an apostate, including being imprisoned by State Security Investigations several times, said he filed the case so his children would avoid the same fate. "I didn't want them to have to go through the same harassment and persecution that I went through," he said. "My daughter won't be able to go to school without constantly fearing for her safety. She might even be killed simply because she is my daughter."
*** Photos of Mohammed Ahmed Hegazy are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.
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EGYPT
CONVERT ENDURES LIFE AT A STANDSTILL - ON THE RUN ***
May 25 (Compass Direct News) - The apartment where an Egyptian convert from Islam to Christianity was living in hiding with his teenage daughter is across the street from a mosque that regularly broadcast anti-Christian messages. "Do not shake their hands. Do not go into their homes," an imam shouted through the minaret loudspeakers as 57-year-old Maher Ahmad El-Mo'otahssem Bellah El-Gohary looked through his window and grimaced. For nearly two years, he and his daughter have been forced to hide after he sought to change the religious designation on his national ID card to "Christian." El-Gohary had taped over the locks of his apartment, as well as taped shut the inside of windows and doors, to guard against eavesdroppers and intruders. He taped over all the drain holes of the sinks to keep anyone from pumping in natural gas at night. Unable to obtain work because of his quest, El-Gohary has to rely on the kindness of other Christians to bring him food and water and the occasional donation. Possibly the worst part for him is watching the suffering of his daughter, Dina Maher Ahmad Mo'otahssem, a reflective 16-year-old whose life should be filled with friends, freedom and self-discovery; she is instead confined between four walls. She cannot go to school or attend church. Now she and her father fear she could be beaten, kidnapped and forcibly converted, or simply killed. One afternoon last month, as she was walking to a market with her father, El-Gohary noticed smoke and vapors coming off her jacket. The canvas was sizzling and dissolving, as someone had poured acid over the jacket. El-Gohary ripped it off her and threw it away. "I don't understand why I am being treated this way," Dina said. "I believe in something, Christianity - I chose the religion because I love it. So why should I be treated this way?"
*** Photos of El-Gohary's former apartment are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.
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INDIA
ANTI-CHRISTIAN MOTIVES SUSPECTED IN EVANGELIST'S SLAYING
May 11 (Compass Direct News) - The gruesome nature of the May 2 murder of an evangelist in Bihar state who had no enmity with anyone has led area Christians to suspect anti-Christian motives. The mutilated body of Ravi Murmu, 32, was found in Jamalpur, Munger district, with the right hand nearly severed by means of a sharp weapon, and the jaw and neck were similarly slashed. "Efforts were made to chop off his hand and neck, trying to separate it from his body," Shekhar Kumar, a member of his church, told Compass. Police are investigating but have made no arrests so far. "All his belongings were intact, which included his motorbike, Bible, cell phone, wristwatch and some cash," Murmu's brother-in-law, Shiv Kumar, told Compass. "This seems to be a planned murder. That is why Ravi was targeted when he was alone. To me the motive seems to be anti-Christian." Murmu's pastor, Yunus Mandal of Bethel Brethren Assembly in Jamalpur, agreed. "The intention behind the murder evidently is not robbery," Mandal said. "I am suspicious that Hindu fundamentalists have done this, but this could also be the handiwork of the Naxalites [Maoist rebels]." About a year and half ago, Murmu was attacked along with others in another part of Bihar state, the Newada area, about 160 kilometers (99 miles) from Jamalpur, Pastor Mandal said. "Ravi at that time was also beaten up and sustained injuries on the face and to his teeth," he said. "They would have killed us, but they found money in our possession worth about 180 U.S. dollars, and so they looted it and fled."
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INDIA
HINDU NATIONALISTS PLAN 'RELIGIOUS CLEANSING' IN MADHYA PRADESH DISTRICT ***
May 20 (Compass Direct News) - Hindu nationalist organizations in Madhya Pradesh state have declared their intentions to rid Mandla district of all Christian influence by starting preparations for a large "reconversion" event next year. A similar event in Dangs district, Gujarat state in 2006 was filled with Christian hate speech. As a result of anti-Christian sentiment stirred at the April 22 ground-breaking ceremony for the Madhya Pradesh "reconversion" rally to be held next February, Hindu nationalists attacked a house church in the district's Bamhni Banjar village on May 2, Christian leaders said. Hindu leaders reportedly announced a list of objectives to be achieved before the festival, with one prominent agenda item being to drive away Christian pastors, evangelists and foreign aid workers from the district. The leaders pledged to "cleanse Mandla of Christians" by means of the Feb. 10-12 event. A week after the ground-breaking ceremony, around 40 Hindu nationalists from the Bajrang Dal surrounded the home of Pastor Bhag Chand Rujhiya during a house church service and accused him of forceful conversion as they shouted anti-Christian slogans. Using abusive language, they pelted his house with stones as about 60 people were attending a worship service, Pastor Rakesh Dass said. "The mob was carrying deadly weapons like knives and rods," he said. Police forced the pastor and his wife to sign statements that they would no longer lead Sunday worship or pray with friends or relatives inside their house, and that they would not evangelize again in the area.
*** Photos of the ground-breaking for the Mandla kumbh are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.
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INDONESIA
MUSLIMS BURN CHRISTIAN CENTER UNDER CONSTRUCTION
May 4 (Compass Direct News) - Hundreds of people calling themselves the Muslim Community of the Puncak Route last week burned buildings under construction belonging to a Christian organization in West Java Province. Believing that a church or school building was being built, the mob set fire to the Penabur Christian Education Foundation's unfinished guest house buildings in Cibeureum village of Cisarua sub-district, Bogor Regency, on April 27. They also burned a watchman's hut and at least two cars belonging to foundation directors. A leader of the mob who identified himself only as Tabroni told Compass that local residents did not want a Christian worship center or Christian school in the predominantly Muslim area of Cibeureum known as Kongsi. "We found that there is an effort to Christianize through the construction of a school and a Christian place of worship," Tabroni said. A foundation spokesperson identified only as Mulyono denied that it was building a school or a place of worship. Mulyono added that the guest house, a term synonymous with "conference center" in Indonesia, will be used for education and training. "It is not true that we were building a school or a place of worship," Mulyono told Compass.
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IRAN
TWO CHRISTIAN WOMEN ACQUITTED OF ALL CHARGES***
May 27 (Compass Direct News) - Nearly five months after releasing them from prison, an Iranian court has acquitted two women of all charges related to being Christians and engaging in Christian activities. Iranians Maryam Rostampour and Marzieh Amirizadeh Esmaeilabad were arrested on March 5, 2009 and detained on charges of "acting against state security," "taking part in illegal gatherings" and "apostasy" (leaving Islam) under Iran's Revolutionary Court system. After nearly eight months, on Nov. 18, 2009 authorities released them conditionally. Elam Ministries said the two women had fled Iran on Saturday (May 22) to an undisclosed location and were recovering. Another Iranian convert who was forced to flee his country said the court likely made a political decision. "The government would not want them to stay in the country as heroes," said the source, who requested anonymity. "It would be better for the government if they left Iran and didn't become a positive example for the rest of the Christian community in Iran. Otherwise they would create a precedent of [Christians] who have not denied their faith, who have been acquitted and still live as Christians inside the country."
*** A photo of Maryam Rostampour and Marzieh Amirizadeh Esmaeilabad is available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.
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IRAQ
BOMB ATTACK SERIOUSLY INJURES CHRISTIAN STUDENTS
May 5 (Compass Direct News) - At least 50 Iraqi Christian students are receiving hospital treatment following a bomb attack on Sunday (May 2) outside Mosul that killed at least one person and has forced nearly 1,000 students to drop classes for the rest of the semester. Nearly 160 people were injured in the blasts targeting three buses full of Christians traveling to the University of Mosul for classes. The convoy of buses, which brings Christian students from villages east of Mosul, was making its daily route accompanied by two Iraqi army cars. "This is the hardest attack, because they attacked not only one car, but the whole convoy and in an area that is heavily guarded by the army," said Syrian Catholic Bishop of Mosul Georges Casmoussa. The explosions happened east of Mosul between two checkpoints. A roadside bomb followed by a car bomb reportedly exploded as the buses were clearing the second checkpoint in the area of Kokjaly. The checkpoint was staffed by U.S., Iraqi and Iraqi Kurdish soldiers. The owner of a nearby car repair shop, Radeef Hashim Mahrook, was killed in one of the blasts as he tried to help the students, sources said. They told Compass that lately there have been indications that Islamic extremists intend to increase attacks against Christians in more sophisticated and targeted ways. There were no warnings of the Sunday blasts.
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LAO
CHRISTIANS EXPELLED FROM VILLAGE SUFFER CRITICAL ILLNESSES
May 14 (Compass Direct News) - In spite of assurances of religious rights by officials in March, Lao Christians expelled from a village in Saravan Province in January are suffering from prolonged lack of adequate food and clean water. The lack of basic resources has led to diarrhea, dehydration, eye and skin infections, fainting and general weakness for the Christians expelled from Katin village, and one person has died, Human Rights Watch for Lao Religious Freedom (HRWLRF) reported. A Christian who went by the single name of Ampheng died suddenly in April while praying for one of two other Christians who were hospitalized with illnesses caused by their living conditions, an HRWLRF spokesman told Compass. The exact cause and date of Ampheng's death were not immediately known. Expelled from their village at gunpoint on Jan. 18 for failing to renounce their faith, the 48 Christians were forced to build temporary shelters at the edge of the jungle, about six kilometers (nearly four miles) away from the village. Katin's village chief recently warned other residents that their personal possessions would be confiscated and their homes torn down if they had any contact with the expelled Christians. Official reactions to the plight of the Christians have been mixed. In March, a delegation of provincial and district officials led by Gov. Khamboon Duangpanya visited the Christians at their jungle site and assured them of their legal right to embrace the faith of their choice and to live anywhere in the district.
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MOROCCO
SECOND WAVE OF DEPORTATIONS HITS FOREIGN CHRISTIANS
May 21 (Compass Direct News) - In a second wave of deportations from Morocco, officials of the majority-Muslim country have expelled 26 foreign Christians in the last 10 days without due process. Following the expulsion of more than 40 foreign Christians in March, the deportations were apparently the result of Muslim hardliners pressuring the nation's royalty to show Islamic solidarity. The latest deportations bring the number of Christians who have had to leave Morocco to about 105 since early March. Christians and expert observers are calling this a calculated effort to purge the historically moderate country, known for its progressive policies, of all Christian elements - both foreign and national. At least two Moroccan Christians have been beaten in the last 10 days, sources told Compass, and police have brought other Moroccan Christians to police stations daily for psychologically "heavy" interrogations. Authorities are enquiring about the activities of foreign and local Christians. "I don't see the end," said Salim Sefiane, a Moroccan living abroad. "I see this as a 'cleansing' of Christians out of Morocco, and then I see this turning against the Moroccan church, which is already underground, and then persecution of Moroccan Christians, which is already taking place in recent days."
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NIGERIA
MUSLIM YOUTHS BURN CHURCH BUILDINGS, PASTOR'S HOME
May 21 (Compass Direct News) - Scores of Muslim youths on Wednesday (May 19) besieged church property in Kano state in northern Nigeria, destroying two church buildings and a pastor's residence. One of the buildings and the pastor's house were set ablaze on the premises of the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) at Kwasam, in the Kiru Local Government area, while another building under construction was demolished. Youths reportedly numbering more than 100 in the predominantly Muslim area stormed the church grounds. "The problem started when some Christian youths of ECWA church were converted to Islam," the Rev. Lado Abdul, chairman of ECWA district in Kano, told Compass. "They swore that the ECWA church would not remain in the area, as they would do everything possible to chase Christians out from Kiru." No life was lost during or after the incident. Abdul, however, lamented the denial of rights to Christians in Kano by area Muslims. "Here in Kano, nobody gives you land to build a church," he said. "The old churches built before now are being demolished for reasons no one can easily grasp." Kano State Police Commissioner Mohammed Gana said that the attack on the church buildings grew out of a land dispute. Four suspects have been arrested, and an investigation continues, the police chief said.
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PAKISTAN
MUSLIMS ABDUCT YOUNG CHRISTIAN WOMAN, FAMILY SAYS
May 6 (Compass Direct News) - Muslims who kidnapped and forcibly converted an 18-year-old Christian woman to Islam severely beat her mother on two occasions to discourage her from trying to recover her daughter, lawyers said. Muhammad Akhter and Muhammad Munir on April 25 broke into the home of 50-year-old widow Fazeelat Bibi while her sons were at work and beat her because they were upset at her continuous demands that they return her daughter Saira, Christian Lawyers Foundation (CLF) leaders told Compass. CLF President Khalid Gill said that neighbors' calls to the police emergency number went unheeded as the men beat her in Lahore's predominantly Muslim Bostaan Colony. On April 18 Muhammad Akhter and members of his family had beaten her with clubs and ripped her clothes when the widow, having received a tearful phone call from her kidnapped daughter that day, went to their house to argue for her release. In her telephone call, Fazeelat Bibi said, Saira told her that Munir, Akhter and Munir's sister Billo Bibi had kidnapped her, stolen the jewelry of her dowry, forced her to convert to Islam and were pressuring her to marry Munir. When Saira was kidnapped on March 10, she was engaged to a young Christian man in Youhanabad, a large Christian slum on the outskirts of Lahore. "Saira's brothers and I were very joyful because we were about to fix her wedding date," Fazeelat Bibi said. Kotlakhpat Police Station Inspector Rana Shafiq has flatly refused to help her recover her daughter and has explicitly sided with his fellow Muslims, Gill said. Shafiq was unavailable for comment.
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PAKISTAN
CHRISTIANS' EMPLOYER HAS THEM ILLEGALLY ARRESTED ***
May 12 (Compass Direct News) - Police illegally detained three Christians on false charges of alcohol possession in Sialkot last week at the request of their Muslim employer. The men - garment factory workers Atif Masih, Kamran Masih and Naveed Gill - said they had objected to their boss demanding they work on Sundays. Factory owner Rana Ejaz promptly accused them of selling alcohol, which is forbidden to Muslims in Pakistan and illegal to sell without a permit. On May 4 the station house officer (SHO) of Paka Garah, Sialkot, arrested the three Christians even though Ejaz had filed neither a First Information Report nor registered a written complaint, the Christians said. Authorities released them after three days when local human rights groups charged that they had been illegally detained. Paka Garah SHO Zulfiqar Ali refused to comment after their release. Previously he had said they had confessed to selling alcohol; parents of the three Christians denied the charge, asserting that their sons had been falsely accused. Factory owner Ejaz reportedly said, "I did all this on the advice of the SHO, Zulfiqar, so that I could terminate the Christian workers."
*** A photo of the three Christians is available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.
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PAKISTAN
CHRISTIAN FORCED TO SELL KIDNEY TO PAY DEBT TO BOSS
May 14 (Compass Direct News) - A low-wage Pakistani Christian said his Muslim employer last week forced him to sell his kidney in an effort to pay off a loan his boss made at exorbitant interest rates charged only to non-Muslims. John Gill, a molding machine operator at Shah Plastic Manufacturers in the Youhanabad area of Lahore, said he took a loan of 150,000 rupees (US$1,766) - at 400 percent interest - from employer Ghulam Mustafa in 2007 in order to send his 17-year-old daughter to college. Mustafa confirmed that he took over Gill's home last week after giving the Christian two weeks to pay off the outstanding interest on the loan. Then, on May 6, Mustafa came to Gill's home with "about five armed men" and transported him to Ganga Ram hospital, where they forced him to sell his kidney against his will, the Christian said. The value of the kidney was estimated at around 200,000 rupees (US$2,355), leaving Gill with outstanding debt of about 250,000 rupees (US$2,945), Gill said. He said he does not know how he will repay the rest, which is due next month. Mustafa told Compass that Gill owed him 400 percent interest on the loan. "I only offer 50 percent interest to Muslim employees," he said, adding that he refused to take less than 400 percent interest from any non-Muslim.
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PAKISTAN
MUSLIM TEACHERS ALLEGEDLY ABUSE CHRISTIAN STUDENTS
May 19 (Compass Direct News) - Muslim teachers at a girls school here have derided Christian students for their faith, beat them, pressured them to convert to Islam and forced them to clean school bathrooms and classrooms after class hours, according to area Christians. Muslim teachers at Government Higher Secondary School in village No. 79-NB (Northern Branch), Sargodha, have so abused Christian students that two have dropped out, said a 16-year-old student identified only as Sana. "Christian students are teased and mocked by radical Muslim female teachers from the start of the school day to the end," she said. "Due to the contemptuous behavior on religious grounds of the fanatical Muslim principal and staff, Christian students feel dejected, depressed and frustrated. I am totally broken-hearted because of the intolerance and discrimination." Rebecca Bhatti, a 16-year-old grade 10 student, told Compass she left the government school because teachers and the principal would call Christian girls into the staff room at recess and demand that they polish their shoes or wash their undergarments and other clothes. "If any girl turned down the orders of any of the Muslim teachers, they were punished," Bhatti said as she spilled tears. Questioned about the abuses, principal Ferhat Naz told Compass that she would discipline teachers if an inquiry found the accusations to be true, but local residents called for an independent investigation as Naz herself is among the accused.
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PAKISTAN
ALLEGEDLY RAPED GIRL, FAMILY FORCED TO FLEE TOWN
May 25 (Compass Direct News) - A Christian who accused a Muslim of raping his 12-year-old daughter has fled his town in Punjab Province with his family following death threats and police pressure to drop the case. Citing "continuous threats" to take his life, Zafar Masih left Gujranwala's predominantly Muslim town of Nai Abadi Tatlay Aali within 10 days of accusing Ali Ahmed, a 28-year-old businessman, of beating and raping his daughter on May 12. His daughter, whose name was withheld, told Compass that her employer, Ahmed, beat and raped her when she went to his home, where she worked as a house servant. Her father said he immediately went to Tatlay Aali police station to file charges, but Station House Officer Inspector Iqbal Ojjhra refused and began to pressure him to withdraw the accusation. A powerful local politician along with the area's largest land owner, Imtiyaz Kharral, have since threatened to maim or kill him, Masih said. "I declined to withdraw my application, though I was being immensely pressured by both the leading Muslim men," Masih said. "And Inspector Ojjhra had a new alibi every day for not registering the case." Inspector Ojjhra denied all allegations against him. He told Compass that he declined to register a rape case because he did not want to harm the Christian girl's dignity, so instead he had recommended trying to resolve the conflict in a public gathering or "punchayat." At the meeting at Kharral's farmhouse, the land owner did not allow the Christians to speak and told Masih that he had to drop the rape charge or else he and all area Christian families would have to relocate.
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PAKISTAN
ISLAMISTS KEEP TWO NEWLYWED COUPLES FROM HOME
May 27 (Compass Direct News) - Islamists armed with pistols and rifles waited for two Christian couples to return to their rented home this week, seeking to kill them after the newlyweds complained to police that the radical Muslims had falsely accused them of desecrating the Quran, according to a local Christian legislator. Atiq Joseph and Qaiser William and their wives, who requested anonymity, went to an undisclosed location after Christians in Gulshan-e-Iqbal town, Karachi, warned them that the armed Muslims were stationed in front of their joint home on Friday (May 21), said Saleem Khurshid Khokhar, a representative of Sindh in the Punjab Provincial Assembly. The Christians were returning from having tried to file a complaint against the Islamists at Peer Ilahi Bakhsh police station of Gulshan-e-Iqbal town - where Muslim police responded by shouting angry obscenities at the couples and began secretly planning to charge them under Pakistan's widely condemned "blasphemy" laws, Khokhar said. The armed Muslims had accused the couples of desecrating the Islamic scriptures after searching through a pile of debris the Christians had gathered while cleaning their new rented home. The station house officer at the Peer Ilahi Bakhsh police station who shouted obscenities at them and secretly began to file baseless charges against them was unavailable for comment; after Compass made repeated requests to speak with him, a police station registrar said the SHO could not comment because he was ill in the hospital.
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PAKISTAN
KIDNAPPED CHRISTIAN WOMAN ESCAPES
May 31 (Compass Direct News) - A Christian woman who was kidnapped, forced to marry a Muslim farmer and told to convert to Islam amid a dispute over a loan said today she has returned home after weeks of "captivity and torture." Sania James, 33, was kidnapped April 5 by armed men who stormed her parents' house in the small town of Rawat, just outside Rawalpindi, neighbors confirmed to Compass. The gunmen allegedly told her father that he would see his daughter again only if he paid off a loan to his employer of 250,000 rupees (US$2,930) plus 30 percent interest, though they had previously agreed upon a rate of 15 percent. James said the armed men took her to her father's employer, farmer Mohammad Shahbaz Ali, and forced her to marry him. She refused to convert to Islam and was continuously tortured, James said without elaborating. Shahbaz Ali reacted angrily when asked about the alleged incidents. "I refuse to say anything," he told Compass. Local Pastor Faraz Samson said he had gone to Shahbaz Ali to end the injustice, but that he wouldn't listen. "I am shocked that a daughter of a poor man has been kidnapped, and the law can't do anything," Pastor Samson said.
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SOMALIA
AL SHABAAB MILITANTS EXECUTE CHRISTIAN LEADER
May 5 (Compass Direct News) - Islamic militants yesterday killed another leader of the underground church movement in Somalia, sources said. Before he was fatally shot on Tuesday (May 4) in Xarardheere, about 60 kilometers (37 miles) from Jowhar, 57-year-old Yusuf Ali Nur had been on a list of people the Islamic extremist al Shabaab suspected of being Christian, sources who spoke on condition of anonymity told Compass. Al Shabaab, said to have links with al Qaeda, has vowed to rid Somalia of Christianity. The militants fighting the Transitional Federal Government in Mogadishu had been engaged in a two-hour battle with a rival rebel group, the Ahlu Sunna wal-Jama'a, which had taken control of the Xarardheere area, before they came across Nur. Nur had lived in Xarardheere since leaving Jowhar in July 2009. Eyewitnesses said that after al Shabaab took control of the area, they went from house to house looking for enemy fighters when they arrived at Nur's rented home at about 10:30 a.m. Sources said that upon finding Nur, one of the militants remarked, "Oh! This is Yusuf, whom we have been looking for," before they sprayed him with bullets at close range. Nur is survived by his wife and three children, ages 11, 9 and 7.
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TURKEY
TRIAL OVER 'INSULTING TURKISHNESS' AGAIN YIELDS NO EVIDENCE ***
May 28 (Compass Direct News) - The 11th hearing of a case of alleged slander against two Turkish Christians closed just minutes after it opened this week, due to lack of any progress. Prosecutors produced no new evidence or witnesses against Hakan Tastan and Turan Topal since the last court session four months ago. Despite lack of any tangible reason to continue the stalled case, their lawyer said, the Silivri Criminal Court set still another hearing to be held on Oct. 14. "They are uselessly dragging this out," defense lawyer Haydar Polat said moments after Judge Hayrettin Sevim closed the Tuesday (May 25) hearing. The two Protestant Christians were accused in October 2006 of slandering the Turkish nation and Islam under Article 301 of the Turkish criminal code. The prosecution has yet to provide any concrete evidence of the charges, which allegedly took place while the two men were involved in evangelistic activities in the town of Silivri. Turkish Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin this week criticized Turkish media for presenting Article 301 defendants as guilty when they were charged, before courts had heard their cases or issued verdicts. But for Tastan and Topal, Ergin's comments were little comfort. "At this point, we are tired of this," Tastan admitted. "If they can't find these so-called witnesses, then the court needs to issue a verdict. After four years, it has become a joke!"
*** Photos of Hakan Tastan and Turan Topal are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing and transmittal.
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YEMEN
KIDNAPPED CHRISTIAN GIRLS ARE RESCUED
May 18 (Compass Direct News) - Saudi Arabian and Yemeni security forces rescued two German girls yesterday, 11 months after the two young sisters, their parents, brother and four other Christians were taken hostage in Yemen. Reported to be between 3 and 6 years old, the two girls, Lydia Hentschel and her younger sister Anna Hentschel, were part of a group of nine Christian foreigners who were kidnapped on June 12 last year. Three of the adult hostages, a Korean and two German women, were murdered shortly afterwards. The foreigners worked in a hospital near the city of Saada. No group has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping. Although the German family, a British man, and the three murdered women were Christians, it was not clear if they were kidnapped because of their faith. There was no indication as to the whereabouts of the girls' parents, Johannes and Sabine Hentschel, the girls' 2-year-old brother Simon, and the Briton, identified only as Anthony. The two girls were found in a disputed border region between Yemen and Saudi Arabia during Saudi cross-border raids in the northern region of Saada, according to Reuters. Saudi and Yemeni security forces collaborated in the operation to free the sisters.
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