Barnabas Aid November/December 2007

barnabasaid The magazine of Barnabas Fund HOPE AND AID FOR THE PERSECUTED CHURCH

November/December 2007

Iraq’s Martyrs

barnabasaid From the director NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2007

Contents

To guard the safety of Christians in hostile environments names have often been changed or omitted. Thank you for your understanding.

3 Project News

Transforming the lives of Christian women

6 Focus

Betrayed! The story of Iraq’s Christians

Information pull-out

Text books that teach hatred

11 Newsroom

Norway’s Muslims on freedom of conscience

14 The Other Nine

Being a Christian in Egypt

15 In Touch

Barnabas supporters and how they are helping

Cover: Sixteen of the many Christians killed in Iraq in recent years. Names and dates of death are as follows: Top row, L to R: Hazim Petrus Damman, 10 April 2003; Paulos Iskander, 11 October 2006; Anita Tyadors, 8 August 2005; Ninos Shamuel Adam, 11 June 2006.

Second row, L to R: Wael Yousif Yacoub, 16 March 2005; Randy Robert Alexin (age 5, shown here with his family), 2 June 2005; Salwan Sabah Jabbar, 21 July 2006; Rushid Noel Essa, 7 June 2006.

Third row, L to R: Matti Shamoun Zora Shaya, 26 August 2005; Joseph Fraidon Potros, 11 October 2006; Sargon Sabah Yacoub, 16 January 2007; Nasrin Shaba Murad, 25 October 2004.

Fourth row, L to R: Laith Gabriel Hoodi, 18 May 2005; Haitham H.M. Ghazala, 12 February 2007; Faraj Moshe Markhai, 4 June 2004; Ghassan E. Rofa Haido, 17 August 2006.

Not knowing where he was going Early one September morning last year I climbed up the ancient ziggurat in Ur of the Chaldeans, the place from which Abraham set out on his journey to the Promised Land.

Surveying the panorama, I was deeply moved. From here Abraham left, moving northwest through what is modernday Iraq, then on to Haran (in modern Turkey), finally dropping down southwards into the Holy Land.

Abraham did not know where he was going (Hebrews 11:8) and when he reached his destination he was like a stranger in a foreign country (Hebrews 11:9). He lived in tents, indicating an existence that was unsettled and impermanent, and faced opposition and hostility at every turn.

Today many Christians are leaving Iraq from Basra (not so far from ancient Ur), Baghdad, Mosul and elsewhere. Fleeing the appalling anti-Christian violence, they cross into Syria to cities such as Qamishli, Hassake, Aleppo and Damascus, some entering into Jordan.

Many, like Abraham, do not know where they are going. Their future is fraught with uncertainty. Destitution and deprivation mark their condition. They will be living as foreigners in countries such as Syria and Jordan.

Like Abraham their hope is on heaven the eternal city (Hebrews 11:10) but still they are looking for a place on earth where they will gain acceptance.

God had a purpose for Abraham, one which he did not fully realise when he started his journey, but was to result in blessing for all peoples (Genesis 12:3). We do not know God’s mind for His people in Iraq or why they have had to undergo such tragedies in history and in our own time, but we know that God’s purposes for them will be realised. Prior to the Armenian genocide which peaked in 1915, Christians had

prophesied that there would be an Armenian diaspora and that out of this tragedy would come great blessing. Although an estimated 1.5 million Armenians died when they were driven from their homes by the Ottomans, the survivors and their descendants settled across the Middle East and elsewhere, creating a Christian presence and witness wherever they went.

Such was the case after the martyrdom of Stephen in the first century. The church at Jerusalem was scattered during the great persecution which broke out, but “those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went” (Acts 8:4).

Let us believe that it will be the same for the Church in Iraq. A new day is dawning, and we, the Church outside of Iraq, are called at this time to care, to provide, to pray for the Iraqi Church. We must use every means possible, under God, not just to ensure her survival, but to enable her to fulfil God’s divine purposes for her and for the world.

Barnabas Fund is heavily involved in supporting the Iraqi Church. We are working closely with Christian leaders in Iraq and surrounding countries as well as the West to mount a major campaign to help those who have embarked on this new exodus. We have called our campaign Save Iraqi Christians. Read more about it in the enclosed leaflet. Recently I was at a meeting of senior Christian leaders from Iraq, who had gathered in Syria to discuss how Barnabas Fund can assist the refugees. I shared with them a verse in my daily devotional reading that morning from Isaiah 16:3 (NIV) “ Do not betray the refugees.” We urge you to stand with us as we engage in this task, so that our Christian brothers and sisters, now refugees, are not betrayed.

Dr Patrick Sookhdeo International Director

Iraq The betrayal of the Christians

There is a saying among Christians in the Middle East that every time Europeans intervene in the Middle East the indigenous Christians suffer. This has been true for many centuries. Muslim anger at intervention by the “Christian” West is all too often channelled into hatred for the local Christian population, considered allies of the West because of their shared religion. This pattern has repeated itself ever since the first Islamic jihad that overran Christian lands in the Middle East. It was reinforced by the Crusades and further developed by colonialism and its aftermath.

European demands for protection and equality for Christian minorities in the Ottoman Empire only made the Muslim majority more aggressive to the Christians. For in Muslim eyes, if Christians got equality they had broken the dhimma¹ contract of submission to their Muslim rulers and therefore were liable to jihad. They were also increasingly seen as allies of the imperial Christian Western powers and enemies of Islam.

The Assyrian genocide and the First World War

with the Russians against the asked to be returned to Hakkari Ottomans. When the Russian as a homeland of their own. front collapsed in 1917 due to This could have been possible in the communist the immediate The terrible Armenian genocide revolution, Thirteen women kidnapped aftermath of the which peaked in 1915 is they were left and killed, October 2006 war, but the allies relatively well known in the alone to face Thirteen Christian women were failed to press West. Less well known is the might of for an Assyrian kidnapped and killed because the fact that between 1914 the Ottoman homeland. they did not wear the traditional and 1918 the Ottoman Turks, army. The Islamic head covering.

In 1918 an using the Kurds to help them, British, who Anglo-French also massacred some 750,000 had invaded Declaration Assyrians, a Christian people Mesopotamia (Iraq), offered had referred to indigenous originally from Iraq. The weapons if the Assyrians would Continued on page 8 Assyrians refer to this as the hold the eastern front until “Seyfo” (the sword). they could link up with them.

Student murdered in Mosul, When the Ottoman Empire The British also held forth 8 August 2005 entered the First World War as the possibility of an Assyrian Anita Tyadors, a 21-yearan ally of Germany in 1915, the homeland under allied protection old student at Nineveh Art Sultan had a jihad proclaimed. after the war. The Assyrians thus Academy, was kidnapped and For many Muslims this simply became official allies of Britain, murdered in the al-Zohoor meant the opportunity to and were nicknamed “Britain’s quarter of Mosul as she left massacre and loot the local smallest ally”. However, British an Internet café. Around ten Christian populations, especially help did not materialise and attackers pistol-whipped her, the Armenians and Assyrians. the Turks gradually weakened threw her limp body into the This was supported by the Assyrian defences, forcing the boot of a car and drove her government’s drive to ethnically Assyrians to flee. Large numbers to a remote location, where cleanse its border areas from were massacred en route or died they beat her and stabbed her Christian elements. In June from starvation and disease. to death. They then shot at 1915 Turks and Most fled to her dead body and finished Kurds attacked Hamadan in Two sisters murdered, with a bullet to her head. Her the Assyrians Persia where the Baghdad, 14 July 2004 body was and massacred British military A Christian family had been mutilated many. Some disarmed them threatened by radical Muslims. beyond 80,000 Assyrians While the parents were away, and sent them to recognition fled eastward. refugee camps attackers broke into the house when it at Baqubah near Some Assyrians and shot the two sisters, Raneed was found Baghdad. By in the Hakkari² Raad (16) and Raphid (6), at dumped in 1919 there were region allied point blank range. the Akkad some 25,000 themselves cemetery. refugees, who 6 Barnabas AID Nov/Dec 2007

Focus How the anti-Christian threats come Letter 1 The radical Shi‘a Mahdi Army sent this typed letter to Christians in Baghdad ordering all Christian women to veil themselves or face the consequences.

Furthermore, His Eminence Mohammad al-Sadr prohibited self-adoration and not wearing the veil in a number of religious edicts, including: Question: What is the punishment of the woman who does not commit to the legal veil?

Answer: In the name of the Supreme Being, She is an adulteress, and she even proclaims sinfulness, challenges and fights Allah and his Prophet and ignores and Translation: neglects religion. So what would be her fate but hell and that is best outcome for The Legal Veil her?

Allah be praised, said in His perfect and Question: What measure should be noble book: taken against a woman who disobeys her In the Name of Allah, the Most father, husband, or her guardian by not Beneficent, the Most Merciful committing to the legal veil?

(And do not display yourselves like that Answer: In the name of the Supreme of the times of ignorance) -- Affirmed Being, they must order her in a courteous Allah the Mighty manner to abstain from the forbidden.

If she refuses, he then must guide and Surah Al-Ahzab -- Verse 33 educate her religiously in order to According to Ali, Prince of Believers (peace be upon him), he said, “We were convince her. If she is not convinced still, with the Prophet (saas) and he said, Tell then they must imprison her at home me what is best for women? The Prince and do not expose her to the forbidden interaction with men. of Believers said, when I went back to Fatima (peace be upon her) and told her Note: Based on this, special committees have been established to follow up on this about what the Prophet (saas) said to us, Fatima said: ‘It is best for women not matter and she who is warned is excused. to see men and for the men not to see Preparation them.’”

The People’s Foundation for the Master And in the Noble Narrative (She who al-Mahdi Army. went out of her home adorned with finery and ornaments or scented with perfumes is under the cursing of Allah, angels and the people all together until she goes back home. Neither a religious duty nor a gift shall be accepted from her until she performs the ritual Text ablution. ) According to martyr Mohammad A text message was sent to the Mohammad Sadiq al-Sadr (Sacred be phone of a Christian young man in his noble secret): “Was the Virgin Mary Mosul on January 17, 2007. (peace be upon her) unveiled so that “From the Mujahidin to the Christian women be allowed to be Christian dog, Kamal. Don’t answer unveiled? Was Fatima al-Zahra unveiled? us. We know where you are hiding, And were the wives of the Caliphs in the First Caliphate or others unveiled? No and we are going to attack all your and then no…Allah forbid and far be it possessions wherever they are. We from all of them.” know it in detail.”

Letter 2 A handwritten letter sent to one Christian family

Translation: In the Name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful (And do not display yourselves like that of the times of ignorance)—Affirmed Allah the Mighty From the leadership of Islamic Badr Forces To the noble family We hope from the head of this family to stand with the Muslim Brotherhoods concerning the veil, honour and in following the Islamic principles that were practised by Muslims in older periods. We the Iraqi people are Muslim people that do not tolerate sin.

If you did not follow the instructions in this letter or its proclamation, then we will set out to: 1. Embark on the unbearable 2. Kill 3. Kidnap 4. Burn the house including what is inside or bomb it This is directed to the girls of the family, the mother of the two children and the little girl.

Copy to: Islamic Badr Forces, Najaf [The following is unclear, but possible] Tehran Badrjanah Islamic Campaign [The following is unclear, but possible] Badr Fighting Propaganda Signed Badr Forces 12 Rabi’ al-Awwal [3rd month of the Islamic Calendar], 14?? [Year not clear, possibly 1424, which would be May 14, 2003 AD] Kamal’s attackers accused him of criticising Islam. He paid them some money after getting this message, but other Muslim groups heard what was happening and also began to demand money from him.

NOV/ DEC 2007 Barnabas AID 7

Focus Assyrian villages in northern Iraq government for the Assyrians as were burned down. There was part of the post-war settlement. also much anti-Assyrian hysteria In 1919 an Assyrian delegation among Iraqi Muslims. As a result, in Paris claimed an independent some 6,000 Assyrians fled to Syria state. Others requested a British and settled there. At least 36 protectorate. The Chaldean Assyrian villages in northern Syria Patriarch also asked for a today are largely Europeanpopulated by protected Threats to kill one member these refugees state for his of every Christian family, and their people. Some Karakush, 2 November 2004 descendants.

Assyrians Church leaders in Karakush The British did called for near Mosul received a letter not defend the Hakkari to be that threatened to kill one Assyrians during included in person in every family. This the massacres, British Iraq was to be their punishment claiming it was rather than for allowing their women to only a minor in Turkey. go out with heads uncovered incident.

In 1924 the and for allowing them to Turks invaded During the attend university. Before this Hakkari and a Second World event, radical Islamists had further 8,000 War some warned all women in Mosul to Assyrians were 40,000 Assyrians cover their heads. On October driven into were enrolled in 26th 2004 a Christian woman Iraq. By 1925 the British RAF was killed for having her the borders levies based in head uncovered. Two other between the Habbaniyah, Christian women not wearing new states of Iraq. They head-covering had nitric acid Turkey and distinguished squirted in their faces in the Iraq had been themselves in market. drawn, leaving the fight against Hakkari within the Rashid Turkey. The Ali revolt in Turkish and Persian governments 1941. Again there were hopes for refused the Assyrians the right of Assyrian autonomy under British return, so the refugees in Baqubah protection, which as usual were had to stay in Iraq. dashed. The levies were finally disbanded in 1955 at the time of the British withdrawal from Iraq.

The Assyrians’ military alliance In 1919 the British organised some with the British had brought them Assyrian men into special military no political gains, and had in fact units, the Assyrian levies, which made their plight worse. Most were used to guard aerodromes Assyrians still feel a deep sense and to suppress Kurdish and of betrayal by the British, further nationalist Iraqi Arab rebellions. aggravated by the 2003 invasion of The Assyrian levies were intensely Iraq and its aftermath. pro-British and displayed great bravery and good fighting qualities. After the 1930 AngloIraqi Treaty, they were gradually disbanded.

The ruling class of Iraq was hostile The Assyrians (in its broad sense) to the Assyrians because of their are the largest non-Muslim alliance with the British and their community in Iraq. Under request to the League of Nations Saddam Hussein’s drive for for an autonomous status in Iraq. arabisation, Assyrian culture was By 1933 there was great tension repressed and many emigrated between the Iraqi government to the West. During campaigns and the Assyrians. The Iraqi against the Kurds, the Saddam army organised and carried out a regime also destroyed some 150 series of massacres near Simmele Assyrian villages in the north and in which some 3,000 Assyrians some 60 churches. Thousands of were killed. Priests were tortured Assyrians were deported in the and some Assyrians were forcibly ethnic cleansing and Arabs were converted to Islam. Around 65 settled in their homes and villages.

Allied with the British again

From independance to the 2003 invasion

8 Barnabas AID Nov/Dec 2007

The main street of Tel-Breej, an Assyrian Christian village in northern Syria

Following the establishment of a Kurdish safe haven in 1991, Assyrians have gradually returned to some of their villages and started to rebuild them.

Christians in Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion The US-led invasion in 2003 was intended to save Iraq from the cruel dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and to establish a democratic secular state in Iraq.

Many Iraqis had high hopes of freedom and equality at its start.

However these hopes were soon dashed by the ensuing chaos in which Christians have become the target of persecution and of ethnic cleansing by radical Islamist groups, both Sunni and Shi‘a, seeking the total Islamisation of Iraq. As both non-Arabs and non-Muslims, they are held in contempt and suspected of being allied to the Western forces.

Furthermore, as the Kurds resettle the areas which Saddam Hussein had arabised, the indigenous Assyrians are sometimes being displaced along with the Arabs.

While Assyrians and other Christians are generally offered some protection by the Kurdish authorities in the north, they are still in need of a great deal of care and attention from the North Iraq Regional Government, the Iraqi Government and the international community.

Since 2003 Christians have had churches and institutions bombed, businesses destroyed, property confiscated, and individuals kidnapped and killed. Christian women are being forced to wear Islamic dress and many have been Continued on page 10

Focus Who are the Christians of Iraq?

The original Christian community in Iraq are the Assyrians. They are conscious of their identity as the indigenous people of the country, descended from the ancient Assyrians. The capital of the Assyrian Empire, Nineveh (near Mosul in modern Iraq), and the story of Jonah sent to call it to repentance are part of their unique heritage. Tradition says that it was the apostles Peter and Thomas who first brought the Gospel to the Assyrians.

Similar to the Assyrians, though having their own different church, are the members of the Syriac community. Some believe they are descended from the Arameans of Biblical times.

Chaldeans are ethnic Assyrians belonging to a church linked to the Roman Catholic church. They stress their link to the ancient Babylonians of the region.

There is also a small Armenian Christian community, as well as Protestants who are converts in the last few generations from a variety of backgrounds.

Why are we confused?

The confusion in European languages between “Syrians” (i.e. Syriacs) and “Assyrians” is due to the ancient Greeks.

The Greeks transliterated “Assyria” as “Syria”. To make matters worse they then used “Syrian” to mean “Aramean” as well as to mean “Assyrian”.

To complicate matters still further, in ancient church terminology the Assyrians were also termed the Eastern Syrian Church and the Syriacs were termed the Western Syrian Church.

In modern times, the term Assyrian is often used to mean the indigenous Christian community of Iraq, sometimes defined as the “Chaldean Assyrian Syriac nation”. These Christians form a distinct community with their own language (though lost by most Chaldeans since the eighteenth century) and cultural traditions. Their language and their Christian faith are the two main elements of Assyrian identity. The various Assyrian churches were great missionary churches and carried Christianity into Central Asia as far as India, China, Tibet, Mongolia and even Japan.

Iraqi Christians (approximate figures) Chaldeans 52% Church of the East (Assyrians) 22% Syriacs 16% Armenians 6% Protestants 4%

Following the Islamic conquests in the seventh century AD, the Assyrians became part of the subjugated dhimma¹ people. They were great scholars, translators and doctors and contributed much to the emerging Islamic civilisation by passing on Greek, Syriac and other Christian learning to the Arabs.

As a non-Muslim minority they faced intolerance, contempt and periodic persecution from the Muslim authorities and from marauding Muslim tribes of Arabs, Turks, Mongols and Kurds.

Between 1258 and 1295 they had a brief period of freedom under the rule of pagan Mongols, which ended when the Mongol rulers converted to Islam. The Assyrians were almost totally wiped out in Central Asia by the Muslim Mongol ruler Tamerlane in the fourteenth century.

Still speaking in Jesus’ language Aramaic was the lingua franca of the Persian Empire after it conquered Babylon (539 BC) and of a large part of the Middle East until after the Islamic conquests in the seventh century AD. Aramaic (also called Syriac in the Christian era) was the mother tongue of the Lord Jesus.

Assyrian and Syriac Christians still use classical Aramaic as their liturgical language, which exists in two dialects. The western dialect is used by the Syriacs and the eastern dialect by the Assyrians (Church of the East). In the home they speak a vernacular called “Swadaya” (but often known as “Assyrian”) which is 60% derived from Aramaic. This also exists in two dialects.

Meanwhile in the Ottoman and Persian Empires, Assyrians survived in a precarious and marginal way, facing frequent attacks from the surrounding Kurdish and Turkmen tribes.

In the nineteenth century the Ottoman Empire began to weaken while the Russian Empire was growing stronger and conquering more territory. Assyrians began to hope for liberation from Islamic rule. Some European powers spoke of the need to protect the Christian minorities, but this simply fuelled Muslim hostility. However, when in the 1840s Kurds massacred Assyrians in Hakkari there was no European intervention on their behalf. Again in 1884-1896 Assyrians were massacred alongside Armenians by Kurdish tribes and militias and Ottoman soldiers.

NOV/ DEC 2007 Barnabas AID 9

Focus raped. In several areas Christians try to please their Muslim have been called upon to choose compatriots, the radicals always whether to pay the demeaning find justifications to attack them. jizya tax, accept Islam, leave Conversion, death or expulsion or be killed. While many have seem to be the only terms on fled to the Kurdish areas and offer from the radical Sunni and Nineveh Plains, Shi‘a groups. hundreds of Christian teenager beheaded thousands have in Baqubah, 21 October left the country 2006 altogether, the Ayad Tarik, aged 14, was at majority of them his work place, maintaining being now in The US, UK an electric generator, when a Syria. It seems and their allies group of Muslim insurgents like a repeat of entered the building and asked are offering the events in no special for his identity card. When 1933. they saw that it stated he was a protection to What is Christian, they asked him if he the persecuted happening now really was a “Christian sinner”. religious minorities in to the Christians Ayad answered that he was Iraq and have in Iraq is ethnic a Christian, but not a sinner. tended to ignore cleansing or The insurgents then called the effects of genocide. him a “dirty Christian sinner”, their policies and beheaded him, pulling his While all of on non-Muslim limbs and shouting “Allahu Iraq’s minorities minorities.

Akbar”. have suffered They employed persecution many workers since 2003, the Assyrian and translators from these Christians seem to have suffered minorities, without providing for disproportionately. According their protection from vengeful to Minority Rights Group militants. Only Denmark International they are the second has voluntarily accepted most endangered minority group responsibility for its hired Iraqi in the world,³ facing extinction in employees and moved them en their traditional homeland. masse to Denmark. Sweden However hard the Christians has been generous in granting

Allied responsibilty

Barnabas Fund is helping many hundreds of Iraqi Christian families. Some are still living in their homeland, while others have fled to Syria and Jordan seeking safety. Funds are sent through local churches or Christian organisations in all three countries, whose leaders use them carefully to help the families with food and other basic needs such as rent, medical help and school fees.

Sometimes Christian leaders choose to tell the recipients that their help has been sent from Barnabas Fund.

This can be an encouragement, reassuring the Christians that they are remembered and loved by their Christian family in other parts of the world.

When funds were distributed to 243 families at a church in Syria last September, there were speeches and prayers for the staff and supporters of Barnabas Fund, and the Scouts brass band played. One Iraqi refugee quoted from Song of Songs 8:7 “Many waters cannot quench love.”

Another thanked the church leader 10 Barnabas AID Nov/Dec 2007

and his staff for their assistance and then went on to thank visitors from Barnabas Fund: Today we’re here to meet another group of those Jesus followers. They were unknown to us till this moment… They were working for us to help us forget our pain and sorrow, and we ask them to allow us to call them a name we suggested, “the Iraqis’ happy dream makers”.

Finally I ask the rhymes and alphabets to forgive me, since I couldn’t find the exact words which explain our real feelings towards you, and simply please accept our prayers and invocations to God to bless you, and thank you. (Mazin Elias Thomas, September 16th, 2007)

Thank you to all Barnabas Fund supporters whose donations enable us to keep helping our Iraqi brothers and sisters in their time of trial. It is only by your generosity that Barnabas

asylum to Assyrians who today number some 100,000 in Sweden.

Britain and America, the main instigators of the 2003 invasion, have been the most miserly in giving asylum to endangered Iraqis.

Create a safe haven for the Assyrians?

Some Assyrian groups are calling for an autonomous Assyrian Administrative Region to be created in the Nineveh Plains of northern Iraq. The aim is to create a safe haven for Assyrians, but who would protect this enclave from its enemies? Would an Assyrian militia be created strong enough and well enough armed to guard its frontiers? The enclave would be sandwiched between Arabs and Kurds, both claiming the area. While the Western allies protected the Kurdish safe haven during the Saddam era, they are not in a position to offer protection to an Assyrian enclave today. ¹Dhimma are defined in Islam as the Christian and Jewish communities under Islamic rule.

They were second class subjects, permitted to live and keep their own faiths in return for paying a poll tax (jizya) and obeying various demeaning regulations. ²A mountainous area of south-eastern Turkey, it is one of the heartlands of the Assyrian Christians. ³Bel Jacobs, “Minority with a major crisis”, MetroFocus, 16 August 2007.

Fund can, in the metaphor of Mazin Elias Thomas, give Iraqi Christians “happy dreams” instead of cares and sorrows.

An Iraqi Christian refugee in Syria, one of those whom Barnabas Fund is helping

Helping Iraqi Christians (general), reference 20-227 Food and basic needs for Christians in Iraq, reference 20-246 Food and basic needs for Iraqi Christian refugees in Syria and Jordan, reference 20-383

Newsroom Norway: Christians and Muslims agree on Egypt: Hopes raised the right to convert between faiths then dashed for converts from Islam Christian and Muslim groups in Norway signed a joint declaration on 22nd August affirming the right to convert from one faith to another without fear of harassment or violence. The statement signed by the Church of Norway Council on Ecumenical and International Relations and the Islamic Council of Norway said, “We reject and want to work against violence, discrimination and harassment due to a person wanting to convert or having converted from one religion to another.”

This simple statement contradicts the teaching of Islamic law (shari`a) that apostasy from Islam is a serious offence punishable by a raft of penalties including death for adult males. As such, the Norwegian statement could set an important precedent. “As far as we know, this is the first time that a church and representative national Muslim organisation have jointly acknowledged the right to convert,” commented Olav Fykse Tveit, secretary-general of the church council.

Egypt: Teenage Christian twins to be treated as Muslims?

Christian twins, Andrew and Mario Medhat Ramsis, are in danger of being effectively forced to convert to Islam. The boys’ father converted to Islam voluntarily some years ago and divorced their Christian mother, with whom the boys continued to live. A court in Alexandria has now ruled that the 13-year-olds must live with their father and his new (Muslim) wife, which means they would be treated by the authorities as if they were Muslims. According to one source, their father has already had the religion changed on their birth certificates to “Muslim” without his sons’ consent. A final ruling on the case was due on

September 3rd but the session was adjourned.

Andrew and Mario are staunch Christians. Having been forced to study Islamic religion at school because they were now considered Muslims, they both handed in exam answers on which they had written only the single sentence, “I am a Christian.” The school initially refused to move them up to the next grade without a pass in Islamic religion, but Egypt’s Education Minister intervened on August 25th, after international and domestic pressure, to say that the boys would be able to move up.

In an extraordinary sequence of events in late July, Egypt’s Grand Mufti first amazed Egyptians by stating that there should be no worldly punishment for “abandoning one’s religion” and then issued a complete denial of what he had said. The end result is that Egyptian Christians from a Muslim background remain in the same predicament about legal identity and facing the same kinds of harassment and persecution as before.

On 24th July the Egyptian press picked up a statement by Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa from a posting on a Washington Post-Newsweek website, saying that abandoning one’s religion is punishable by God on the Day of Judgement, but not in this world unless it involves undermining “the foundations of society”. But the following day, 25th July, Gulf News reported that Ali Gomaa denied he had made the statement and reiterated his previous position that apostasy from Islam is a crime which must be punished.

One of the biggest problems facing Egyptian Christians from a Muslim background is that the authorities will never change their identity cards to show that they are now Christians. Yet it is quick and easy to change a Christian identity card into a Muslim identity card. Being legally considered a Muslim has severe implications for Christians, especially in marriage, inheritance and other family legal matters.

Although Egyptian liberals have been asking for decades that religion be removed from official documents like ID cards, so as to prevent discrimination, nothing has changed. However in the last few months, the issue has become one of public debate as a number of Christians have taken their cases to court.

Andrew and Mario NOV/ DEC 2007 Barnabas AID 11

Newsroom Egypt: Christians arrested for exposing alleged murder of another Christian by police Two Egyptian Christians from a Canadian based organisation, the Middle East Christian Association (MECA), were investigating an incident in Cairo in which a Christian fell to his death from his balcony.

The man had made a formal complaint about police attempts at extortion and brutality. Shortly afterwards, two police officers came to his home to try to force him to withdraw his complaints. When he refused they allegedly threw him from the balcony in the presence of his family and other eye witnesses.

On 7 August several members of MECA came to gather evidence of what had happened. Less than 24 hours later the two were arrested by the State Security and face a variety of charges. They were detained for 15 days pending investigation.

Malaysian state introduces caning as punishment for evangelism, pays Muslims to marry non-Muslims and convert them Kelantan, one of the most Islamic states in Malaysia, approved changes to the law on June 26th which increase the maximum penalty for trying to convert a Muslim to another faith. The new amendments permit six strokes of the cane, five years in prison and a fine of 10,000 ringgits (£1,430; US$2,800; NZ$4,000; A$3,430; €2,140) for non-Muslims who share their faith with Muslims.

The previous maximum penalty was a two-year sentence and a 5,000 ringgit fine.

The aim of the new penalties is to act as a deterrent, explained Hassan Mohamood, chairman of the state Religious Affairs committee.

While on the one hand increasing the punishment for those who share other faiths with a Muslim, Kelantan is simultaneously offering financial rewards for any “Muslim missionary” who manages to marry an Orang Asli person and convert them to Islam.

The Orang Asli are the indigenous people; traditionally they do not follow any of the major world faiths.

According to Hassan Mohamood a reward of 10,000 ringgits will go to any Muslim missionary, male or female, who succeeds in this, as well as free accommodation, a four-wheel drive vehicle and a monthly allowance of 1,000 ringgits. When asked if men could take Orang Asli women to be their second or third wife, Hassan Mohamood replied that it depended on the individual.

Malaysian Muslims. In Kelantan state someone telling a Muslim about Christianity could now be punished by caning

Uzbekistan: Churches and Christian ministries raided On 9th August fifteen police officers came to a church called “Peace” in the town of Nukus with a video camera. The pastor and his family, who live in the building, were arrested, along with their guests who came from another church in the neighbouring town. Bibles and song books were seized. The following day another church 12 Barnabas AID Nov/Dec 2007

in Nukus was raided and more books, CDs and other materials seized. The pastor was arrested.

On 21st August officials from the Public Prosecutor’s Office searched the storage facilities of a Christian charity in Tashkent, seizing medications, toiletries

and Christian symbols such as crosses.

Christians have been told that officials want to close down the ministry. They believe this attack may be at the request of a local mafia boss, who used to own the cinema which they bought and converted for use by the ministry.

Newsroom India: Governors halt progress of anti-conversion laws Seven Indian states now have some form of “anti-conversion” legislation, but it is only actually in force in three of them – Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Orissa. The recently passed Freedom of Religion Acts - the official name of what are popularly called “anti-conversion laws” - are ostensibly designed to prevent religious conversion by force, fraud or allurement.

But in practice it seems that the main aim is to prevent conversions from Hinduism to Christianity. Some of the new laws are tougher versions of previous similar laws. Most of the states involved are controlled by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

According to the Indian Constitution, a bill cannot become law until the state governor signs it. After signature, it still cannot be put into practice until the state government has framed rules to implement it. The anticonversion legislation in the other four states is held up at one or other of these two stages. Earlier this year the governors of both Rajasthan and Gujarat refused to sign legislation introduced by their respective governments in 2006. Meanwhile in Arunachal Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh the law has been signed, but the rules have yet to be framed.

Chhattisgarh governor raises questions

Several states in India are passing legislation to make it difficult for hindus to convert to another faiths, but some state governers are objecting

Gujarat tries again

Now the governor of Chhattisgarh, one of the states where an anti-conversion law is actually in operation, has questioned the law on two counts.

On 21st August Governor Ekkadu Srinivasan objected to excessive government control and to a religious double standard. One provision of the bill requires people to get permission from the district collector before any conversion and another part allows people to “return to Hinduism” without it being counted as conversion and therefore being subject to the legislation.

Meanwhile in Gujarat the state government has reacted to their governor’s decision not to sign by immediately announcing their determination to reintroduce an earlier version of the bill. This earlier version was passed in 2003 and gained the governor’s assent but was never implemented, reportedly because the state legal department objected to some of its provisions.

Pakistan: Christian girls kidnapped, 11-year-old forced to convert to Islam and marry An 11-year-old Christian girl called Zunaira, living in Faisalabad, was kidnapped on 5th August by a Muslim called Muhammad Adnan and his sister. They forced Zunaira to convert to Islam (reciting the Islamic creed is usually considered conversion) and then to marry Muhammad, her kidnapper. Zunaira’s desperately poor mother gave money to the kidnappers to try to gain her daughter’s freedom, but she has not been released.

On 16th August Shumaila Tabussum (aged 16) was kidnapped from her home in the same city by a group of Muslims, who got her into their car by telling her that her father had been seriously injured and offering to drive her to the hospital where he had been taken.

Sadly, such abuse of Christian girls by Muslim men is not uncommon in Pakistan. The police normally do little or nothing to help.

China: Church raided while 150 children attend holiday bible school The Zhongzhuang house church in Jianhu City, Jiangsu Province, China, was raided by the authorities on July 11th while a Holiday Bible School for 150 children was in progress.

At least eight Christians were taken away, including the pastor and some of the teachers of the “Harmony Express” Holiday Bible School. Two of the Christians were beaten so severely that blood was coming from their mouths and one lost consciousness for half an hour.

Church property including a video camera and a computer was seized.

NOV/ DEC 2007 Barnabas AID 13