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- Christian sues U.S. Postal Service for arrest while distributing tracts near post office
- U.K. Christian leaders slam violence in Syria
- U.K. electrician harassed for having cross on dashboard of work van
- Excommunicated bishop seizes churches in Zimbabwe
- Blast near church in Kirkuk, Iraq injures 13
- Kidnapped Christian girl in Sudan escapes, traumatized
| Christian sues U.S. Postal Service for arrest while distributing tracts near post office Posted: 03 Aug 2011 02:24 PM PDT
A man is suing the U.S. Postal Service on the grounds that he was unconstitutionally arrested while distributing Christian literature on the sidewalk near the front of the Oakland, Tenn. Post Office. Michael Choate, who is being represented by the Alliance Defense Fund, was arrested last year while passing out Christian tracts 40 feet from the entrance to the Oakland, Tenn. Post office. In his complaint, Choate said the arrest is unconstitutional and violates his First Amendment right to free speech, his right to due process of law and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Last year, on July 2010, Choate distributed tracts beside a flagpole that stands some 40 ft. from the Post Office entrance. The location does not block people going inside or outside of the Post Office. Choate’s complaint noted that he never tried to enter the Post Office, nor to distribute leaflets inside the premises nor leave any tracts on any property of the Post Office. Neither did he disturb, nor bother the Postal Service, its customers, nor the operations of the Post Office. Choate distributed the tracts for two weeks in July last year. Then on Aug. 6, 2010, he returned to this same spot near the flagpole at 11:00 a.m. to quietly distribute more tracts. After an hour, Postmaster Terrena Moore walked up to Choate and told him that he had to leave, or he would be arrested. According to his complaint, “Choate tried to calm Postmaster Moore down, and explained that he would wait for the police.” Within minutes, two policemen arrived and told Choate he had to leave because he was trespassing. Choate, pointing out that he was standing on a public sidewalk, questioned how he was trespassing. The policemen said, “[If] the Postmaster says you are trespassing on postal property, you are trespassing, and must leave,” the complaint said. Because Choate believed he was within his rights to express his opinions on public property, he stood fast. The police arrested him, but later the criminal charges of trespassing were dropped, and he was not asked to pay a fine nor serve time in jail. In Sept. 2010, Choate approached Moore and asked her why he was considered by her to be a trespasser. She referred him to 39 C.F.R. 232.1(e), which is a “disturbance provision.” Moore told Choate that his activities “annoyed” some customers. In November 2010, the ADF sent a letter to USPS noting that Choate was constitutionally protected and had a right to pass out tracts on public property in front of the Post Office. The USPS responded the following month with a letter that said if he “tends to impede or disturb Postal Service employees or customers,” he cannot distribute the tracts, Choate’s complaint noted. Choate has charged that his First Amendment rights were violated and the Postal Service regulations are vague and not narrowly tailored, leaving interpretation largely to the discretion of its officials, which opens the door to unbridled discretion. Finally, Choate said in his complaint that the enforcement of 39 CFR 232.1(e) inhibited his ability to exercise the rights due him under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. “Christians shouldn’t be arrested and silenced for peacefully sharing their beliefs on public property,” ADF’s Nate Kellum, one of Choate’s attorneys, said in a statement. “The post office isn’t above the law and cannot take away citizens’ constitutionally-protected rights just because it or its customers might not agree with the content of someone’s speech or literature. Our client isn’t harassing anyone; he’s simply desiring to quietly share his faith in a completely public forum,” Kellum said.        |
| U.K. Christian leaders slam violence in Syria Posted: 03 Aug 2011 02:22 PM PDT
A Bishop in the U.K. slammed the U.K. government recently for failing to take sufficient action in Syria after a massive slaughter of its civilians. Bishop Mike Hill of Bristol said the U.K. government is not giving enough attention and interest to the “wholesale slaughter that is occurring in Syria,” according to Christian Today. Last Sunday, scores of peaceful protesters were killed in Hama by the army of Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. Pivotal to region “Syria is a pivotal State and its future political and religious stability has implications not just for Syria itself, but for the region, in particular for Christianity in the region,” Anthony O’ Mahoney, director, Centre for Eastern Christianity, Heythrop College, University of London said on Vatican Radio. O’ Mahoney, who is a Reader in Theology and the History of Christianity, stressed that one must avoid Syria becoming another Iraq—something the Syrians themselves don’t want. During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, under the administration of then president George W. Bush, the Baath Party was toppled. Amid a power vacuum minorities—especially Christians—paid the price. “The Christian communities have suffered a great deal within the region within the last two to three decades. People are concerned about the large numbers of Christians leaving the region, impoverishing the region and making it less than what it was,” O’ Mahoney told Vatican Radio. O’ Mahoney said on Vatican Radio that Christians who are indigenous to the region need protection. “[The] Christians who are indigenous to the whole of the region are losing their relationship to the land of Christ’s birth, so the future of stability in Syria is important and the future of Christianity in Syria is important.” The popular uprising in Syria is onto its fifth month, and there is no indication that al-Assad will concede. It is estimated that some 2,000 protestors have died amid government crackdowns, with some 3,000 arrests. Initially protestors sought for reforms, but amid the melee demands have escalated to a call for al-Assad to leave after 40 years of power. Concerns have been raised by analysts regarding sectarian killings, more so as Syria has a range of ethnicities and religions. The reigning Al-Assad family is of the minority Alawite sect, a derivative from Shi’ite Islam. Other minorities include Druze, non-Arab Kurds and Christians. The majority are Sunni Muslims. Last month, the Alliance of Middle Eastern Christians (RCMO), a Canadian-based group, appealed to Damascus to open up talks with the protesters. “Syria … is suffering from painful events … violence is causing many casualties and wounding scores,” according to Vatican Radio. RCMO warned, Vatican Radio reported, against “external interference in local Syria’s affairs, or any form of sectarian incitement, whether from governments, entities or third parties that aim only to exploit the crisis in order to achieve its interests and maintain or even increase the state of tension, causing more material and human losses.” International concern International concern was raised after the latest crackdown by Syria on peaceful protesters where some 24 are believed to have died, and 150 arrested. Syrian state media blamed “armed groups” for the assault, CNN reported. However, activists say the disturbance was initiated by the Syrian military. Four member countries of the U.N. Security Council—France, Portugal, Germany and the U.K. are drafting a resolution that is expected to condemn the action of the Syrian government. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is slated to meet with delegates of the Syrian-American community, and U.S.-based Syrian activists “to discuss the urgent situation in Syria,” Mike Toner, acting spokesman, said to CNN. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff told reporters in Baghdad, “Violence needs to stop as quickly as possible,” CNN reported.    |
| U.K. electrician harassed for having cross on dashboard of work van Posted: 03 Aug 2011 02:22 PM PDT
Colin Atkinson, a Christian electrician from the U.K., was suspended from work recently in the aftermath of a controversy over a palm cross on the dashboard of his work van. Last June, Atkinson returned to work after he and his employer, Wakefield and District Housing Association in the U.K., reached a compromise agreement on his continued employment. The agreement included permission for Atkinson to keep the cross in the van. Since his return to the job, however, Atkinson says WDH failed to keep their part of the agreement. In fact, the company has taken away the van and he was transferred to a new office 16 miles away. Palm cross Previous to Atkinson’s return to work last June, a media outcry was raised over WDH’s handling of the issue of an eight-inch palm cross on the dashboard of Atkinson’s work van, which he had kept there for 15 years. One day his bosses asked him to remove it. They said they received an anonymous complaint against the cross. They noted that their tenant association members are ‘diverse’ and they didn’t want to offend anyone. They added that if he refused to take the cross down Atkinson, 64, would be fired. The incident triggered nationwide indignation in the U.K. Former Canterbury archbishop Lord Carey called WDH’s request “scandalous,” according to ASSIST News Service. It was pointed out that a Muslim colleague displays a verse from the Qu’ran in her car, and other co-employees dress in company burkas. A manager’s office displays a poster of communist revolutionary Che Guevara. Different faith groups came forward for Atkinson, including leaders of Sikh, Hindu and Muslim faiths. Amid the media attention WDH reneged, and gave Atkinson his job back on mutually agreed terms, including his being allowed to keep the cross on the dashboard of the van. Atkinson’s bosses warned him that he should not tell the media what the details of the compromise agreement on his being rehired were. Suspension Now, Atkinson said that from the time of his return to his old job, no part of the agreement was kept by WDH. First, he was transferred to a workplace 16 miles away in Winston House, Wakefield. Second, they took away his van. “I was absolutely appalled by it. I was flabbergasted—I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. So I lodged a grievance, saying they had broken the initial agreement signed in April,” Atkinson told Daily Mail. In his new area of work he was not given a replacement van to use. He was told that he had to either use public transportation or get his own vehicle. When Atkinson finally spoke to media about this, WDH suspended him. WDH told Atkinson that he had breached confidentiality, and this led to “an irreversible breakdown in relations,” Daily Mail reported. Atkinson said, “I’ve got a right to speak out in the national interest, the interest of the British public and a right to defend myself.” Andrea Minichiello Williams of Christian Legal Centre told ANS, “After a public outcry over his case, Colin Atkinson was allowed to return to work and to continue to display a palm cross in his van. “However, since the media attention died away, he suffered continued harassment, and WDH has not honored its agreement with him to allow him to return to his old job. It seems that WDH hoped that Colin could be bought off and go quietly. “At the Christian Legal Centre we will be doing all we can to ensure that WDH is held to account and that Colin is free to express his Christian faith in the workplace.”    |
| Excommunicated bishop seizes churches in Zimbabwe Posted: 03 Aug 2011 02:21 PM PDT
An excommunicated bishop in Zimbabwe declared, recently, ownership of some 78 Anglican churches–and the local police are supporting him. Former bishop Norbert Kunonga, a close ally of the country’s president Robert Mugabe, said on Zimbabwe’s national state television that he heads all the churches in the Masvingo diocese. Kunonga also claimed control of the popular Arthur Shearly Cripps Shrine, where the faithful were scheduled to participate in its commemoration at the end of the month. Resilient Anglican community Zimbabwe, which has long been run by abusive and tyrannical leaders, has a resilient Anglican community which has undergone intimidation and persecution. They have been fighting to keep their churches and shrines since May, 2008, when Kunonga was excommunicated. Kunonga is allied with Mugabe, who after 30 years in power, is hanging on amid deteriorating law and order. Kunonga has the support of local police, who have warned Anglicans that they have no right to go to the Shearly Cripps Shrine. A court ruled that Kunonga has a legal right to be at the Cripps shrine. A spokesperson of Masvingo diocese told Christian Today, “Kunonga didn’t stop his disturbances by simply writing to the officer commanding Chikomba District to bar us from having the Shearly Cripps commemoration done by the shrine, but he also used the police to forcibly take church properties in Chivhu.” There are some 78 Anglican churches under the diocese of Masvingo, with 45 of them in Chikomba district, and the remaining 33 in Buhera district. Other incidents of harassment, violence Last July 31 Kunonga, surrounded by supporters and seven policemen, forcibly entered the Daramombe Mission. Kunonga’s supporters then held a service and a meeting there. As a result, local parishioners could not attend services. Episcopal Church presiding bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, who visited Zimbabwe July 29-31, told Episcopal News Service, “The headmaster realized what was happening, and kept the children away. Parishioners also recognized the false bishop—that’s what they call him—and turned around and went home.” Schori told ENS, “We heard a little later that Kunonga had returned, and deposited one of his priests and his household goods in the church, with police looking on.” Schori visited the country to express support and solidarity with Zimbabwe’s Anglicans, the first Episcopal Church presiding bishop to do so. She told ENS, “I very much wanted to let the church in Zimbabwe know of our solidarity as they suffer through this harassment and victimization by the deposed former bishop and his thugs. The police have power only because the government sanctions their behavior.” Last July 25, Venerable Shamuyarira, the priest in charge of Chivhu Church District, was allegedly detained for three hours by police who tried to make him give them the keys to several Anglican properties, allegedly upon the order of Kunonga. Schori told ENS, “They [Zimbabwe Anglican church] have experienced the same kind of thing as congregations inFort Worth and San Joaquin.” (Former leaders in these places also tried to take possession of diocesan properties, barring parishioners from church buildings). “The church is more than a building, and has become stronger and more creative in exile.”    |
| Blast near church in Kirkuk, Iraq injures 13 Posted: 03 Aug 2011 02:01 PM PDT
ISTANBUL, August 3 (Compass Direct News) – A car blast outside a Syrian Catholic church in Kirkuk, Iraq yesterday morning left 13 wounded as police located and disarmed two more car bombs targeting churches in the city, according to area sources.
Online video images of the attack against the Holy Family Church showed one of its walls blasted open and all its surfaces covered with broken glass, rubble and dust from the entrance where the explosion took place to the sanctuary on the far end of the building. The explosion occurred on the second day of the month-long Muslim fasting period of Ramadan.
Nearby houses in one of Kirkuk’s oldest quarters, where Muslims and Christians had lived together peacefully, were seriously damaged, and cars on the street were left in twisted piles of metal. Shattered glass wounded 13 residents as they slept, area sources said.
“We are sad because this is nonsense, and people are discouraged,” the archbishop of Kirkuk, Monsignor Louis Sako, told Compass. “We try to encourage them and give them hope. We have asked the mayor-governor to help the families that lost their houses and cars before thinking to restore the church.”
Today all but one of the wounded residents in the church’s neighborhood – an elderly man who was seriously injured – reportedly had been released from the hospital. The Rev. Imad Yalda, the parish priest, was in the church building at the time of the blast and was also slightly wounded.
Though Yalda and the community were sad about yesterday’s events, a local pastor who requested anonymity told Compass such attacks have become a normal part of the lives of Christians in Iraq.
“He accepted what happened, but he was very sad for the building of his church,” the pastor said. “But this has become ordinary for us, and we expect that any minute something will happen here. When you are living in this situation, you are used to accept what is happening.”
No terrorist or extremist group has taken responsibility for yesterday’s attack in Kirkuk, and local church leaders said it seems Christians in Iraq are trapped in a senseless game of power and intimidation.
“Sometimes we feel there is some pressure over the Christians all over Iraq to make them leave their cities and go to the northern part of Iraq, to Kurdistan,” said the pastor, “but who knows? I can’t say those who did this want us to leave our city.”
Sako said the perpetrators, whether they are Islamic extremists with anti-Christian motives or terrorists with political motives, are trying to create an atmosphere of confusion by attacking Christians during the Muslim holy month of fasting, Ramadan.
“They are using this to shock people,” said Sako. “They are getting the attention of politicians in Kirkuk and in Iraq and saying, ‘We are here and powerful, and we can do whatever we want.’ It’s just confusing – [they want to] say they are here and create a chaotic situation and make a panic among the people.”
Car Bombs Defused Authorities also located two other cars full of explosives in the area. One was parked in front of the church building of Mar Gourgis, of the Assyrian Church of the East. A school is located next to the church building.
Another vehicle packed with explosives was parked in front of a Protestant church in the neighborhood. When the church pastor and others in the neighborhood heard the blast at the Holy Family Church at 5:30 a.m., they came out to see what had happened.
In front of the Protestant church complex they saw a suspicious car filled with containers of gas. Before noon, special forces confirmed the car was full of explosives and disarmed it. In the process there was a small explosion that broke 21 windows of the church complex.
Kirkuk’s Christian leaders said they fear more Christians will decide to migrate abroad after this attack. The Protestant church that was targeted yesterday has 70 members, of which nine will be leaving the country in the next two months, according to its leaders. Yet they hope that Christians will remain in Iraq.
“We continue to witness to Jesus Christ and our Christian values; we are not afraid,” Sako said.
Kirkuk, 250 kilometers (155 miles) north of Baghdad, is a culturally diverse city with about 10,000 Christians.
There have been at least 45 abductions in Kirkuk since the start of the year, with most victims coming from well-to-do families, Agence-France Presse (AFP) reported last month.
A special report prepared for U.S. Congress last month stated that Iraq’s security is declining and is less safe than it was a year ago.
AFP also reported that June was the deadliest month in Iraq so far this year, with 271 people killed in attacks according to a government count.
A Baghdad court found four men guilty of “planning and preparing” an attack on the Syrian Catholic Church of Our Lady of Salvation last October in which 58 people were killed. The judge handed three perpetrators the death sentence and a 20-year jail term to another, according to The Associated Press. The men, whose names authorities did not release, have one month to appeal.
Last year’s attack was the deadliest one against the country’s Christians since Islamic extremists began targeting them in 2003. On Oct. 31, 2010, during evening mass, al Qaeda suicide bombers stormed the church building and held some 100 worshipers hostage for hours after detonating bombs in the neighborhood and gunning down two area policemen.
The militants sprayed the sanctuary with bullets and ordered a priest to call the Vatican to demand the release of Muslim women whom they claimed were held hostage by the Coptic Church in Egypt. When security forces stormed the building, the assailants started to kill hostages and eventually blew themselves up.
It is estimated that more than 50 percent of Iraq’s Christian community has fled the country since 2003. There are nearly 600,000 Christians left in Iraq.    |
| Kidnapped Christian girl in Sudan escapes, traumatized Posted: 03 Aug 2011 01:58 PM PDT
KHARTOUM, Sudan, August 3 (Compass Direct News) – Hiba Abdelfadil Anglo, 16, has escaped from a gang of Muslims who kidnapped her last year, but it may be a long time before she recovers from the trauma.
As she told Compass how the kidnappers beat, raped and tried to force her to convert from Christianity to Islam, she broke into tears for nearly half an hour.
“They did many bad things to me,” she said, tears streaming down her eyes.
Abducted on June 17, 2010, she was reunited with her family on July 10.
“Several times I was warned that if I do not convert to Islam, then I risk losing my life,” she said. “The man who put me in his house on several occasions tortured me and threatened to kill me. He did not allow me to pray Christian prayers. He even insulted my family as a family of infidels.”
Hiba said that after a year of captivity, she had given the unidentified man who housed her enough of an impression that she had converted to Islam and accepted her fate that he left her unguarded. She was able to leave the house in the Soba Al Aradi area south of Khartoum and beg a motorist to take her to her home two hours away, she said.
“I had tried to escape three times before, but they captured me every time and beat me a lot,” she said, sobbing.
Her widowed mother, Ikhlas Omer Anglo, told Compass the kidnappers targeted them because they are Christians, members of Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church in Khartoum. The girl’s mother said that when she went to a police station to open a case, officers told her she must first leave Christianity for Islam.
“Right after my daughter was kidnapped, one officer told me, ‘If you want back your daughter, you should become a Muslim,’” she said. “I thank God for enabling my daughter to escape before the start of Ramadan, though she is now traumatized.” Hiba said the kidnappers moved her to various locations in Khartoum over the initial eight months, threatening to kill her if she tried to escape.
“Even if you call the government, they will not do anything to us,’’ her abductors warned her, she said.
She was initially locked in a room and beaten until she was unconscious. The leader of the group raped her, and she is still suffering pain in her right eye from a blow he recently dealt her, she said.
“Apart from abusing me sexually, he tried to force me to change my faith and kept reminding me to prepare for Ramadan,” she said. “I cannot forget this bad incident, and whenever I try to pray, I find it difficult to forget. I ask believers to pray for me for inner healing.’ At the same time, Hiba said prayer was the only effective option while in captivity. “I was praying to God to keep me and my family safe,” she said.
Last year the then-15-year-old Hiba was kidnapped while going to the Ministry of Education in Khartoum to obtain her transcripts for entry into secondary school.
“One of the kidnappers was monitoring me as I was going to the Ministry of Education,” she said. “He pretended to have been working in the Ministry of Education.”
Two days after she was abducted, the family received threatening telephone calls and SMS (text) messages from the kidnappers telling them to pay 1,500 Sudanese pounds (US$560) in order to secure her return. “Don’t you want to have this slave back?” one of the kidnappers told her mother from an unknown location by cell phone, Anglo said. She lost her job after taking time off to search for her missing daughter last year, she said, as her employer initially gave her time off in order to seek her daughter but later used the absence as a pretext for firing her.
“It is good that those who prayed for us to know that their prayers were answered, and that my daughter is back at home with me,” Anglo said. “I also need prayers because I am jobless since the time my daughter was kidnapped.” Hoping to study to be an accountant after missing an academic year, Hiba said her future is unknown as her family is unable to afford school. She also fears the Muslim criminals might still be trailing her.    |
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