http://www.compassdirect.org/News of Christians worldwide who are persecuted for their faithenhttp://www.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=news&lang=en&length=long&idelement=6003DUBLIN, July 2 (Compass Direct News) – Amid vigorous debate among scholars in China on the status of house churches, one prominent scholar has suggested the government offer more openness and legal standing to house church Christians, but authorities have reacted with raids, arrests, forced church closures and a ban on the Chinese Federation of Christian House Churches. Scholar Yu Jianrong and others have concluded that house churches are a positive influence on society, but the government is wary of such influence. The one-year, government-commissioned study by Yu and associates suggested that officials should seek to integrate house churches and no longer regard them as enemies of the state. A summary of Yu’s findings presented at a government seminar in November 2008 had encouraged some house church leaders, but shortly afterwards the Ministry of Civil Affairs banned the Chinese Federation of Christian House Churches. More raids over the past month illustrate what Yu described as a confused approach to religion, with authorities leaving some house churches to operate openly while other churches were specifically targeted for arrests and closure. Fri, 03 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0200http://www.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=news&lang=en&length=long&idelement=5988LOS ANGELES, July 1 (Compass Direct News) – A Christian mother in Egypt has won custody of her twin sons from her estranged husband, who had converted to Islam and claimed them according to Islamic legal precepts. The now 15-year-old boys, however, will still be considered Muslims despite their desire to remain Christian. On June 15 the Egyptian Court of Cassation ruled that Kamilia Gaballah could retain custody of her sons Andrew and Mario, even though the father converted to Islam and the boys’ religion also changed as a result. The decision overturns a September 2008 ruling by the Alexandria Appeals court that had granted custody of the twins to their father, Medhat Ramses Labib, due solely to his conversion. During this time Gaballah lived in constant fear police would take away her sons. If the court does not allow them to return to Christianity, the family will open up another court case, said their older brother George Medhat Ramses. “Up until now the court said they would have the right to choose their faith,” said Ramses, 21. “But if they don’t, we will start another trial. This is the only way.” Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0200http://www.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=news&lang=en&length=long&idelement=5986NAIROBI, Kenya, July 1 (Compass Direct News) – Islamic extremists have beheaded two young boys in Somalia because their Christian father refused to divulge information about a church leader, and the killers are searching Kenya’s refugee camps to do the same to the boys’ father. Before taking his Somali family to a Kenyan refugee camp in April, 55-year-old Musa Mohammed Yusuf was the leader of an underground church in Yonday village, 30 kilometers (19 miles) from Kismayo in Somalia. He had received instruction in the Christian faith from Salat Mberwa. Militants from the Islamic extremist group al Shabaab entered Yonday village on Feb. 20, went to Yusuf’s house and interrogated him on his relationship with Mberwa, leader of a fellowship of 66 Somali Christians. Yusuf told them he knew nothing of Mberwa and had no connection with him. The Islamic extremists left but said they would return the next day. Yusuf fled, and the following day the al shabaab militants showed up at his home in Yonday. Batula Ali Arbow, Yusuf’s wife, said the extremists ordered her to stop what she was doing and took hold of three of her sons – 11-year-old Abdi Rahaman Musa Yusuf, 12-year-old Hussein Musa Yusuf and Abdulahi Musa Yusuf, 7. “I watched my three boys dragged away helplessly as my youngest boy was crying,” Arbow said. “I knew they were going to be slaughtered.” Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0200http://www.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=news&lang=en&length=long&idelement=5987LOS ANGELES, July 1 (Compass Direct News) – As funeral services were held in Tennessee for Christian aid worker Christopher Leggett yesterday, tensions remained high for Christians in the capital of Mauritania, where he was slain last week. A Christian worker in the capital city of Nouakchott told Compass that following the street assassination of Leggett by an al-Qaeda linked group the morning of June 23, the danger level in the city has forced him and his team to temporarily relocate to a European country. “After the crime various believers were arrested, and the community of workers is going through very tense moments because of another threat by al-Qaeda and the lack of security in the country,” said the Christian, who requested anonymity. “Our leaders have asked us to leave the country for a while, as the government had sent a security force of 10 policemen to guard our home 24 hours a day. Our mobility was limited, and we left the country under police escort to the airport.” Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0200http://www.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=news&lang=en&length=long&idelement=5984LOS ANGELES, June 29 (Compass Direct News) – Funeral services will be held tomorrow for a U.S. teacher in Mauritania who was shot dead last week by Islamic extremists for spreading Christianity. Christopher Leggett, 39, was killed Tuesday (June 23) morning in front of the language and computer school he operated in Nouakchott, the capital city. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, North African unit of the al-Qaeda terrorist network, claimed responsibility for the murder on an Internet site, accusing Leggett of “missionary activities.” A North African al-Qaeda spokesman aired a statement on an Arab TV station saying the group killed Leggett because he was allegedly trying to convert Muslims to Christianity. His family issued a statement today saying they forgave the murderers but asked that they be caught and prosecuted. “In a spirit of love, we express our forgiveness for those who took away the life of our remarkable son,” they said in the statement, distributed in English, French and Arabic. “On a spiritual level, we forgive those responsible, asking only that justice be applied against those who killed our son.” Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0200http://www.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=news&lang=en&length=long&idelement=5985NAIROBI, Kenya, June 30 (Compass Direct News) – Two church buildings were razed Sunday night (June 28) on the island of Zanzibar after worship services. Suspected radical Muslims set the church buildings on fire on the outskirts of Unguja Township, on the Tanzanian island off the coast of East Africa, in what church leaders called the latest incidents of a rising tide of religious intolerance. With Christian movements making inroads in the Muslim-dominated area, the Evangelical Assemblies of God in Tanzania (EAGT) church and a Pentecostal Evangelical Fellowship in Africa church building a few miles away were burned down as a fierce warning, church leaders said. “We don’t want churches on our street,” read a flier dropped at the door of Charles Odilo, who had donated the plot on which the EAGT building stood. “Today we are going to burn the church, and if you continue we are going to burn your house also.” Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0200http://www.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=news&lang=en&length=long&idelement=5982NEW DELHI, June 29 (Compass Direct News) – The Indian government is silent on why it refused visas to allow members of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) to visit troubled Orissa state, but there are indications that it was ducking protests from Hindu nationalist groups. The USCIRF team was to leave for India on June 12, but the Indian embassy in Washington did not give them visas in time, the religious panel said in a June 17 statement. The atmosphere in Orissa’s Kandhamal district has remained tense since a spate of attacks began in December 2007 that killed at least four Christians and burned 730 houses and 95 churches. The attacks were carried out to avenge an alleged attack on a Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council) leader, Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati. Violence re-erupted in Kandhamal in August 2008 after the assassination of Saraswati by a Maoist group, though non-Marxist Christians were blamed for it. Had the USCIRF team been able to visit Kandhamal, Christian leaders said, it would have found the situation far from normal even eight months after violence reportedly ended. Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0200http://www.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=news&lang=en&length=long&idelement=5983LOS ANGELES, June 29 (Compass Direct News) – A member of Iran’s Parliament reportedly revealed last week that the country’s Parliamentary Committee has stricken the mandatory death penalty for those who leave Islam from proposals for an amended penal code. Citing a BBC Persian news service report on Tuesday (June 23), United Kingdom-based Christian Solidarity International announced on Friday (June 26) that a member of Iran’s Legal and Judicial Committee of Parliament, Ali Shahrokhi, had told the Iranian state news agency of the decision to eliminate the mandatory death penalty amendment. The Parliamentary Committee had come under intense international pressure to drop clauses from the Islamic Penal Code Bill that allowed stoning and made death the mandatory punishment for apostates. Joseph Grieboski, president of the Institute on Religion and Public Policy, said the timing of the announcement of the decision during protests over contested elections might not be coincidental. “Were the regime to maintain [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad’s presidency then pass and enforce a restrictive penal code, the international pressure on Iran would be unbearable for the regime,” Grieboski said. Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0200http://www.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=news&lang=en&length=long&idelement=5981NAIROBI, Kenya, June 26 (Compass Direct News) – When a young Muslim woman in northern Uganda heard about Jesus in February 2005 and began having dreams about the cross of Christ, it marked the beginning of a nightmare. Between the dreams and otherwise sleepless nights, Aleti Samusa of Yumbe district soon converted to Christianity; her family immediately kicked her out of their home. Economically devastated and deprived of that which is most valued in the communal culture, Samusa sought refuge in a local church in Lotongo village. There she found the man she would marry later that year, David Edema, who was raised a Christian but who began sharing in the sufferings of a convert from Islam by becoming one flesh with one. His bride’s family did not attend the couple’s wedding, Edema told Compass, and it wasn’t long before her relatives threatened to break up their marriage. With Samusa’s family threatening to forcibly take her from Edema, the couple fled Lotongo village to Yumbe town. Their troubles had just begun. “The Muslims started sending people, saying that I am not wanted in Yumbe town and that I should leave the town,” Edema said. Fri, 26 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0200http://www.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=news&lang=en&length=long&idelement=5979MALATYA, Turkey, June 25 (Compass Direct News) – A suspected “middleman” between the alleged masterminds and young executors in the stabbing murders of three Christians here failed to appear at a hearing on Friday (June 19) because of a procedural error. The prosecutor’s office failed to set aside funds to transport Varol Bulent Aral to the southeastern city of Malatya from Istanbul, where he is held, the court announced. Aral is the second suspected middleman connecting the five young murderers to “deep state” masterminds who allegedly plotted to kill Turkish Christians Necati Aydin and Ugur Yuksel and German Christian Tilmann Geske. The three Christians were bound and tortured before they were murdered on April 18, 2007 at Zirve Publishing Co., where they worked. Co-plaintiff lawyer Erdal Dogan told reporters after the short hearing that Aral’s absence resulted from a great oversight on the part of the Justice Ministry. “They didn’t bring the witness due to a lack of funds,” said Dogan. “That the Justice Ministry knew the court date and didn’t put money aside for the witness to come is a tragic state of affairs.” Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0200