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Indian Church leaders urge implementation of rights for Christian and Muslim Dalits

Christian leaders in India sent a three point letter to the Prime Minister on 17 December urging him to act on a government commission that recommended increased rights for Christian and Muslim Dalit people. The leaders were concerned after a press report suggested that the government planed to bury the report by the government commission. The Christian leaders have urged the Prime Minister to table the report in the current session of parliament. They also want the government to inform the Supreme Court about its decision regarding the commission report.

The leaders sent their letter to other senior Indian Ministers and to the National Commission for Minorities. It said Christians and Muslims of Dalit origin have agitated now for 59 years urging the Government not to discriminate against them on the grounds of their religion. They are seeking the same political, economic and development privileges for Christian and Muslim Dalits as are extended to Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist Dalits.

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Incidents of Christian persecution reported to have declined in Indonesia

The Wahid Institute, an Indonesian organisation set up by the late president Abdurrahman Wahid, has stated in its report on religious freedom and religious life in Indonesia that there were 93 recorded cases of religious intolerance in 2009 compared to 232 in 2008. The report states that police action against the perpetrators of religious intolerance contributed to the decline in the number of violations. The Indonesian Ulama Council, the hardline Islamic Defenders Front and Muslim forum were identified as organisations responsible for intolerance last year. The report can be accessed at the website.

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EU provides funding against murders in the Philippines

In early October 2009 the European Union provided US$5.8 million to the Philippines Government to help stop extrajudicial executions and disappearance of human rights defenders. The funding covers an 18 month period until March 2011 and will establish a national monitoring system to help government and non-government groups track the progress in preventing extrajudicial execution.

More information on the situation.

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National Council of Churches in the Philippines member among those massacred

On 23 November 2009, 57 women and men were massacred in Maguindanao, Mindanao in the Philippines.

Concepcion ‘Connie’ Brizuela of the National Council of Churches in the Philippines, a human rights lawyer, was among the 22 women who were massacred. Two of the women victims were pregnant. At least five women were sexually molested before being murdered. Mass graves had been dug prior to the massacre being carried out, indicating the pre-meditated nature of the crime.The victims were part of a convoy of Vice Mayor Esmael Mangudadato’ relatives going to the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao to file the candidacy certificate of Esmael Mangudadato for the post of governor. This was a challenge to the decade long hold on the post by the Ampatuan family.

Witnesses said the convoy was blocked by around 100 armed men led by Maguindanao Shariff Aguak, Chief Police Inspector Zukarno Adil Dicay and Datu Andal Ampatuan Jr, mayor of one of the towns in Maguindanao and one of the members of the Ampatuan clan, a major ally of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in the past 2004 and 2007 elections.

The Ampatuans, who occupied many local positions in the province of Maguindanao have made use of their power to maintain militias which the government used in its counterinsurgency programs for many years. They have been able to build up a private arsenal including mortars, rocket launchers and top-of-the-range assault rifles. Their private army includes dozens of police officers.

Previous post.

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Christian exodus from Middle East

In the lead up to Christmas, The Age (23/12), reported on the exodus of Christians from the Middle East.

In Bethlehem the Christian population has dwindled from 80% of the population after WWII, to just 25% today. The report stated that in Jerusalem some Orthodox Jews spit on passers-by wearing crucifixes. In Gaza Christian shops have been firebombed. In Egypt a string of businesses owned by Coptic Christians were burnt down in riots in the southern province of Qena.

Due to the violence in the country, as many as 600,000 of Iraq’s one million Christians have fled the country following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003.  Some of this violence has come from Islamic extremist groups.

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Churches in Jerusalem call for an end to Israeli occupation

Just before Christmas the Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem endorsed the “Kairos Palestine” document that calls for and end to the occupation of Palestine by Israel. It calls on churches around the world to help bring an end to “our catastrophe”, referring to the plight of the Palestinian people.

This comes at a time when Christians are leaving the Middle East in record numbers.

The document decries the emptiness of the promises and pronouncements about peace in the region. It reminds the world about the separation wall erected on Palestinian territory, the blockade of Gaza, the spread of Israeli settlements on Palestinian land, the humiliation at military checkpoints, the restriction of religious liberty and controlled access to holy places, the plight of refugees awaiting their right of return, and Israel’s blatant disregard for international law, as well as the paralysis of the international community in the face of this tragedy.

They argue: “God created us not to engage in strife and conflict but together build up the land in love and mutual respect. Our land has a universal mission, and the promise of the land has never been a political programme, but rather the prelude to complete universal salvation. Our connectedness to this land is a natural right. It is not an ideological or a theological question only.”

They conclude: “in the absence of all hope, we cry out our cry of hope. We believe in God, good and just. We believe that God’s goodness will finally triumph over the evil of hate and death that still persist in our land. We will see here ‘a new land’ and ‘a new human being’, capable of rising up in the spirit to love each one of his or her brothers and sisters.”

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Exodus of Christians in the Middle East

December 21, 2009
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Across the Middle East, a Christian population that stood at 20 percent a century ago has now sunk to under five percent. Yet the rise of radical Islam is not the only factor. In the Occupied Territories, Christians suffer alongside Muslims from Israeli policies, most recently the new “security wall”.

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A Massacre Most Foul, Gross, and Utterly Repugnant

NCCP statement on the massacre in Maguindanao National Council of Churches in the Philippines November 25, 2009

The National Council of Churches in the Philippines joins the people in mourning. We reach  out in prayer and solidarity to the families of the victims of the massacre in Maguindanao. The  death toll of 46 people as of this writing, includes members of the media and two lawyers known for their human rights advocacy. We also reach out to the relatives of those missing.

May the Holy Comforter be with them.  Yet even as we grieve and mourn, we are outraged. We are outraged that government has not acted with dispatch. Two days after news of the carnage broke out, the suspected mastermind has not been taken into custody. From day one, the spokesperson of the Armed Forces of the Philippines already identified the suspected mastermind – a known staunch ally of the President and undeniably a political warlord in Maguindanao. We join the demand for the Government to take action but, we are appalled that a state of emergency has been declared  in Maguindanao. For so long, Mindanao has been militarized and used to justify more military hardware and budget. What other more powers does the government need?

This massacre is a grim reminder of the pervading culture of impunity and the lack of respect for human rights that has been in our midst and that has turned for the worse since 2001. We are indignant of this continuing culture of impunity and the lack of political will of the government to stop these killings. What government has been doing is the swift perpetuation of injustice and the slow if not hollow dispensation of justice.

The gruesome massacre of unarmed civilians is also a painful reminder that government statements to the dismantling of political warlordism have been mere rhetoric. Government  has either turned a blind eye or entered into alliances with these warlords for political  expediency at the expense of creating democratic space. Political warlordism is a manifestation of a feudal social order and we join the call that it should now be a thing of the  past.

To our partners around the world, our deep gratitude for upholding us in your supplication and affirming our calls. We pray that peace and justice be given a chance in Mindanao and elsewhere in this country. We pray that all the resources that have been poured in Mindanao bail the people out from the mire of poverty, neglect and human indignity. We pray that we all rise from this blasphemy for the sake of the God who loves us all and calls us to be one people and for the sake of our children and the children yet unborn.

REV. FR. REX RB REYES, JR.
General Secretary
BISHOP NATHANAEL P. LAZARO
Chairperson

Reference:
Padi REX RB REYES, JR.
General Secretary
Phone +632 929 3745
Fax +632 926 7076
Mobile +63 926 7048249

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Update on Orissa situation in India

Members of the Justice and International Mission Unit were recently in India meeting with Uniting Church partner church, the Church of North India (CNI). The CNI reported that there are at least 3,000 Christians living in tents in Orissa as it is not safe for them to return to what is left of their homes due to the presence of local Hindu nationalist extremists.

While the Indian Government has provided compensation to people who lost their homes in the August and September 2008 rampage by Hindu nationalist extremists, the amount has been inadequate. The Government has paid 40,000 rupees to families who lost their homes and all the furnishings, but a simple one room home with a kitchen costs at least 100,000 rupees to build. An estimated 5,000 houses were destroyed in the riots. Not all those who had their houses destroyed have received the compensation legally entitled to them. Members of the JIM Unit met with the CNI lawyer who is working to ensure that the cases related to the violence are being prosecuted. Over 800 complaints have been registered with the police, which has resulted in 84 cases in which charges have been laid. Of these 29 cases have been tried so far. Six extremists have been sentenced to life imprisonment while a further 20 have been convicted for sentences of between three and four years. Five people were sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering Pastor Akbar Digal of Tatamaha Baptist Church. We had requested that you write to the Indian and Australian Governments with regards to Pastor Akbar Digal’s murder in December 2008. Those convicted of his murder had slit his throat in front of his wife Ludia Digal on 26 August 2008.

However, in a number of cases a lack of evidence has resulted in acquittals for the accused. So far at least 88 people have been acquitted. In some cases witnesses have been afraid to testify against the extremists out of fear for their own safety. The CNI lawyer himself has been subjected to harassment and intimidation by the extremists.

A number of cases are now having to be carried out where Christians in Orissa have had their land confiscated as the records of ownership were destroyed in the riots.

The CNI lawyer also reported that there were cases where Christians have been forced to convert to Hinduism.

In August Christians organised prayers in several parts of India to mark the first anniversary of the anti-Christian violence in Orissa that left 90 people dead and forced more than 50,000 people to flee their homes.

The churches have called for the immediate implementation of a witness protection program to help victims testify in court.

On the more positive side, ecumenical organisations and NGOs have also started running community projects designed to foster amicable relationships between Hindus and Christians in the part of Orissa where the violence was most intense. Christian and Hindu children have once again begun playing with each other in some villages.

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World Council of Churches passes resolution on the responsibility of churches for communities enduring anti-Christian violence

On 2 September the World Council of Churches (WCC) Central Committee passed a resolution in recognition that Christian communities in many parts of the world today are the targets of different forms of religiously motivated violence or find themselves under threat and intimidation. The WCC Central Committee resolution:
A.    Challenges its member churches to hear the cries of sisters and brothers in Christ enduring violence, threat and intimidation throughout the world and to give voice to their suffering so that their pain will not be ignored; pray without ceasing and for an end to violence and a restoration of life; engage in acts of costly solidarity such as pastoral visits, generous sharing of financial resources, sending letters of support and consolation and, when possible, offering hospitality and sanctuary to those who are forced to become refugees while at the same time helping to facilitate their repatriation.
B.    Asks its member churches to engage in public witness challenging their own and, when appropriate, other governments to protect the lives of citizens in accordance with international standards of human rights.
E.    Encourages churches in all contexts to demonstrate interfaith sensitivity in their witness, by preaching and teaching against retaliation, honouring the right to religious freedom for all.
F.    Reminds the churches that their witness against anti-Christian violence is made more credible when it is matched by a clear commitment to protect all vulnerable persons and communities regardless of their religious identity.

The WCC Central Committee offered the following prayer as a resource to enable the churches’ engagement with the issue:
Gracious God and Saviour, the friend of all who suffer
And the hope of all who are driven towards despair,
Make us willing and ready to share the violation of those
Who have had the Cross pressed upon them.
May our embrace offer consolation and our voice call forth justice.
And in all circumstances may ours be a ministry not of vengeance,
But reconciliation, through Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen

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