Sudan & Syria: millions of Christians facing death

By Elizabeth Kendal
Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin (RLPB) 147 
Special to ASSIST News Service

AUSTRALIA (ANS) -- Millions of Christians' lives are at risk on account of the crises in Sudan and Syria.

SUDAN: NUBA NEED BREAKTHROUGH IN FOOD & SECURITY

As reported in RLPB 145 http://rlprayerbulletin.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/rlpb-145-sudan-burma-christian-refugees.html , the UN estimates that some half-million displaced predominantly Christian African (non-Arab) Nuba will face famine conditions by March. Not content to decimate the Nuba by means of famine -- something the Arab-supremacist, Islamist regime in Khartoum achieved in the early 1990s -- nor to allow their escape into South Sudan, Khartoum appears to be preparing to completely annihilate the Nuba. Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) soldiers are killing Nuba at manned checkpoints. Furthermore SAF tanks and artillery are blocking the refugees' southward escape route through the Kauda Valley while helicopter gunships and Antonovs (used as bombers) arrive at recently renovated airstrips.

The regime has warned that any attempt to cross the southern border with aid for the Nuba would be regarded as a hostile act, i.e. an excuse for war against South Sudan. Urged on by Christian and Jewish anti-genocide groups, the US administration has intensified efforts to pursue a breakthrough in Sudan, even offering to write-off Khartoum's debts, estimated at $2.4 billion. Yet Khartoum remains intransigent, maintaining the Nuba are 'rebels' -- enemies of the state -- being assisted by foreign aid groups.

On Sunday 19 February the Government of Sudan (GoS) agreed to involve international organisations in an operation to assess humanitarian needs in South Kordofan. Khartoum also advised it was considering a proposal put forward by the Arab League. Sudan's Minister of Social Welfare and Security, Amira Al-Fadail, reiterated the GoS position that all aid must be distributed through Sudanese facilities. Of course this has happened before in the early 1990s when the GoS, after engineering famine in the Nuba Mountains, herded the displaced and starving Nuba into 'Peace [concentration] Camps'. Receiving food there was conditional on converting to Islam. Forced thus to choose between Islam and starvation, hundreds of thousands of Nuba chose starvation. To allow repetition of such a situation would be absolutely unacceptable. However, with famine closing in, Sudan analyst Eric Reeves is warning of 'a looming catastrophe that will make Syria, in terms of total casualties, look like a gang war in the park'.

SYRIA: CHRISTIANS NEED BREAKTHROUGH FOR POLITICAL SOLUTION

The NATO-US-Saudi-Gulf Arab alliance and al Qaeda both want the same thing in Syria: regime change to install a Sunni Islamist regime more favourable to their interests. According to former Central Intelligence Agency officer Philip Giraldi, unmarked NATO planes are transporting weapons from Libya to the Free Syrian Army (FSA) base at Iskenderum, on Turkey's border with Syria. Meanwhile, Western Special Forces trainers are there on the ground training the Syrian rebel jihadists [echoes of Afghanistan?]. Furthermore, US military and intelligence drones are operating over Syria, reportedly gathering evidence to 'make a case for an international response', but doubtless also monitoring Syrian troop movements for the FSA.

On 11 February al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri publicly exhorted 'honourable' Muslims across the region to join the jihad in Syria. Subsequently, a group calling itself the Al Baraa Ibn Malik Martyrdom Brigade announced its formation in the Syrian town of Homs and vowed to start employing suicide bombers against Syrian security forces.

British author and a former UK foreign correspondent John Bradley recently cautioned that Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi forces, with funding from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, have totally hijacked the popular revolts. Bradley maintains that the conflict in Syria is now principally a US-Saudi-Gulf Arab alliance war aimed at countering ascendant Iran. He claims that what will come after Assad will be much worse: ' . . . the minority Alawites and Christians and Jews and moderate Sunnis in Syria will fight to the death because they know much better than us that the opposition, the civilian opposition is dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood and the insurgents [are] now infiltrated by Salafi jihadis.' As Bradley notes, for all its faults Assad's has been a secular regime that has protected minorities. Russia is brokering talks. The 2 million-plus Christians in Syria (including over 300,000 Assyrian refugees from Iraq) are in desperate need of a political breakthrough. For, as Bradley notes, the alternative is 'a civil war in Syria that will be so bloody and murderous that it will make what took place in Libya look like a high school prom'.

To see this RLPB with links, go to Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin blog 

PLEASE PRAY SPECIFICALLY THAT GOD WILL --

• send his Holy Spirit into these war zones in a powerful and palpable way, bringing awakening, repentance and spiritual revival to multitudes.
  
• hear the cries of his imperilled people and be quick to answer with demonstrations of power, love and justice; may escape and deliverance be enabled and may there be provision of food, shelter, security and hope.
  
• erect a bulwark against those who devise evil against God's Kingdom and cruelty against his precious children. (See Psalm 140.)
  

SUMMARY FOR BULLETINS UNABLE TO RUN THE WHOLE ARTICLE
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MILLIONS OF CHRISTIANS FACING DEATH IN SUDAN & SYRIA

In Sudan, some half-million predominantly Christian Nuba, displaced by ethnic cleansing in South Kordofan, face impending famine. After destroying their lands, the Arab-supremacist, Islamist regime in Khartoum has closed off not only their escape routes, but all access to humanitarian aid. Satellite images show the government is also concentrating troops in South Kordofan preparing for a military onslaught. Unless there is a breakthrough, the genocide of the Nuba is imminent. Meanwhile in Syria, some two million Christians (including over 300,000 Assyrian refugees from Iraq) face the prospect of a brutal and deadly civil war if the Assad regime falls -- a secular regime that protected minorities. The NATO-US-Saudi-Gulf Arab alliance and al Qaeda are actively backing its destruction. Please pray for breakthroughs in Sudan and Syria. 

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Elizabeth Kendal is an international religious liberty analyst and advocate. This prayer bulletin was initially written for the Australian Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission (AEA RLC). Elizabeth Kendal's blogs: Religious Liberty Monitoring and Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin

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Police Beat, Arrest Evangelist in Sudan

Harassment continues amid growing hostility toward Christians.

KHARTOUM, Sudan, January 20 (CDN) — Police this week beat and arrested a church leader in Khartoum, sources told Compass.

Evangelist James Kat of the Evangelical Church of Sudan was arrested on Tuesday morning (Jan. 17), with officers beating him as they took him to a North Division police station, the sources said. He was released on bail the same day.

Police detained Kat, who lives at the church site, apparently because he was using the place as his home.

“They forced him to go with them to the police station,” an eyewitness said.

The arrest came amid increasing harassment of Christians by Sudanese authorities following the secession of South Sudan on July 9, 2011. In a Jan. 3 letter to Sudanese Presbyterian Evangelical Church (SPEC) leaders, Sudan’s Ministry of Guidance and Religious Endowments threatened to arrest pastors if they carry out evangelistic activities and do not comply with an order for churches to provide the leaders’ names and contact information.

Hamid Yousif Adam, undersecretary of the Ministry of Guidance and Religious Endowment, warned “We have all legal rights to take them to court” in the letter. SPEC leaders said the government is increasingly trying to limit church activities.

Church Takeover
Another church leader was arrested on Monday (Jan. 16) in a SPEC church property dispute in which police and courts have been unjustly biased in favor of Muslims, Christian leaders said.

Officers arrested SPEC worker Gabro Haile Selassie, as he lives on the church property that has been transferred to a Muslim businessman in a disputed agreement; he has refused to be evicted without police providing him an official document indicating the basis for the action.

Selassie, who was released on bail after a few hours, said he fears being arrested again; police are threatening him and his family, warning them to evacuate the house on the church property in downtown Khartoum, so they are staying with friends, he said.

Police have already started demolishing the church compound fence, Selassie added.

“They will definitely demolish my house” he told Compass. “I am in great terror; I’m afraid to sleep in the house, because they may come again and arrest me. This is a clear form of terrorism against Christians.”

Armed police were deployed Sunday evening (Jan.15) to the site to take the property by force, as authorities are supporting Muslim businessman Osman al Tayeb’s efforts to take control of the plot as part of planned confiscation of church property, church leaders said (see “Police in Sudan Aid Muslim’s Effort to Take Over Church Plot,” Oct. 25, 2011). A court has ruled in favor of al Tayeb.

“The government is still trying to get involved in the affairs of the church by supporting people like Osman al Tyab,” said one church leader.

The church had signed a contract with al Tayeb stipulating the terms under which he could attain the property – including providing legal documents such as a construction permit and then obtaining final approval from SPEC – but those terms remained unmet, church officials said.

Church leader Deng Bol said that under terms of the unfulfilled contract, the SPEC would have turned the property over to al Tayeb to construct a business center on the site, with the denomination to receive a share of the returns from the commercial enterprise and regain ownership of the property after 80 years. SPEC leaders had yet to approve the project because of the high risk of permanently losing the property, he said, and they had undertaken legal action to recover it.

SPEC leaders said Muslims have taken over many other Christian properties through similar ploys.

Christians are facing growing threats from both Muslim communities and Islamist government officials who have long wanted to rid Sudan of Christianity, Christian leaders told Compass. They said Christianity is now regarded as a foreign religion following the departure of 350,000 people, most of them Christians, to South Sudan since the secession.

Sudan’s Interim National Constitution holds up sharia (Islamic law) as a source of legislation, and the laws and policies of the government favor Islam, according to the U.S. State Department’s most recent International Religious Freedom Report.

END

Karnataka Most Dangerous State in India for Christians

Detail of painting symbolic of assaults on Christians in India,
 displayed at exhibition in New Delhi last year.
(Photo: Compass)

Southern state remains most volatile place for third straight year.

NEW DELHI, January 13 (CDN) — Attacks on Christians accelerated over the Christmas and New Year’s holidays in the south Indian state of Karnataka, which was identified as the most unsafe place for the religious minority for the third consecutive year in 2011.

With 49 cases of violence and hostility against Christians in 2011, Karnataka remained the state with the highest incidence of persecution, according to the Evangelical Fellowship of India’s annual report, “Battered and Bruised…”

The Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), which is based in Karnataka’s capital of Bengaluru and initially reported most of the incidents, also documented at least six anti-Christian attacks between Christmas Eve 2011 and New Year’s Day.

On the evening of Jan. 1, about 20 men disrupted the New Year’s Day worship service of the Blessing Youth Mission Church at the house of a believer in Hunnur village, in Jamkhandi division of Bagalkot district. Suspected Hindu extremists from the Bajrang Dal, the men manhandled pastor Siddu Seemanth Gunike, accusing him of forcibly and fraudulently converting Hindus. Local police intervened and rescued the pastor and other Christians.

On New Year’s Eve, more than 10 men trespassed onto the premises of the Karnataka Calvary Fellowship Church, in the Ganeshgudi area in Joida division of North Canara district, and disrupted a service of thanksgiving. Believed to be Hindu nationalists, the men forced the church to stop the service. Police arrived but only to summon the pastor, identified as P.R. Jose, to the police station the following morning. After GCIC’s intervention, however, a senior police official assured the Christians of security.

On the evening of Dec. 28, 2011, a group of men from the nationalist Hindu Sriram Sene disrupted the prayer meeting of the Divyadarsana Ministry Church at the home of a Christian, Bima Naik, in SS Layout in Davanagere city, the headquarters of the central Davanagere district. Alleging the meeting was to convert Hindus, the men tried to manhandle the Christians. Police arrived, but instead of detaining the intruders took pastor Raju Doddamani, Naik and three other Christians to the police station for interrogation. They were released late at night.

The same day, unidentified persons burned a Christmas tree and a crib that were part of Christmas celebrations by local Catholics in Maripalla area in Bantwal division of the Dakshina Kannada district. Police arrested two men, but their identities were not disclosed.

Police reportedly said the decorations were burned over suspicion of “conversions.” Evangelizing and conversion are legal in India.

Also on Dec. 28, suspected Hindu nationalists ransacked and broke windows of the Hebron Assembly Church in the Haleangadi area of Mangalore division in Dakshina Kannada district. The attackers also destroyed household items in the house of the pastor, identified only as Prasanna. Police registered a case against the attackers, but at press time no one was reported to have been arrested.

On the evening of Dec. 25, about 20 people beat Christians with stones and wooden clubs as they celebrated Christmas at a house in the Maindguri area, near Surathkal, a few miles from the city of Mangalore, in Dakshina Kannada district. The attackers, allegedly from a local extremist Hindu Jagran Vedike (Hindu Revival Forum), attacked the Christians, including women and children, indiscriminately.

A 27-year-old man identified only as Joyson fractured his leg; a pastor’s wife identified as Lata, sustained chest injuries; a 29-year-old woman identified as Roshini and another woman identified as Annamma received head injuries; and a 23-year-old man identified only as Deepak broke his nasal bridge in the attack. A local Christian told Compass by phone that police arrested five of the attackers, but that they had been released on bail.

The attacks on Christians in Karnataka are “shameful” and “a blot on the secular and democratic India,” GCIC President Sajan K. George said. The local government and authorities were “complicit in the persecution against Christians,” he added.

Anti-Christian attacks increased in the state after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to sole power in May 2008. At least 28 attacks were reported in less than two months in August and September of that year. In 2009, Karnataka witnessed at least 48 attacks, and the number grew to 56 in 2010, according to the EFI.

In its 2010 report of Christian persecution in India, the EFI had warned about increasing attacks on Christians in Karnataka, remarking that “although in 2007 and 2008 two major incidents of violence occurred in eastern Orissa state’s Kandhamal district and hit headlines in the national as well as international media, little efforts have been taken by authorities in India to tackle the root causes of communal tensions, namely divisive propaganda and activities by powerful right-wing Hindu groups, who do not represent the tolerant Hindu community.”

The violence in Kandhamal district during Christmas week of 2007 killed at least four Christians and burned 730 houses and 95 churches, according to the All India Christian Council (AICC). These attacks were preceded by around 200 incidents of anti-Christian attacks in other parts of the country.

Violence re-erupted in Kandhamal district in August 2008, killing more than 100 people and resulting in the incineration of 4,640 houses, 252 churches and 13 educational institutions, according to the AICC.

Christians account for about 2.3 percent of India’s population, which is more than 1 billion.

END

Report warns unrest could spread in Congo

(In Focus screen grab from Congo protest)

Congo-Kinshasa (MNN) ―The electoral commission in the Democratic Republic of Congo has called for backup.

In the chaos following the presidential and parliamentary vote, they're waiting for help from the United States and Britain before resuming the  ballot count in the parliamentary elections.  

Accusations of ballot-rigging have plagued the presidential election, and with roughly 19 000 candidates vying for one of the 500 seats in the National Assembly, the commission is taking no chances. The results of the parliamentary polls are due to be announced on January 13.

A cloud of doubt remains over the announced results from the presidential election. Both the European Union and the U.S. State Department have also expressed severe reservations about the vote's legitimacy, although the country's Supreme Court validated the results.

With that green light, Joseph Kabila was sworn in for another term in office as president of DR Congo eight days ago. In his first week in office, he's faced a public relations nightmare. A Human Rights Watch report lays blame for the deaths of at least 24 people on Congolese security forces. 

Even as he reportedly promised to safeguard national unity, tanks were to prevent protests. Meanwhile, Opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi maintains he won the poll and had himself sworn in December 23. As a result, there were concerns that post-election violence could spread.

Although the region is one of the biggest and oldest fields for Grace Ministries International, Sam Vinton says so far, they've not been disrupted. "I think that in the Eastern Congo area, where we work from the main cities, I've heard of no real conflict. We've had no communications of any adverse effect on our ministries."

As for the warning of spreading violence, Vinton says it's unlikely to spread to the area where they're working. "A lot of the people in the area where most of our churches are located were probably pro-president (Kabila). But I think in the area of central Congo, where the main opposition is located, I can see that area being in torment and a lot of trouble."

The upheaval has had very little negative impact on their latest evangelistic outreach. In fact,  "It's just amazing how the response continues. We've run out of the 'Book of Hope,' and yet we're showing the DVD of the 'GodMan' and also working in the actual schools. The last report is that close to 4000 students have trusted Christ as their Savior."

4,000 more students coming to Christ, needing discipleship, and a local church body. The GMI team is scrambling to keep up with the demand, because they've run out of everything, and they're trying to get the local churches ready for the onslaught of new believers.

God's hand is all over this project which started with a goal of hoping to see 1000 accept Christ. A year down the road, God has answered beyond their wildest imaginations. "The responsiveness of the students is a remarkable thing when we look back a number of years when it wasn't there. We're pushing forward. We have a team of nine men who are doing this work, and we're just trying to get more funding so that we can keep them going."

It's clear that despite the bullhorns of the rallies and the political jockeying going on, that the voice being heard loudest is the Still Small One.   

House Church Leaders Attacked near Hanoi, Vietnam

Pastor Nguyen Duy Duong (Compass Direct News)

Gang presumably doing bidding of authorities seriously injures men, women, children.

Special to Compass Direct News

 

HANOI, Vietnam, November 16 (Compass Direct News) – A gang of men attacked leaders of a Baptist house church network near Hanoi on Sunday (Nov. 13), leaving one pastor unconscious and seriously injuring several others, including women and teenage children.

 

Leaders of the Agape Baptist Church were participating in a spiritual renewal meeting at the home of pastor Nguyen Danh Chau in Lai Tao village, Bot Xuyen commune, My Duc district, when the gang intruded at 9:30 a.m., sources said. Beating people and smashing property, the gang seriously injured more than a dozen participants and warned Nguyen Danh Chau that they would kill him if he continued gathering Christians, the sources in Vietnam said.

 

With the attack underway, the sources said, some gang members ran outside and announced to the neighborhood, “Oh heavens, the Christian pastors are savagely beating up people!” This attracted a large crowd, which the gang hoped would prevent any Christians from escaping.

 

The seriously injured Christians included five male pastors, four female pastors and other church leaders, and several of the leaders’ teenage children. The worst wounded, Nguyen Danh Chau, lay unconscious for many hours, and as of midnight Tuesday (Nov. 15), he was still suffering severe chest, stomach and head pain.

 

One pastor’s wife, Nguyen Thi Lan, was still unable to walk and function normally at press time after she was struck in the stomach and groin. Others remained weak from loss of blood. The Christians were punched in the mouth and face, the chest and the back. Some were savagely kicked as they lay on the floor.

 

The denomination’s top leader, Nguyen Cong Thanh, who rushed up from the south to visit the beleaguered leaders, reported that he planned to take the injured to a nearby hospital today; he feared, however, that he would encounter resistance. When doctors in Vietnam learn that religious motives play a role in violence, commonly they do not dare to treat or even examine the victims of persecution.

 

Attacking on the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church, observed worldwide by thousands of churches affiliated with the World Evangelical Alliance, the gang smashed a dozen plastic chairs, overturned a pulpit and tore a cross from the wall and threw it into a nearby pond, leaving no doubt as to their motivation. They also stole valuable parts from four motorcycles belonging to the pastors before smashing the remainder of the vehicles. Valued at more than US$1,000 each, the motorbikes represent a huge loss for the church leaders.

 

Before leaving, the gang stopped long enough to destroy the family’s kitchen garden and fruit trees, sources said.

 

The Agape Baptist Church is an unregistered house church organization of some 2,200 members who worship regularly in 38 congregations. It was established in 2007. Many of the congregations are located in or near Hanoi and nearby provinces.

 

Agape Baptist Church head Nguyen Cong Thanh said in a statement Tuesday morning (Nov. 15) that he had met with the injured.

 

“All they could do was weep, and I also could not prevent my tears from flowing,” he said. “Why do they gratuitously beat servants of the Lord like this – what crime have they committed, what enemies have they made? All we want to do is gather people to worship and serve God and our fellowman. And not only that – the gang destroyed four motorcycles and stole safety helmets, shoes and rain coats from people with very modest means. God have mercy!” 

 

In the past few years, official policy toward religion in Vietnam is ostensibly more tolerant than it was previously, so it has become a pattern for police and higher authorities to employ gangs for such anti-Christian attacks, according to Christian leaders in Vietnam. The gang members are rarely identified and never prosecuted.  

 

Vietnam’s ranking among countries with persecution of Christians slipped slightly on Christian support organization Open Doors’ 2011 World Watch List. With No. 1 being the worst, Vietnam’s place on the list deteriorated from No. 21 to number No. 18 last year. 

 

www.compassdirect.org

 

END

 

*** A photo of one of the injured pastors, Pastor Nguyen Duy Duong, is attached for subscribers, to be used with credit to Compass Direct News. A high resolution photo is also available; contact Compass for transmittal.

 

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Copyright 2011 Compass Direct News

 

Police Detain, Beat Converts from Islam in India

Police in India’s Kashmir Valley detained and beat converts from Islam and were expected to arrest Christian workers after Muslim leaders alleged that Muslim youth were being “lured” to Christianity.

Police in the Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley picked up seven converts who were recently baptized in All Saints Church in Srinagar, a local Christian, who spoke to the converts after their release on Nov. 2, told Compass. Srinagar is the summer capital of the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir and the main city of the Kashmir Valley.

Read more...

Violence in Yobe State, Nigeria Aimed Mainly at Christians

By Jeremy Reynalds
Senior Correspondent for ASSIST News Service

DAMATURU, NIGERIA (ANS) -- They stormed this town in Yobe state, northern Nigeria like a swarm of bees. At the end of their four-hour rampage, some 150 people had been killed - at least 130 of them Christians, according to church sources.

Destruction of Living Faith Church in Damaturu.

According to a story by Compass Direct News, hundreds of people are still missing, and the destruction included the bombing of at least 10 church buildings. More than 200 members of the Islamic extremist Boko Haram sect stormed the Yobe state capital, Damaturu, at 5 p.m. on Nov. 4. It didn’t take long for the terrorists to block all four major highways leading into town.

Compass Direct reported that church leaders said having successfully dislodged security agencies after a series of gun battles and the detonation of explosives, the terrorists then led other area Muslims to the only Christian ward in town, New Jerusalem in Damaturu, home to more than 15,000 Christians.

When the Muslims went to New Jerusalem, Compass Direct reported they said any Christian they met who could not recite the Islamic creed was instantly shot and killed.

“The trauma my 10-year-old son had as a result of sounds from guns and explosions has not left him, as he has refused to eat ever since the attack,” said Rev. Idris Garba, 41, chairman of the Yobe state chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN).

Garba, who also pastors the ECWA Good News Church in the New Jerusalem area of Damaturu, said his 500-member church has dwindled. “We could not have had more than 100 worshipers on the Sunday after the attack,” Compass Direct reported he said.

He added, “Most Christians are either missing or have left the town.”

Compass Direct said bomb blasts the previous day (Nov. 3) in Maiduguri, Borno state about 80 miles (130 kilometers) east killed four people, with one of the explosions coming from a triple suicide bombing of a military base.

For more information about Compass Direct News go to www.compassdirect.org

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Jeremy Reynalds is Senior Correspondent for the ASSIST News Service, a freelance writer and also the founder and CEO of Joy Junction, New Mexico's largest emergency homeless shelter, http://www.joyjunction.org He has a master's degree in communication from the University of New Mexico, and a Ph.D. in intercultural education from Biola University in Los Angeles. His newest book is "Homeless in the City." Additional details on "Homeless in the City" are available athttp://www.homelessinthecity.com. Reynalds lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. For more information contact: Jeremy Reynalds at jeremyreynalds@comcast.net.

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Religious peace in Indonesia under threat, says leader

Muslim anti-Christian demonstrators in Indonesia

Indonesia has seen a sharp increase in religious violence over recent years, with radical Muslim groups targeting both Christians and members of the minority Ahmadiyah community - writes Ruby Russell.

But at an ecumenical seminar in Germany, the chair of the Communion of Churches in Indonesia (CCI) explained that the country's religious leaders have a common aim in promoting tolerance and harmony.

"Leaders of the Christian community, together with other religious leaders (especially Muslims), have always made an effort to maintain healthy cooperative relationships," the Rev. Andreas Yewangoe said at Ruhr University, Bochum on 8 November 2011. "The nation's problems are seen as problems that we must face together."

Religious plurality has been enshrined in the Indonesian constitution under the national ideal of "unity through diversity" since independence from colonial rule in 1945. There are six officially recognized religions: Islam, Protestant Christianity, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism, as well many followers of traditional indigenous beliefs.

Drawing on the experiences of his own religiously mixed family and describing a rich tradition of interfaith festivals, Yewangoe painted a compelling picture of Indonesia's "authentic harmony."

But all that is at risk. According to the Indonesian Committee on Religion and Peace, there have been more than 20 attacks on churches this year, and several have been forced to close. In February, a mob attack on an Ahmadiyah mosque in the Banten province of Java left three people dead. The attack led to 12 convictions, but those sentenced received only six months in jail.

The Ahmadiyah consider themselves Muslim but differ from mainstream Islam in believing that Muhammad was not the final prophet. "As churches in Indonesia, we do not interfere in internal matters of Islamic teaching but we do interfere when people are denied their right to worship," Yewangoe said in an interview. "Freedom of worship is in the constitution, which is why we advocate the rights of the Ahmadiyah."

On a separate trip to Germany in September, Yewangoe met with lawmakers in Berlin to discuss the ongoing dispute over the Yasmin Church in west Java, which has been closed since 2008 due to pressure from radical Islamists. The local mayor has ignored a ruling by the Supreme Court of Indonesia that the church should be allowed to reopen. Yewangoe sees this a test case for the Indonesian constitution, which he insists that the majority Indonesians of all faiths want to see upheld.

"The current problem we face in Indonesia is not Christian versus Islam but those who want to support the common problem of nation-building versus those who wish to tear it apart," Yewangoe said in his lecture.

The event in Bochum marks the start of a three-week tour of Germany by Yewangoe organised by the United Evangelical Mission. Yewangoe hopes to raise awareness of issues affecting his own country and to remind Germans of the importance of interfaith harmony at home.

"I am happy to visit the German churches because the interfaith relationships in Germany have also become more important," he said. "In Germany there are many Muslims now. The Muslim people are now your neighbours."

[With acknowledgements to ENInews. ENInews, formerly Ecumenical News International, is jointly sponsored by the World Council of Churches, the Lutheran World Federation, the World Communion of Reformed Churches and the Conference of European Churches.]

[Ekk/3]