Christian Persecution Around the World

[Shammu]

New Wave of Violence Against Christians in Orissa State
Aug 27th, 2008 3:13 AM

By Michael Ireland
Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News Service

ORISSA STATE, EASTERN INDIA (ANS) -- More than 600 churches have been demolished, 4,000 Christians forced to flee from their villages, and at least 25 killed as a result of violent persecution in the state of Orissa in eastern India.

Reports from the area say Vishwa Hindu Parishad religious leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati and four of his associates were murdered in the Kandhamal District of Orissa on Saturday, August 23.

Although a Maoist group claimed responsibility for the murders, supporters of the slain leader claim that Christians were behind the killings. Hindu fundamentalists have launched a series of attacks against Christians in retaliation.

Since Sunday, August 24, churches, schools and other institutions, prayer rooms, and homes of Christians have been ransacked, burnt and destroyed. Christians have been assaulted and reportedly at least twenty-five have been killed, some of them burnt alive or cut into pieces.

In an August 26 email to the Baptist World Alliance (BWA), Swarupananda Patra, General Secretary of the All Orissa Baptist Churches Federation, said “All Christian villages [are] empty in Kandhamal as Christians, old and young, sick and pregnant mothers [are] hiding in forests exposed to the non-stop monsoon rains without food.”

He reported that Kandhamal is the hardest hit, with at least eight Christians killed and almost all Christian homes demolished, but Christians in the districts of Balasore, Bargarh, and Kalahandi are also experiencing severe persecution.

Patra also appealed for prayer. “Now we have no request except prayer from our Baptist world as we do not know how to face tomorrow.”

P. Ramesh Kumar, Principal of the Balasore Technical School, reported to the BWA on August 25, “We are all under immense danger and threat from these groups.…Please continue to uphold us in your prayer particularly for the safety of Christian brothers and sisters who are now hiding themselves in jungles.”

In response to the attacks, BWA General Secretary Neville Callam said, “Unfortunate events have taken place in Orissa in recent days. These began with the senseless killing of Hindu Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati on August 23. I am disappointed by the false claim that Christians have responsibility for this murder and I am saddened by the atrocities being visited on Christians in Orissa.

“I appeal to the governing authorities in India to intervene to save the lives of the many who are being victimized in the current crisis,” said Callam.

He added: “Respect for the principle of religious liberty and the sacredness of human life requires nothing less. I also appeal to all Baptists worldwide to pray God’s protection for our brothers and sisters in Orissa.”

This is not the first time Christians in Orissa have experienced violent attacks. In December 2007, Hindu militants burned approximately 90 churches and 600 homes, killing an estimated 10 persons.

There are several Baptist conventions and unions in Orissa state that are member bodies of the BWA, with total membership in Orissa of nearly 500,000 baptized believers and approximately 3,500 churches.

New Wave of Violence Against Christians in Orissa State

[Shammu]

India Woman Burned To Death In Anti Christian Violence; Churches Destroyed
Added: Aug 27th, 2008 3:10 AM

BHUBANESWAR, INDIA (BosNewsLife) -- Two persons, including a woman, were burned to death, a pastor critically injured and at least a dozen churches torched as anti Christian violence rocked the Indian state of Orissa, officials confirmed Tuesday, August 26.

Orissa's Home Secretary Tarunkanti Mishra told reporters he had received information about the two casualties, as an investigation continued. Earlier on Monday, August 25, news emerged that a nun was raped, a priest beaten and several other Christians missing or injured in the violence.

Monday's violence erupted after a protest against the killing over the weekend of Laxmanananda Saraswati, a leader of the hard-line Hindu organization Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and at least four of his associates. It was not clear who was responsible for the murders, but militants blamed Christians for the attacks.

A woman, who was not immediately identified, was reportedly burned to death when suspected Hindu militants torched an orphanage run by a Christian organisation at the town of Phutpali in Bargarh District. Twenty children, who were at the orphanage, managed to escape but a pastor suffered serious burn injuries in the attack, BosNewsLife learned.

BURNED TO DEATH

Another person, identified as Rasananda Pradhan, was burned to death when his house was set ablaze at Rupa village in Kandhamal district where the VHP leader was gunned down along with four others on Saturday night, August 24, officials and church sources said.

Churches were reportedly also attacked in the areas of Khurda, Bargarh, Sundergarh, Sambalpur, Koraput, Boudh, Mayurbhanj, Jagatsinghpur and Kandhamal districts and in Orissa's capital Bhubaneswar. Some 40, apparently Christian homes, were said to have been set ablaze in Phulbani town.

And, as the body of Saraswati reached the town of Chakapada in Kandhamal district for the last rites, nine shops and two vehicles were torched while two jeeps were burned, witnesses said. In a statement to BosNewsLife, Orissa's Catholic Archbishop Raphael Cheenath said his church is "concerned at the immediate outbreak of communal violence against innocent Christians in nearby districts."

PRAYER HALL DESTROYED

In addition, Cheenath confirmed reports that at least one prayer hall in Sundergarh District was burned and a vehicle belonging to a Catholic oriented organization.

The bishop said that at "this critical juncture" he has appealed "to all for peace and communal harmony" as "we want good relationship with all the communities with whom we live."

He said he has asked Orissa's government to help prevent further attacks against Christians and to bring those responsible for the death of Lakshmanananda Saraswati and his associates to justice.

India Woman Burned To Death In Anti Christian Violence; Churches Destroyed

[Shammu]

Christians Flee to Forests as Mob Violence Escalates in Indian State
08/28/2008

Mob violence in India's Orissa state continues to escalate, and reports coming from Gospel for Asia leaders in Orissa say that as many as 20 GFA-related churches were destroyed and hundreds of Christian families have been burned out of their homes. At least a dozen members of GFA-related churches have been murdered, but no one knows the overall death toll.

"The Christians in Orissa have fled for their lives into the forests," GFA President K.P. Yohannan said, "and some have been in hiding for three days without food or water.

"Several of our pastors are in the forest along with their church people, and one said that he could have escaped, but would rather die with his people than leave them."

Dr. Yohannan called the situation "unprecedented in his 30 years of ministry in South Asia."

"I have never seen persecution so bad in my life," Dr. Yohannan said, "and I have seen a lot of opposition to the Gospel over the years."

Orissa, the state where Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons were burned to death by anti-Christian militants in 1999, has a long history of opposition to the Gospel.

"Yet this past year, we have seen more people place their faith in Jesus Christ in Orissa than in any other Indian state," Dr. Yohannan noted. "So it is no surprise that opposition is increasing."

The latest reports coming in include a long list of specific attacks against pastors, missionaries and their followers—including Christians being hacked to death. One believer's body was cut into seven pieces.

"They are raping Christian girls—and some gang rapes are taking place," Dr. Yohannan said. "We are praying that the young women on our Bible college campus will remain safe. There are 250 students there, and 90 of them are girls. A handful of police officers are trying to protect them, and that is a blessing. But we have had people come on campus and attack students in the past, so I am asking for all Christians to pray for their protection."

The violence began after the Saturday night murder of Swami Laxmananand Saraswati, a top leader of the VHP (World Hindu Council) and an outspoken opponent of Christianity. He was killed in an attack by 20 men armed with guns and hand grenades. While the murderers are suspected of being Maoist rebels, the Hindu radicals seized on the killing as an excuse to incite violence against the area's Christian community.

"What is most disturbing," Dr. Yohannan said, "is that the radicals have not only incited this violence, but they are also orchestrating it. And the latest reports are that they are bringing in militants from Gujarat, Chhattisgarh and other states to carry out their evil plans."

Because the swami's goal was to stop the spread of Christianity, especially among tribal and lower-caste Indians, an attack on him last December incited a similar wave of violence—again targeting Christians.

"Between December 24 and January 15, some 730 Christian homes and more than 100 churches were destroyed," Dr. Yohannan recalled. "Several dozen Christian women were sexually assaulted, and more than 40 shops owned by Christians were looted."

"Most of the victims were Dalits, formerly known as Untouchables," he noted.

"Basically, what we are facing is genocide—ethnic cleansing—against Christians, and so far, no government has spoken out against it."

Dr. Yohannan asks that concerned people in the West call on their government officials—as well as those in India—to intervene in this disaster.*

"But most important is prayer," Dr. Yohannan emphasized. "Please pray that God will intervene in this situation, that His peace will descend on the people of Orissa, and that His message of love will fill the hearts of all of India's people.

Christians Flee to Forests as Mob Violence Escalates in Indian State

[Shammu]

Laos Persecution of Christians
Added: Aug 29th, 2008 2:38 AM

Asia Service

VIENTIANE, LAOS  -- Authorities in Laos have ordered families of three detained Christians in Savannakhet province to sign documents renouncing their faith in Jesus Christ, rights investigators said Thursday, August 28.

Human Rights Watch for Lao Religious Freedom said the chief of Boukham village in Savannakhet province gave the order, but added that the family members refused.

A crackdown in other parts of Laos continued, with new incidents reported this week in Attapue and Borikhamxay provinces, reported Compass Direct News, a Christian news agency.

On Monday, August 25, Christians in Donphai village in Attapue province were reportedly fined for holding a church service during local animistic ceremonies.

CHRISTIAN FAMILIES

In Borikhamxay province, officials continued to pressure 22 Christian families comprising 150 people in Toongpankham village who have refused to give up their faith, Christians said. Village officials had torn down their church building in January, then in mid-August harassed church members for not meeting in a proper worship facility, according to rights investigators.

At least 90 Christians in Laos, including church leaders, have been detained in recent weeks as part of an apparent government backed crackdown on Christian worship services in several provinces of the Asian nation.

Although the Lao constitution "guarantees" freedom of religion and worship, church fellowships must be registered with government-approved institutions. Such registration comes with strict limitations on the activity of the church, however, and many Christians prefer not to register in the Communist-run country.

Laos Persecution of Christians

[Shammu]

558 houses, 17 places of worship torched during riot: Orissa govt
1 Sep 2008

BHUBANESWAR: Claiming that the situation in Kandhamal and elsewhere in Orissa was well under control, the state government on Monday said at least 558 houses and 17 places of worship were burnt in communal riots after VHP leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati's killing on August 23.

While 543 houses were burnt in the worst hit Kandhamal district, 15 houses had been set ablaze in Gajapati district, said Chief Secretary Ajit Kumar Tripathy after a review meeting chaired by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.

All the torching of places of worship were reported from Kandhamal district where over 185 people were arrested on charge of rioting, arson and other offences. A total of 35 people were injured in the riot in Kandhamal, he said.

Though Tripathy did not mention how may were killed during the riot, official sources on Monday put the figure at 16, with the recovery of two bodies in Kandhamal district.

Besides Kandhamal, Tripathy said, people were provided with food in free kitchen in Rayagada and Gajapati districts. While 12,539 people were fed in 10 relief camps, 783 people got the facilities in two relief camps in Rayagada district.

He said relief camps were located at Chakapada, Raikia, Baliguda, K Nuagaon, Tikabali, Phiringia, Phlbani, Tumudibandha and Daringbadi blocks in Kandhamal district.

Director General of Police Gopal Nanda said besides 12 companies of para-military forces, 24 platoons of Orissa State Armed Police, two sections of Armed Police Reserve forces and two teams of Special Operation Group (SOG) were deployed in Kandhamal.

558 houses, 17 places of worship torched during riot: Orissa govt
~~~~~~~~~~

Though it doesn't say Christians.......... With all going on in I'm pretty sure Christian houses of worship were torched.

[Shammu]

Thousands of Christians flee killings in Mosul

By Leila Fadel, McClatchy Newspapers Sat Oct 11, 6:43 PM ET

BAGHDAD — Christians in Mosul are fleeing their homes after a spate of killings this week that left 12 Christians dead in one of the largest Christian communities in Iraq .

The killings follow large protests by the community last month against the passage of the provincial elections law. An article that would give representation to Christians and other minorities was removed from the law before its passage.

Now the last safe haven for Christians is gone, said Canon Andrew White the vicar of St. George's church in Baghdad .

After a spree of killings and forced evictions of Iraqi Christians in Baghdad last year, many fled to Mosul . But even there they could not escape the danger. In February of this year the Archbishop Paulos Faraj Raho of Mosul was kidnapped and killed.

"Christians are being killed in the only place they felt safe, in Ninevah," White said, referring to the province of which Mosul is the capital. "This is where they fled to and now there's no safe place for them."

Over a thousand Christian families have fled Mosul for outlying villages and villages in the Kurdistan region in search of safety, a spokesman for the Ministry of Endowment and Religious Affairs said. Posters are being put up with guidelines on how to leave.

"The Christian families left in Mosul are very few indeed," said Mariwan Nakshabandee, spokesman for the Ministry of Endowment and Religious Affairs , which oversees Christian communities in Mosul .

Iraqi Assyrian and Chaldean Catholics trace their roots to ancient Mesopotamia and Christian communities were prominent in many major Iraqi cities, including Mosul in the north and Basra in the south and Baghdad . The capital had enclaves in the central neighborhood of Karada, the eastern neighborhood of New Baghdad and nearby al-Ghadir as well as Dora in the capital's south.

Christians once were estimated to be about 3 percent of the Iraqi population or about 800,000 people.

But as Iraq grew bloody and violent the Christian community dwindled. Now some estimate that more than half of Iraq's Christians have fled. White believes that the Christian community is about a quarter of the estimated 800,000.

"It isn't easy for these people to leave," he said. "They have no representation... we need the Christian world to do something about it."

On Saturday, three more Christian men were found dead in Mosul . Among the 12 killed just this week were doctors, engineers, pharmacists and at least one disabled man. Three empty homes of Christian families in eastern Mosul who had fled were reduced to rubble as a warning, police in Mosul said.

Some of the assassins told those they killed "you want an autonomous region," said Auxiliary Bishop of the Chaldean Patriarch in Baghdad Shlemon Wirduni, who was getting updates every few hours from churches in Mosul . The assassins were referring, he said, to aspirations of some Assyrian and Chaldean Christians to create an autonomous Christian region in the northern plains of Ninevah Province .

Wirduni lamented that despite outcries to the international press, United Nations officials and Iraqi government officials nothing was being done.

In Ninevah province, governor Duraid Kashmoula said the increase in attacks on Christians was due to the failure of a recent security operation in Mosul . He blamed Al Qaida in Iraq , an extremist Sunni group, for the recent string of killings.

Mosul remains a volatile province despite a recent security operation and both Iraqi Army and Iraqi Police officials said they'd seen and uptick in Al Qaida in Iraq activity in the area.

(EDITORS: STORY CAN END HERE.)

"Killing the peaceful Christians is a crime and it doesn't pass without punishment," he said. According to Kashmoula, the killings were because of "the failure of the security plan and the fleeing of the elements of Al Qaida from Anbar to Mosul unchecked."

The Hammurabi Association for Human Rights released a statement demanding international attention to the assassinations of Christians likening it to "genocide."

"We call on the authorities, central and local and international to stop this Christian bloodshed and to contain the violations and violence and terrorism that Christians in Mosul are facing," the statement said.

"We also are victims of the civil war between Iraqis and the objective of the threats of Al Qaida is to displace Christians because they are a minority in Iraq ," said Salwan Khoshaba from Al Tahira Church in Mosul .

Thousands of Christians flee killings in Mosul

[Shammu]

Hanged for being a Christian in Iran
Eighteen years ago, Rashin Soodmand's father was hanged in Iran for converting to Christianity. Now her brother is in a Mashad jail, and expects to be executed under new religious laws brought in this summer. Alasdair Palmer reports.

11 Oct 2008

A month ago, the Iranian parliament voted in favour of a draft bill, entitled "Islamic Penal Code", which would codify the death penalty for any male Iranian who leaves his Islamic faith. Women would get life imprisonment. The majority in favour of the new law was overwhelming: 196 votes for, with just seven against.

Imposing the death penalty for changing religion blatantly violates one of the most fundamental of all human rights. The right to freedom of religion is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and in the European Convention of Human Rights. It is even enshrined as Article 23 of Iran's own constitution, which states that no one may be molested simply for his beliefs.

And yet few politicians or clerics in Iran see any contradiction between a law mandating the death penalty for changing religion and Iran's constitution. There has been no public protest in Iran against it.

David Miliband, Britain's Foreign Secretary, stands out as one of the few politicians from any Western country who has put on record his opposition to making apostasy a crime punishable by death. The protest from the EU has been distinctly muted; meanwhile, Germany, Iran's largest foreign trading partner, has just increased its business deals with Iran by more than half. Characteristically, the United Nations has said nothing.

It is a sign of how little interest there is in Iran's intention to launch a campaign of religious persecution that its parliamentary vote has still not been reported in the mainstream media.

For one woman living in London, however, the Iranian parliamentary vote cannot be brushed aside. Rashin Soodmand is a 29-year-old Iranian Christian. Her father, Hossein Soodmand, was the last man to be executed in Iran for apostasy, the "crime" of abandoning one's religion. He had converted from Islam to Christianity in 1960, when he was 13 years old. Thirty years later, he was hanged by the Iranian authorities for that decision.

Today, Rashin's brother, Ramtin, is also held in a prison cell in Mashad, Iran's holiest city. He was arrested on August 21. He has not been charged but he is a Christian. And Rashin fears that, just as her father was the last man to be executed for apostasy in Iran, her brother may become one of the first to be killed under Iran's new law.

Not surprisingly, Rashin is desperately worried. "I am terribly anxious about him," she explains. "Even though my brother is not an apostate, because he has never been a Muslim – my father raised us all as Christians – I don't think he is safe. They assume that if you are Iranian, you must be Muslim."

Her brother's situation has ominous echoes of her father's fate. Rashin was 14 when her father was arrested. "He was held in prison for one month," she remembers. "Then the religious police released him without explanation and without apology. We were overjoyed. We thought his ordeal was over."

But six months later, the police came back and took her father away again. This time, they offered him a choice: he could denounce his Christian faith, and the church in which he was a pastor – or he would be killed. "Of course, my father refused to give up his faith," Rashid recalls proudly. "He could not renounce his God. His belief in Christ was his life – it was his deepest conviction." So two weeks later, Hossein Soodmand was taken by guards to the prison gallows and hanged.

Life for Rashin, her siblings and her mother became extremely difficult. Some Muslims are extremely hostile to people of any other religion, never mind to those who they consider apostates: Ayatollah Khomeini declared that "non-Muslims are impure", insisting that for Muslims to wash the clothes of non-Muslims, or to eat food with non-Muslims, or even to use utensils touched by non-Muslims, would spoil their purity.

The family was supported with financial and other help from a Christian church based in Iran. That support became even more critical as Rashin's mother began to lose her sight. Rashin herself was eventually able to leave Iran. She now lives in London, married to a fellow Christian from Iran who successfully applied for asylum in Germany.

It took years for Rashin to understand how her father could have been legally executed simply for becoming a Christian. In 1990, there was no parliamentary law mandating the death for apostates. What, then, was the legal basis for Hossein Soodmand's execution?

"After the revolution of 1979, Iran's rulers wanted to turn Iran into an Islamic state, and to abolish the secular laws of the Shah," explains Alexa Papadouris of Christian Solidarity Worldwide, a human rights organisation that specialises in freedom of religion. "So the clerics instituted a mandate for judges presiding over criminal cases: if the existing penal code did not include legislation on whether a certain kind of behaviour is an offence, then the judges should refer to traditional Islamic jurisprudence." In other words: sharia law.

"That automatically created problems" says Mr Papadouris, "because Islamic jurisprudence is not codified law: it is a series of formulations developed across generations by scholars and clerics. Depending on the Islamic school or historical era, these formulations can differ and even contradict each other."

On one subject, however, sharia law is unequivocal: men who change their religion from Islam must be punished with death. So when the judge heard the case of Rashid's father, he could refer to sharia and reach a straightforward decision: the death penalty. There was no procedure for appeal.

Nevertheless, in the 18 years since Hossein Soodmand's execution, there have been no judicially sanctioned killings of apostates in Iran, although there have been many reports of disappearances and even murders. "As the number of converts from Islam grows," notes Ms Papadouris, "apostasy has again become a serious concern for the Iranian government." In addition to 10,000 Christian converts living in Iran, there are several hundred thousand Baha'is who are deemed apostates.

There is another factor: President Ahmadinejad. "The President didn't initiate the law mandating the death penalty for apostates," says Papadouris, "but he has been lobbying for it. It is an effective form of playing populist politics. The Iranian economy is doing very badly, and the country is in a mess: Ahmadinejad may be calculating that he can gain support, and deflect attention from Iran's problems, by persecuting apostates."

The new law is not yet in force in Iran: it requires another vote in parliament, and then the signature of the Ayatollah. But that could happen within a matter of weeks. "Or," says Papadouris, "it could conceivably be allowed to drop, were there a powerful enough international outcry".

Time may be running out for Rashin's brother. She believes that the new law will be applied in an arbitrary fashion, with individuals selected for death being chosen to frighten others into submission. That is why she fears for her brother. "We just don't know what will happen to him. We only know that if they want to kill him, they will."

Hanged for being a Christian in Iran

[Shammu]

Convert or we will kill you, Hindu lynch mobs tell fleeing Christians

As a fresh wave of sectarian violence is unleashed across the Indian state of Orissa, Gethin Chamberlain talks to homeless survivors in Kandhamal district who were forced to abandon their religion

Gethin Chamberlain
The Observer,
Sunday October 19 2008

Hundreds of Christians in the Indian state of Orissa have been forced to renounce their religion and become Hindus after lynch mobs issued them with a stark ultimatum: convert or die.

The wave of forced conversions marks a dramatic escalation in a two-month orgy of sectarian violence which has left at least 59 people dead, 50,000 homeless and thousands of houses and churches burnt to the ground. As neighbour has turned on neighbour, thousands more Christians have sought sanctuary in refugee camps, unable to return to the wreckage of their homes unless they, too, agree to abandon their faith.

Last week, in the worst-affected Kandhamal district, The Observer encountered compelling evidence of the scale of the violence employed in a conversion programme apparently sanctioned by members of one of the most powerful Hindu groups in India, the 6.8-million member Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) - the World Hindu Council.

Standing in the ashes of her neighbour's house in the village of Sarangagada, Jaspina Naik, 32, spoke nervously, glancing towards a group of Hindu men watching her suspiciously. 'My neighbours said, "If you go on being Christians, we will burn your houses and your children in front of you, so make up your minds quickly",' she said. 'I was scared. Christians have no place in this area now.'

On her forehead, she wore a gash of vermilion denoting a married Hindu woman, placed there by the priest at the conversion ceremony she had been obliged to attend a day earlier, along with her husband and three young children. 'I'm totally broken,' she said. 'I have always been a Christian. Inside I am still praying for Jesus to give me peace and to take me out of this situation.'

She and her neighbour, Kumari Naik, 35, gazed forlornly at the charred remains of the house. The mob that arrived one evening in the first week of the violence, armed with swords and axes, had looted what they wanted before dousing the building with petrol and setting it alight. Kumari had fled into the nearby forest with her husband, Umesh, and 14-year-old son Santosh. A smoke-damaged child's drawing of Mickey Mouse pinned to one wall was all that remained of their former lives. Shattered roof tiles crunched underfoot as the women moved through the blackened rooms.

The priest had given them cow dung to eat during the ceremony, they said, telling them it would purify them. 'We were doing that, but we were crying,' Jaspina said.

The roads between the villages are rough and potholed, adding to the difficulties in accessing what is already a remote region, a six-hour drive from the state capital, Bhubaneshwar. The remoteness has undoubtedly played a part in the continuation of the violence, making it harder for police to move about quickly, even if they were minded to do so. Christian leaders, though, have accused the authorities of dragging their feet, claiming they are reluctant to antagonise the majority Hindu community in the run-up to parliamentary elections next year.

Relations between the Hindu and Christian communities were already at a low ebb when the killing of VHP leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati on 23 August provided the trigger for the current wave of violence. The VHP blamed Christians and the mobs descended on the homes of neighbours and friends. Those who were too slow to get away were killed. Amid the savagery, two incidents stood out: a young Hindu woman working in a Christian orphanage was burnt alive and a nun was gang-raped.

Yet the VHP is unrepentant and appears to be involved, at least at grassroots level, with the campaign of forced conversions. One priest who converted 18 Christians in the village of Sankarakhole last week told The Observer that he had been approached by local VHP representatives to carry out the ceremony.

'The VHP people came with letters that said they wanted to be converted, so I converted them,' said Preti Singh Patra, who is the brother of a senior VHP official. Crouching on the ground in front of his temple, set in a small walled garden beneath a huge banyan tree, he ran through the details of the ceremony: first some fruit to eat, followed by a mixture of cow dung and urine mixed with milk and curd, a dip in water from the Ganges, an hour of prayers and then the painting of a bindi on the forehead.

Some local men stepped forward to speak to him. 'Don't say too much,' they warned. The priest seemed unconcerned. The 18 had been the only Christians in the village, he said. They were happy to convert.

Around the village, the countryside is a sea of green, a beautiful lush vista that offers, at a distance, no clues to the turmoil. Yet up close it is a landscape scarred by the ugly remains of homes and churches which lie shattered between other houses still inhabited and unscathed, those belonging to Kandhamal's Hindus.

A few miles down the road from Sankarakhole, in the village of Minia, Sujata Digal, 38, stood outside her own burnt-out home. The mob had arrived at 3am, she said. She and her husband Hari hid in the forest and watched the house burn. When they came out of the forest, the mob returned and told them to convert, and it was not a hard decision.

'They said, 'If you don't become Hindu, we'll burn your houses too and start killing you',' said Ashish Digal, the former Christian pastor. 'I've been forced to convert. Everyone is being converted. They beat us in the fields. I went to the temple. We had to say that we belonged to the Hindu state of Orissa, and that from this day we are Hindus.'

Before the violence started, Christians outnumbered Hindus in Minia: now 115 have converted, roughly half of their original number. The rest have fled.

Burn your Bibles, the men told Ashish Digal. He told them he had, but hid them instead. Every couple of days people come to his house to search, hoping to catch him out. Those people are not strangers; they are his neighbours.

They had been sitting idly in the main road when The Observer's car pulled up. Now the young driver, Sudhir, was rushing down the path that led to what remained of Sujata Digal's house, holding his head, visibly shaken. 'We must leave now,' he said.

He had been standing by the car when the men closed in around him. They left the talking to Prashant Digal, a teacher and organiser for the local VHP youth wing. 'Why did you bring these people here?', he demanded, punching Sudhir in the head. 'Take the vehicle and go. Leave them here for us.' They surrounded him, a young Hindu, and slapped him around again. No one came to his aid. 'If you stay, we will burn you with them in the car. You will all be killed. Just leave them,' they told him. But he did not, which was a decent thing for a frightened boy to do. He drove a little way down the road and parked around a corner, out of sight, and came back to raise the alarm.

Back on the main road, the men were waiting. 'Put your notebook and your cameras away. You will take no pictures and record nothing,' the VHP man said. 'You want to know what is happening? Now I will tell you why this is happening.' He blamed the Christians for taking the jobs of Hindus, for the murder of the Swami. The only solution was for Christians to convert, he said. 'This is a Hindu community. Everyone can stay here, as long as they are part of that community. And now you should go.'

Convert or we will kill you, Hindu lynch mobs tell fleeing Christians

[HisDaughter]

Convert or we will kill you

Coming Soon to America.

[Shammu]

Coming Soon to America.

I hope not, but I think your right. I only pray we aren't here when it happens.

[Shammu]

British aid worker shot dead in Afghanistan for 'preaching Christianity'
The Taliban have shot dead a British aid worker in Afghanistan because she was "preaching Christianity."
21 Oct 2008

Gayle Williams, who had been in the troubled country for three years, was killed by two gunmen on a motorcycle as she walked to work in the capital of Kabul.

She recently moved from Kandahar back to Kabul because it was seen as safer.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the shooting, which took place at 8am local time.

Afghan interior ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary said Miss Williams had been shot in the body and leg with a pistol.

"Two armed men sitting on a motorbike shot her dead," he said. "Some bullets hit her body and some hit her leg and when police got there she was dead."

Her body was taken to a nearby hospital.

A tribute website was set up online in memory of Miss Williams, who learnt the languages Pashtun and Farsi while in Afghanistan.

One friend, Peter Danco, wrote: “Gayle, you are a true hero. You have a place in our hearts forever.”

Another, Martina Babinova, added: “I am so sorry to hear that you are not with us anymore, will miss you terribly. I have feared for this for so long.”

The shooting is not the first time a Christian has been targeted in Afghanistan.

Last year, 23 South Korean aid workers from a church group were taken hostage in southern Afghanistan. Two were killed and the rest released.

In 2001, eight international aid workers, including two Americans, were imprisoned and charged with preaching Christianity.

They were finally freed by Afghan mujahedeen fighters who attacked the Taliban after the American-led invasion.

A Foreign and Commonwealth Office spokeswoman said: "We can confirm that a British national was shot dead in Kabul. Next of kin have been informed."

Mr Bashary said it was not known who was responsible, but Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, insisted his militia had carried out the killing.

"We killed her because she was working for an organisation which was preaching Christianity," he said.

Serve Afghanistan is a UK registered charity which focuses on education and training for people with disabilities. All its overseas staff are volunteers.

The mission statement on its website says its purpose "is to express God's love and bring hope by serving the people of Afghanistan, especially the needy, as they seek to address personal, social and environmental needs."

Taliban insurgents have increasingly targeted aid workers this year in their campaign to spread an atmosphere of fear and undermine support for the Western-backed Afghan government.

Taliban insurgents killed three female aid workers and their Afghan driver in an ambush just outside Kabul in August, the bloodiest single attack on foreign humanitarian workers in Afghanistan in recent years.

Rising violence has already forced aid agencies to restrict humanitarian work at a time when drought and high prices are putting more people under pressure.

British aid worker shot dead in Afghanistan for 'preaching Christianity'

[Shammu]

I'm praying her death leads many to question, and to want to know more about Jesus. You'd think Satan would have realized by now that killing Christians only makes the Church grow faster. This may be the environment we find ourselves in, with the way things are going.

The one thing that gets me is their bragging of killing a Christian. It makes me shake my head at how these murderers are so PROUD of what they do! One day these people are going to have to answer God, why they killed innocents.

[Shammu]

Killed or hounded out – just for being Christian
21 October 2008
By GETHIN CHAMBERLAIN
in Kandhamal district, Orissa

IT WAS about 5:30pm last Monday when Sushil Kumar Naik heard knocking at what remained of his front door.

He peered through the holes left by the axes that the mob had used to batter their way in two weeks earlier. Outside stood a group of his Hindu neighbours, holding guns. The 43-year-old Indian air force officer was not surprised: he had been expecting them.

Like thousands of other Christians, Mr Naik has been living in fear since a wave of violence swept through the Kandhamal district of India's eastern state of Orissa two months ago. At least 59 people have died and thousands of homes and churches have been burned down.

Simmering tensions between the area's Hindu majority and their Christian neighbours were ignited by the murder of a hardline Hindu leader, Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, on 23 August.

The initial Hindu backlash drove as many as 50,000 Christians from their homes. Now a new threat has emerged, and hundreds have been forced to renounce their faith and convert to Hinduism on threat of death.

The men who called on Mr Naik at his home in the village of Gadaguda last week were not in the mood for small talk.

"You'd better convert," they told him. "If you don't convert to Hinduism, you must leave this place."

They did not say what would happen if he stayed, but Mr Naik did not really need to be told.

The men outside were the same ones who had turned up in the middle of the night two weeks earlier, smashed their way in and set his home on fire. At the time, Mr Naik had been on duty at his air force base more than 1,000 miles away in Nicobar. The only people who were at home were his wife, Binita, 36, and his 70-year-old mother, Brundavati.

"We were sleeping at the time," his mother said, "And then people came from everywhere. We heard them shouting slogans and we ran to the school."

She started to cry, wiping her eyes on her yellow sari. "They were firing guns in the air. They burned most of our possessions. We only got out with the clothes we are standing in."

The slogans the mob had been shouting were those of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) – or World Hindu Council – the hardline Hindu organisation that has been blamed for encouraging Hindus to seek revenge for the killing of the swami. The VHP blames Christians for the murder, though Maoist guerrillas have claimed responsibility.

Those slogans were enough to alert Binita and Brundavati to the danger in time. But for their neighbours, Lalia and Mandikini Naik, there was to be no escape. The couple were in their 70s; they were simply too slow to get away.

"The men barged into their house. He couldn't move fast and they cut his throat with an axe," Binita said. "His wife was also cut."

The couple were taken to hospital, where Mr Naik died two days later. His wife remains seriously ill.

Sushil Naik's family were lucky; the police arrived within a few minutes, before the fire could consume the whole house. Even so, most of their possessions have been destroyed.

But they know it is only a matter of time before the men come back, and next time they might not be so lucky.

What makes it harder to bear is that they knew the people who attacked their home. Their family has been in Gadaguda for more than 100 years; the faces of the mob were those of their neighbours, people they had lived alongside and chatted to every day.

"If it was outsiders, they would not have known which house to attack," Mr Naik said.

When police officers eventually started to look for the culprits, some of the Hindu men took to the forests. From there, they appear to be able to venture forth at will to threaten those Christians who have remained in the area.

The Christians do not believe the police really want to help find the men responsible. They point out that smoke from the Hindus' cooking fires rises above the trees every night, but no-one goes after them.

"They were able to come to my house and threaten that we have to convert to Hinduism or stay away," Mr Naik said. "I don't understand what is happening. Even if we become Hindu, what guarantee is there that they will leave us in peace?"

It is a question many of Orissa's Christians are asking: many have concluded that their only option is to convert.

Last week, in the village of Sankarakhole, a little way down the road from Gadaguda, a total of 18 people converted. They were the only four Christian families in the village. Preti Singh Patra, the priest who carried out the ceremony, said the VHP had brought him letters from the families asking to convert. They had been happy to embrace Hinduism, he claimed.

Christians who have converted say nothing could be further from the truth.

In the village of Sarangagada, 32-year-old Jaspina Naik said she and her husband had been forced to take their three children to the temple to convert. "My neighbours said, 'If you go on being Christians, we will burn your houses and your children in front of you, so make up your minds quickly'," she said.

The VHP counters that many of those who are switching to Hinduism are recent converts from Christianity who had been attracted by the economic benefits that went with abandoning their low-caste status as Hindus. The VHP's leaders claim that many of those converts were so repulsed by the killing of the swami that they have been eager to rejoin the fold.

"They saw what happened to the swami – of course they want to come back, what's wrong with that?" said Gouri Prasad Rath, the VHP general secretary in Orissa.

He told The Scotsman the Christians had only themselves to blame for trying to entice Hindus to convert.

"If there is a problem today, I feel it is because the Hindus have lost patience," he said.

"Christians are giving Bibles to uneducated people who have nothing to eat and nothing to wear. They don't even know how to read it," he said. "If you go to their houses, they have a Bible and a photo of Jesus and, by keeping all these things, they think they have turned western.

"But you look at them and they still look like everyone else, and so what's the use of having such a religion when you have the same society as Hindus?"

Few of the 800 people crammed into tents in the Rudangia refugee camp a few hundred yards back along the road from Sushil Naik's home would see it that way.

For them, the idea that they can return to live alongside the people who turned on them so brutally seems little more than fantasy.

Rajma Naik, 45, fled to the camp after a mob chased her out of her home in Gonjugra village. The Hindus had been mocking them for their religion, she said. People were running everywhere, desperate to escape. In front of her, a woman stumbled as she tried to shepherd her eight-year-old son to safety.

"She was killed in front of me," she said. "She was running with her child. She was hit and she fell and they slashed her throat and then they got the child."

There was no way she could live alongside those people again, she said, not as a Christian, not as a Hindu.

"The Hindus say they will kill us," she said.

"In my village, we've been told that if we don't become Hindus, we will be killed. But I will never become a Hindu, even if I have to die."

Killed or hounded out – just for being Christian

[Shammu]

'We are killed because we are Christians'
October 27, 2008
Deborah Haynes in Nineveh Plains, Iraq

One grey-haired woman understands more than most the fear that has gripped Iraq's beleaguered Christian community over the past month.

Her brother, Bashar al-Hazim, was among the first to be murdered in a wave of targeted killings that has forced more than 2,000 Christian families to flee the northern city of Mosul.

Masked gunmen walked up to Mr Hashim as he stood with his two children outside their house in the east-side of Mosul in late September.

They demanded to see his identity card, confirmed he was Christian and executed the 41-year-old on the spot.

"I could have died when I found out. He was a dear brother and was killed in a very despicable way," said the woman, 60, who was too afraid to give her name.

She, like thousands of other Christians who have left the city since the start of October, claims to have no idea who carried out the attack. Fear of potential repercussions appears to prevent many in the region from speaking their mind.

"We're peaceful people. When my brother was executed he had no enemies. Why was he killed? He was not a member of a party. There was no reason except for being Christian," the woman, dressed in a black gown, said.

Worried that they would be next, she and her family evacuated to Bartella, a Christian town 20 miles north of Mosul in the Nineveh Plains, which border the largely-autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan.

They took shelter in a stone building attached to a churchyard, where some 19 other families were also gathered.

Of the estimated 13,000 Christians to flee Mosul this month, some have since returned but the majority remain refugees in monasteries and convents to the north and east of the city as well as in spare rooms in the towns and villages that dot the Nineveh Plains.

In the churchyard dwelling, the only furniture is a smattering of beds, mattresses and plastic chairs. There is also a battered, old stove.

"We left Mosul with just the clothes on our back. Our nerves are shredded," the woman said, sitting on a bed with her husband who suffers from angina. "It is not very comfortable here, but at least we have security."

Six of the families have dared to return to Mosul and others are planning to creep back in the coming days, but the dead man's sister is staying put.

"We cannot live in Mosul," she said, wiping a tear from her eye.

Iraq's rich blend of minority communities became a popular target for the insurgency that flared following the 2003 invasion. Tens of thousands of Christians as well as members of other sects such as Shabaks and Yazidis were forced out of major cities across the country under threat of death,

Many returned to the Nineveh Plains, a rural strip of land that has been home to minorities for centuries. But life is hard, with a lot of areas suffering from a lack of electricity and running water. There is no university so students must travel further afield to Mosul, often an impossible feat because of the dangers.

Hashim Mohsen is a Shabak from Mosul. He and his family left the city more than two years ago after his older brother was murdered. Mr Mohsen, a micro-biologist, has since lost a second brother and his house has been destroyed.

The nightmare began on July 27, 2006, when a car pulled up outside his front gate where his older brother, Amar, was sitting with four friends.

Two masked gunmen stepped out, while a small boy sitting in the car, his face also shrouded, pointed at Amar, 29, and said: "That one".

The driver of the vehicle ordered his men to shoot. Amar tried to lunge at them but was restrained. The assailants pumped six bullets into his head and heart, shouting: "Allah Akubar (God is great)".

That night the family received a note warning that their punishment for being Shia was death. Shabaks follow a form of Shia Islam. As a result, they have been repeatedly targeted by Sunni Islamist militants such as al-Qaeda.

"We left the next day to hold a funeral for my brother in the nearby village of Ali-Rash, where we stayed," Mr Mohsen, in his late 20s, said. Four other related families, petrified that they too would be killed, also moved.

They spent the next four months living in a mosque in the village before being able to build a two-roomed shack for the five families to inhabit.

Adding to the tragedy, a second brother ventured back to the Mosul house in December 2006 to pick up supplies for winter, such as blankets. He never returned. A neighbour later called up to say he too had been killed.

"We did not know who, what or why," Mr Mohsen said, grim-faced.

Last February, Iraqi forces raided his uncle's house next door, which militants had turned into a base. After a 30-minute firefight, three men were killed and four men and three women taken away.

In the afternoon a supposed associate of the gang visited the neighbourhood and blew up the house. Months later, Mr Mohsen's house was also levelled.

Asked whether he would ever return to Mosul to re-start his life, the man said: "I cannot go home. They will kill us all in a day."

'We are killed because we are Christians'

[Shammu]

CHRISTIAN AID WORKER BEHEADED FOR CONVERTING FROM ISLAM
Anti-Christian violence spills into Kenya as Somali Muslims attack in Nairobi.
October 27, 2008

Mansuur Mohammed
NAIROBI, Kenya, October 27 (Compass Direct News) – Among at least 24 aid workers killed in Somalia this year was one who was beheaded last month specifically for converting from Islam to Christianity, among other charges, according to an eyewitness.

Muslim extremists from the al Shabab group fighting the transitional government on Sept. 23 sliced the head off of Mansuur Mohammed, 25, a World Food Program (WFP) worker, before horrified onlookers of Manyafulka village, 10 kilometers (six miles) from Baidoa.

The militants had intercepted Mohammed and a WFP driver, who managed to escape, earlier in the morning. Sources close to Mohammed’s family said he converted from Islam to Christianity in 2005.

The eyewitness, who requested anonymity for security reasons, said the militants that afternoon gathered the villagers of Manyafulka, telling them that they would prepare a feast for them. The people gathered anticipating the slaughter of a sheep, goat or camel according to local custom.

Five masked men emerged carrying guns, wielding Somali swords and dragging the handcuffed Mohammed. One pulled back Mohammed’s head, exposing his face as he scraped his sword against his short hair as if to sharpen it. Another recited the Quran as he proclaimed that Mohammed was a “murtid,” an Arabic term for one who converts from Islam to Christianity.

The Muslim militant announced that Mohammed was an infidel and a spy for occupying Ethiopian soldiers.

Mohammed remained calm with an expressionless face, never uttering a word, said the eyewitness. As the chanting of “Allah Akubar [God is greater]” rose to a crescendo, one of the militiamen twisted his head, allowing the other to slit his neck. When the head was finally severed from the torso, the killers cheered as they displayed it to the petrified crowd.

The militants allowed one of their accomplices to take a video of the slaughter using a mobile phone. The video was later circulated secretly and sold in Somalia and in neighboring countries in what many see as a strategy to instill fear among those contemplating conversion from Islam to Christianity.

Unconfirmed reports indicated that a similar incident took place in Lower Juba province of Somalia in July, when Christians found with Bibles were publicly executed. Their families fled to Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya, and such killings are forcing other Christians to flee to neighboring Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti.

Somalis Attacking Somalis

Somali refugees to Kenya include Nur Mohammed Hassan, in Nairobi under U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees asylum. In spite of the protection, two weeks ago five Somali Muslims broke into Mohammed Hassan’s house and beat him and his family, he told Compass.

“On Oct. 14 five Muslims entered my house around 10 o’clock in the night and forced us out after beating us indiscriminately,” Mohammed Hassan said, adding that the youngest of his eight children suffers from a liver disease. “Thank God the police arrived immediately and saved our lives. For two days now we have been sleeping outside in the cold. We have been receiving police security, but for how long will this continue?”

Mohammed Hassan now lives in Eastliegh, Nairobi with his wife and children. He had fled Mogadishu after Muslims murdered his sister, Mariam Mohammed Hassan, in April 2005, allegedly for distributing Bibles in the capital.

“We are nowadays no better than our fellow Somali Christians inside Somalia who are killed like dogs when discovered to be Christians,” Mohammed Hassan said. “We are not safe living here in Eastleigh. The Muslims killed my sister in Mogadishu, and now they are planning to kill me and my family.”

The last three years in Nairobi, he said, he has suffered many setbacks at the hands of other Somali immigrants.

“Indeed the situation for the Muslim Christians in Kenya and Somalia is disastrous and horrifying – we are risking our lives for choosing to follow Christ,” he said. “My family is in danger. No peace, no security. We are lacking the basic necessities of life.”

One of the most dangerous countries in the world, Somalia is subject to suicide bombings, sea piracy and routine human rights violations. Islamic militants object to foreign troop intervention, especially those from neighboring Ethiopia. Christians and anyone sympathetic to Western ideals are targeted, with foreign aid workers especially vulnerable in the past year.

Aid groups have counted 24 aid workers, 20 of them Somalis, who have been killed this year in Somalia, with more than 100 attacks on aid agencies reported. In their strategy to destabilize the government, the Islamic militants target relief groups as the U.N. estimates 3.2 million Somalis (nearly a third of the population) depend on such aid.

Somali Islamic clerics such as Ahlsunna Waljamea have condemned the killing of aid workers in Somalia.

CHRISTIAN AID WORKER BEHEADED FOR CONVERTING FROM ISLAM