La Paz, May 5th,, 2004 (ACPress.net).
Quechua-speaking villagers in Bolivia are living under an uneasy truce two months after an irate mob destroyed the sole evangelical church in their remote Andean community.

On March 9th, officials in the town of Chucarasi signed an accord with members of the local Church of God that obliges the evangelicals to "respect" traditional animist customs in return for the right to continue holding worship services in the community.

However, the congregation is not allowed to rebuild its demolished chapel. A special commission composed of police, military and judiciary officials, along with representatives of the ecumenical association Churches United, hammered out the agreement during day-long negotiations with Chucarasi townspeople. Due to community pressure, three of the evangelicals declared their intention to return to animist practice, church planter Gregorio Conde said. But the majority of the 36-member congregation remains firm in their faith. "We declared in the meeting that, although we might die for it, we are going to follow Christ," Conde said.

Rio de Janeiro, May 6th, 2004 (ACPress.net).
41% of Catholic priests in Brazil admit to having had a sentimental attachment, and even sexual relations, with a woman since their ordination, according to a survey conducted there for the Roman Episcopate.

Despite the obvious failure of the Catholic system, 48% of the priests say they think celibacy is important, while 41% consider it should be optional. However, the statistics are incomplete as only 1,831 out of a total of 16,000 clerics responded to the questionnaire. This suggests the real figures could be much higher, for as Luis Antonio de Souza of the Religious and Social Research Centre comments: "What stands out is that nearly half of those who were willing to fill in the questionnaire said they had had a non-platonic relationship with a woman.

According to the man responsible for compiling the questionnaire, the way the question was put left no doubt as to what they were looking for; had the priest had sex with a woman or not. Souza added that the results surprised noone as society considers it normal for priests to get to know women. The same survey showed that 44% think homosexuality is caused by bad upbringing at home, whereas 62% did not believe it went against God's will. As to the low response, Souza attributed this to the difficulty which priests have in facing up to sexual issues.

Meanwhile, the Catholic Archbishop of Rio de Janeiro,  Eugenio Scheid, said he did not believe the results.

Massacre of Christians in Islamisation of Nigeria ignored by West

Lagos, May 6th, 2004 (ACPress.net).
In the last few weeks, ten Christian churches have been burnt down by Muslim mobs in the Nigerian state of Kaduna, a fact which does not seem to be of any interest to Western media or governments.

Nigeria is suffering a rapid process of Islamisation and systematic attacks on the 51 million Christians who live there, and make up a third of the total population. If the process goes unchecked, they will soon be enslaved or exterminated. 12 of the 36 states have so far adopted Islamic Sharia law, and radical Muslim leaders have made it plain that their aim is to achieve it in 19, which would give them a majority of states in the country. Then they could set about altering the Constitution so as to impose Koranic teaching on the whole of Nigeria.

Recently, a Muslim leader in Kano said they hoped to achieve the constitutional amendment within 5 years. Their main method of achieving the imposition of Islamic law is by expelling Christians from each state through intimidation and outright violence against them. They then get electoral majorities and force through the requisite votes. Foreign fighters from Niger and elsewhere have helped them in the northern states.

In the last five or so years, hundreds of churches have been destroyed and thousands of Christians murdered or beaten and driven from their homes. When will the West wake up and take notice? When a Muslim woman, Amina Nawal, was threatened with death by stoning after being accused of adultery, Westerners organised an international campaign to get the sentence revoked. Will those same people now stand by and watch a massacre unfold without lifting a finger to help them?

Madrid, May 6th, 2004 (ACPress.net).
'Open Doors' handed out almost 4 million Bibles to persecuted Christians in 2003, which represented nearly a 40% rise on totals reached in 2002.

Moreover, 22,000 pastors and other church leaders received intensive training on how to lead their congregations and keep the faith in midst of persecution and discrimination. It is estimated that around 200 million Christians across the world face interrogation, arrest and even death because of their faith in Christ. This figure does not include a further 200-400 million who suffer some kind of discrimination or persecution just because they are Christians.

Geneva, May 6th, 2004 (ACPress.net).
A panel of four experts appealed to the UN Commission on Human Rights for more visible action to support Muslims who convert to another faith (apostates) who face serious persecution in many countries around the world, in a meeting held at the Palais des Nations, Geneva, on 7th April.

On the panel was Ibn Warraq, a secularist Muslim intellectual and author whose most recent book 'Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out' (2003) details the cases of many Muslims who have chosen to leave their Islamic faith and have suffered serious persecution as a result. Also present was Dr Younas Sheikh, another secularist Muslim intellectual who was freed in November 2003 after spending 3 years in prison in Pakistan under a bogus accusation of blasphemy, two and a half of them on death row.  The other members of the panel were Shafique Keshavjee, a Swiss Protestant pastor and author and Paul Cook, Advocacy Manager for Barnabas Fund, a Christian charity which has been running a major international campaign supporting the human rights of converts from Islam.

Speaking under the heading "Apostasy, Human Rights, Religion and Belief: New Threats to Freedom of Opinion and Expression", the panel touched briefly on the prejudice and discrimination faced by many converts in the Buddhist, Christian, Jewish and Hindu traditions drawing particular attention to problems in Eritrea, India and Sri Lanka.  However, of all the major world faiths it is in conservative Islamic societies that converts face the greatest persecution in the world today and it was to this area that the panel devoted most of its discussions.  Ibn Warraq explained that "Under Muslim law, the male apostate must be put to death, as long as he is an adult, and in full possession of his faculties", whilst Paul Cook added "Other punishments prescribed by the Shari'ah include the annulment of marriage, the removal of children and the loss of all property and inheritance rights.  This tradition is still upheld and taught by most Muslim religious leaders around the world today."

Younas Sheikh spoke of his own experience in Pakistan, where he was falsely accused of blasphemy (a concept closely related to apostasy in traditional Islamic thinking) for his moderate and secularist political and spiritual views: "I was held in solitary confinement in ... a dark and dirty death cell with unbearable, stinking and distasteful food ... I remained constantly under threat of murder by Islamic fundamentalist inmates in jail for murder and gang rape."  Shafique Keshavjee demonstrated how such treatment of apostates stands in sharp contrast to international human rights standards as enshrined in both the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  Paul Cook stated that the "silence of political and religious leaders remains deafening" regretting the failure of the UN and other international bodies and religious leaders to condemn such persecution of apostates unequivocally.

The members of the panel were united in their calls for further action by the UN Commission on Human Rights, national governments and political and religious leaders to do more to support the rights of converts.  Ibn Warraq called upon national governments to "forbid fatwas and sermons preaching violence in the name of god against those holding unorthodox opinions or those who have left a religion."  He also urged national governments to "comply with applicable international human rights instruments like the ICCPR" which affirm the rights of converts.

Focusing specifically on Pakistan, Younas Sheikh called upon the UN Commission on Human Rights to press the government of Pakistan to "review uregntly the cases of all those currently charged or convicted of blasphemy" and to "replace the blasphemy laws by laws which respect the human rights of individuals in conformity with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights".

Shafique Keshavjee referred to a monitoring body which a Special Rapporteur of the Commission has proposed be set up to examine racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.  He called for the body to also examine "reports from areas across the world where leaving a religion can lead to persecution."  Paul Cook closed the session expressing his wish that the UN Commission on Human Rights would issue a "public condemnation" of the persecution of converts and a similar "public encouragement to Muslim religious leaders to condemn publicly the persecution of converts and to denounce it as something unworthy of the Islamic faith."

Peking, May 6th, 2004 (ACPress.net).
Pastor Gong Shengliang, the imprisoned leader of the South China Church, told relatives during a prison visit recently that he fears for his life in Hongshan Prison, Wuhan City.

Shengliang said: "If you are able in any way, please transfer me to another prison," Gong begged his three sisters during a 10-minute visit. "Otherwise, just come and pick up my corpse." Voice of the Martyrs sources said that Gong had to be carried into the visiting hall at the prison by four other inmates, as he could not walk. When one of the sisters pressed the guard for an explanation of Gong's injuries, the guard said that the pastor fell while he was washing windows in the prison. Gong was washing the inside of the windows, yet somehow fell outside the building, according to the guard.

The sisters were only allowed 10 minutes with Gong, and were separated by two panes of glass and forced to talk via a telephone. When one of Gong's sisters complained of his injuries to the prison director, Sun Wenquan, she was told that Gong is a model prisoner in every respect except one: he refuses to denounce his faith in Christ, and he will not stop praying and preaching. "He is so into the Bible that he has lost touch with reality," the sisters were told.

Cairo, May 6th, 2004 (ACPress.net).
Four Christian university students arrested in the Sinai in January for possessing Christian materials were released on 3rd April.

The young men, Peter Kamel, Ishak Yessa, John Fokha, and Andrew Saeed, were on a trip to the Sinai region. They had with them their Bibles and various Christian tapes, which the Naweeba district police confiscated when they were arrested in their rooms at a hotel in the resort of Sharm El-Sheik. However, none of these materials were illegal and there was nothing found in their possession which would have justified their arrest.

They were charged with disturbing national unity and threatening social peace, a broad and vague charge commonly used in Egypt. Their detention was extended several times, with no trial date set. However, all charges against them have now been dropped.