International Christian Response

ISTANBUL (Compass)—Anwer Masih has been acquitted of blasphemy in Lahore, making him the first Pakistani Christian ever acquitted of such charges in Pakistan’s lower courts. Judicial Magistrate Dr. Mohammed Anwar Gondal ruled on December 17 that the accusations against Masih were based only on hearsay evidence and that the police report filed against Masih was nullified because it violated the criminal procedure code. Masih, now 32, was arrested on November 30, 2003. A neighbor who had converted from Christianity to Islam claimed that Masih had mocked his new beard and derided Islamic beliefs. Although cleared of blasphemy charges, Masih remains in hiding, unable to be reunited with his wife and four children because extremists from the Islamic Religious Army have vowed to kill him. He joins more than a dozen other Pakistani Christians who, despite their innocence, have been forced to apply for asylum abroad to live under new identities.

LOS ANGELES (Compass)—Eritrean authorities extended their crackdown on organized religion to Roman Catholics, jailing 25 members of the Catholic Church during a wedding rehearsal in Asmara on January 9. Police inexplicably entered the building and took the entire wedding party to jail, where they remained under arrest as of yesterday. The arrest marked the first reported crackdown against Eritrea’s Catholic community, which enjoys “official” recognition by the government, along with Orthodox and Lutheran Christians and Muslims. The same Sunday morning, security police swooped down on a wedding ceremony in Barentu and arrested the 67 evangelical Christians present. All the prisoners – among them a number of elderly people and young children—reportedly were to be taken to the Sawa Military Training Center for “military punishment.” Meanwhile, Compass has confirmed that 25 of the 60 Rema Charismatic Church members arrested at a New Year’s Eve celebration in Asmara have been released after signing a pledge not to participate in such meetings again.

ISTANBUL (Compass)—The Egyptian Christian director of a home for troubled Coptic girls goes on trial January 16 in Cairo on charges of holding a 16-year-old Coptic girl against her will and without her parents’ permission, and also of trying to rape her. Shafik Saleh Shafik, 57, claims the case against him is an attempt to close down his recovery ministry among Coptic girls who are being enticed to leave their Christian families and convert to Islam. “The state security police wrote on their report about me that I am a ‘very dangerous man,’ because I am preaching Christianity,” Shafik told Compass. The case began September 6 when Magda Refaat Gayed escaped from Shafik’s facility the morning after her family placed her there, claiming she was beaten and raped. In violation of Egyptian law, police have refused to return the girl to her parents’ custody, sending her instead to a facility operated by an Islamic group. Shafik’s “safe-house” has been closed down.

JOS, Nigeria (Compass)—Fresh violence broke out in the central Nigerian state of Plateau on December 29, 2004, when Muslim militants attacked the village of Gana-Ropp, killing Christian community leader Davou Bulle and critically injuring his wife and son. Assailants shot Bulle in the chest as he and his family were returning home from their farm. The attack came just weeks after the federal government lifted a six-month state of emergency imposed on the state between May and November 2004. Police later announced the arrest of eight suspects in the attack. Plateau state Police Commissioner Joseph Apapa told journalists in Jos that the suspects, all Muslims, would be charged following the completion of investigations. Three years of religious violence in Plateau, beginning in September 2001, has left more than 10,000 people dead, the majority of them Christians.