Christian Persecution

A researcher who is analyzing new materials just received from Vietnam says he has found a “smoking gun” that shows religious rights are still restricted in the Southeast Asian country, despite official claims to the contrary.

The bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta on August 5 has contributed to fears of a rising wave of terrorism in Indonesia. The attack on the hotel was the fifth bombing incident since January 2003.

Hindu extremists clubbed a Christian believer to death in Karnataka state recently, beat another pastor till he was unconscious, and then hindered relatives from conducting Christian burials.

Mobs attacked five churches in the southern district of Galle, Sri Lanka, on August 2. Initial information from the Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka (EASL) suggests the organized attack on the churches is part of the government’s plan to introduce anti-conversion legislation.

On 1 October 2001, as U.S. and coalition forces were assembling in Pakistan in preparation for the bombing campaign in Afghanistan, Bangladeshis were heading off to vote in their national elections.

Papua (Irian Jaya) is a former Dutch colony of Melanesian peoples on the western half of the island of New Guinea. Today, over 90% of all indigenous Papuans are officially reckoned as Christians. Papua was annexed by Indonesia in 1963. In December 2001 President Megawati Sukarnoputri signed a Special Autonomy law into effect. Church leaders were involved in writing the law, but Papuans in the Organisasi Papua Merdeka (OPM) or Free Papua Movement, continue their low-level resistance to Indonesian rule, whilst the Papua Presidium Council seeks independence by peaceful means.

Given the climate of increasing violence against Christians and other religious minorities and recent laws that infringe their constitutional rights, church leaders in India have expressed regret over the United States government’s refusal to designate India a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC), according to a report from Compass Direct.

The Thu Thiem congregation in District 2 of Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) has persisted in finishing construction of its new church building despite a police order in early June halting work at the site. Pastor Truong Van Nganh and his congregation began worshipping in the attractive sanctuary in early July.

A Lao-American pastor and two European journalists have been freed by the Laos government less than two weeks after being sentenced to 15 years in jail amid international pressure.

The kidnapping of the Bengali evangelist known as “Moses” the last week of May confirms a worrying trend of violence against Christians in Bangladesh. An evangelist with Gospel for Asia (GFA), Moses was taken hostage by a Muslim terrorist group which then demanded a large ransom. GFA has not released the real names of the evangelist or the terrorist group for security reasons.

Judges have handed down a three-year sentence to Rev. Rinaldy Damanik, an Indonesian pastor accused of illegal weapons possession. Damanik and his defense team now have a week to decide whether they will accept the sentence or appeal the judge’s decision.

The government of India’s Gujarat state has again started gathering community-based information in villages of the Patan district in northern Gujarat, heightening suspicions among local Christians that census information will be misused by fundamentalist Hindu organizations to stir up trouble in an area that suffered 443 major clashes between religious groups between 1970 and 2002.