April 7, 2004
Activists Call for Pressure on Sudan
By DONNA BRYSON
.c The Associated PressCAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Human rights activists are calling the world's attention to bloodshed in western Sudan, where the government is accused of resorting to murder and rape of thousands of civilians in a campaign to put down a rebellion.
A decade ago elsewhere in Africa, international action came too late to prevent the deaths of some 500,000 Rwandans, most of them Tutsis killed by their Hutu neighbors in a 100-day genocidal spree.
Sudan's western Darfur region is ``another grave humanitarian crisis that took far too long for the world to react to,'' David Mozersky, an Africa specialist with the International Crisis Group said Tuesday, the eve of the 10th anniversary of the start of the Rwandan massacres.
Sudan's government has limited aid groups' and journalists' access to Darfur, where local tribes have been in revolt since early 2003. Much of the information on the violence comes from Sudanese refugees in neighboring Chad.
``The government strategy of closing this off and trying to make it invisible, so far, is working,'' said Leslie Lefkow, who recently traveled to Chad to study the situation in Sudan for Human Rights Watch. ``You don't have the photographs of the dead children and women who have been gang raped. That I think would spur more attention.''
Jan Egeland, U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, has said Arab militia groups, reportedly with government backing, are engaged in ``ethnic cleansing, but not genocide'' against Africans in Darfur. Egeland called the situation ``one of the most forgotten and neglected humanitarian crises.''
Sudanese government officials, Lefkow said in an interview, seem to think they can act with impunity in Darfur because the world's attention is focused elsewhere, including an unrelated and longer-standing rebellion in southern Sudan.
``I hope that we can prove them wrong,'' she said.
U.S. officials say lingering remorse over the American brushoff of the Rwanda genocide is influencing the U.S. response to the developing crisis in Darfur.
State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said Tuesday the United States has dispatched personnel to western Sudan to facilitate humanitarian aid deliveries and promote settlement discussions between the government and Sudanese rebels.
Sudan blames the rebels for the bloodshed in Darfur, an area the size of California that is home to a fifth of Sudan's 30 million people.
A pro-government human rights activist dismissed a Human Rights Watch report last month that laid much of the blame on the government as ``mere falsifications and lies compiled by intelligence hirelings.''
The Human Rights Watch report said indiscriminate bombing, raids by the independent ethnic Arab militia and the army against mainly African villages and denial of humanitarian aid amount to ``a strategy of ethnic-based murder, rape and forcible displacement of civilians in Darfur.''
Lefkow, who helped prepare the report, says thousands have died. U.N. figures say 750,000 people have been displaced inside Sudan and tens of thousands have fled into Chad.
Human Rights Watch has urged America to maintain sanctions on Sudan unless the Darfur violence stops. Washington has said the crisis must be resolved before U.S.-Sudanese relations are normalized. But it also indicated sanctions keeping U.S. companies from doing business in Sudan could be eased with the resolution of a separate 21-year-old the civil war in the south, which has claimed more than 2 million lives.
The U.N. Office in Sudan reported that the Darfur situation ``is not showing signs of improvement and conditions are deteriorating in some areas,'' U.N. associate spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Tuesday in New York.
The U.N's refugee agency has started a 10-day fact-finding mission, interviewing Darfur refugees in Chad before visiting Sudan.
Elizabeth Hodgkin, a Sudan expert for Amnesty International, said the world had been slow to respond to Darfur, but recent political pressure was having an effect.
Late last year, Sudan's government let some international aid workers into Darfur and last month began indirect peace talks with Darfur rebels in Chad's capital, N'Djamena.
``We hope that this period of the 10th anniversary of Rwanda will concentrate the minds of the people in N'Djamena,'' Hodgkin said, pressing the world ``not to make the mistake of not acting.''
04/07/04 03:50 EDT
top April 6, 2004
Apostasy, Human Rights, Religion and Belief:
New Threats to Freedom of Opinion and ExpressionUN Commission on Human Rights, Geneva
GENEVA: The Association of World Citizens, the Association for World Education and the International Humanist and Ethical Union will sponsor a discussion on “Apostasy, Human Rights, Religion and Belief,” at the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, Palais des Nations, Gate 40, Room XXI, on Wed, April 7, from 1:15 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. A 3:30 p.m. press conference at the UN Press Room 2 will follow.
Speakers will include Ibn Warraq, a secularist Muslim intellectual; Younas Sheikh, a Pakistani doctor, human rights and peace activist; Shafique Keshavjee, a Swiss pastor and author; and Paul Cook, a representative of the Barnabas Fund (UK).
Ibn Warraq is among the most prominent and outspoken Muslim apostates alive today. His book, Why I am not a Muslim (1996), is “an impassioned polemic against almost 1,400 years of Muslim dogma and its effect on the Islamic World,” says the Boston Globe. Warraq is also editor of: The Quest for the Historical Muhammad (2000), The Origins of the Koran (2001), What the Koran Really Says (2002), and Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out (2003).
Dr. Younas Sheikh was falsely accused of blasphemy and sentenced to death in Pakistan. Following two appeals and a retrial, he was acquitted after two years in solitary confinement on death row.
Shafique Kashavjee is author of The King, the Wise and the Jester (1998), a fable about the major religions of the world that has been translated into 15 languages. He encourages ecumenical and inter-religious dialogue in Switzerland.
Paul Cook is advocacy manager for the Barnabas Fund (UK), a charity which supports persecuted Christians in Africa and Asia.
top April 2, 2004
Hundreds of slaves freed in Sudan
374 people held in government camps make way to freedom in south
Hundreds of people held as slaves in government-controlled Sudanese camps have reached freedom in the southern part of that nation after what was described as a "harrowing exodus from bondage."
According to a statement from Christian Solidarity International, 374 slaves safely reached the town of Warawar in southern Sudan yesterday. Representatives from CSI and members of the local Dinka community are attending to them.
Over the past three weeks, the organizations says, 503 slaves, mainly women and children, were gathered from government-run camps in northern Sudan. Most of the slaves had been held in the camps for between one and three years. The 374 slaves were tightly packed in open trucks, approximately 55 on each truck. The remaining 129 of the 503 slaves had not yet arrived as of yesterday.
According to the report, the convoy of slaves was detained for more than a week near the southern Sudan border after being threatened by government-sponsored militias. It took the intervention of the World Union of Progressive Judaism at the U.N. Commission on Human Rights to secure government approval for the slaves to continue their journey to freedom. However, at least one boy was reportedly re-abducted by his knife-wielding master as the convoy crossed the Bahr-Al-Arab River into the southern portion of the nation.
CSI says the slave exodus was organized and led by James Aguer and other members of the Committe for the Eradication of the Abduction of Women and Children and members of the Warawar Arab-Dinka Peace Committee. CSI is providing humanitarian assistance to the liberated slaves.
Sudan's cleric-backed National Islamic Front regime in the Arab and Muslim north declared a jihad on the mostly Christian and animist south in 1989. Since 1983, an estimated 2 million people have died from war and related famine. About 5 million have become refugees. The Khartoum government denies that slavery exists in Sudan.
This week, the Sudanese government boycotted the opening session of peace talks with rebels designed specifically to end more than a year of fighting between them in the Darfur region of Sudan.
top March 25, 2004
Statement of H.H. Pope Shenouda
regarding the Systematic Ensnaring of
Coptic Girls in Egypt's Supermarkets.I have received numerous reports about girls who go to supermarkets and then are told you have gifts and you have won a contest so please come upstairs to receive them. We do not know what happens to them when they go upstairs. There is much talk being circulated, and I perceive that this issue will create a sectarian partition in the country. I urge that police officials take a decisive position because I am getting countless letters in regards to this issue.
And we should not say - bring us names or otherwise - we know that they could have taken them to any place - we don't know where they are. The issue should not be taken with this triviality and carelessness. I say this, and I am aware of the gravity of the situation. We don't want any more catastrophes to happen to us, what happened in the past is enough.
This should not be taken lightly. entrapping We find also a number of youngsters who traveled to a certain region with them some Bibles and were arrested. They were imprisoned for 15 days by the district officials for mere reason of their possession of the Bibles.
And these girls that are taken upstairs, we do not know what happens to them.
We are not going to keep silent about this at all!
top March 17, 2004
Southern Baptists Mourn Slain Missionaries
Fred Jackson and Jenni ParkerAgape Press
Southern Baptists are once again grieving over the loss of missionaries who have paid the ultimate cost of serving God in hostile lands. Five American missionaries were shot in Northern Iraq yesterday in a drive-by shooting near Mosul. Four of the group were killed, and the fifth, critically wounded.
The Southern Baptist missionaries, who were working on a water purification project, were reportedly traveling in one car when they were attacked. Two Germans working on another water supply project south of Bagdad were shot Tuesday, bringing the number of foreign civilians killed in drive-by shootings in Iraq to half a dozen within the same 24 hours.
top March 5, 2004
Sen. Biden Tells Arabs to Adopt Democracy
By GEORGE GEDDA
.c The Associated PressWASHINGTON (AP) - Sen. Joseph Biden told Libyan parliamentarians during a visit to the North African nation that the Arab world should reject authoritarian rule and instead adopt democracy.
He called on Arab countries to take on the ``incredibly difficult challenge'' of ``empowering women, spreading knowledge and expanding freedom.''
Biden, a Delaware Democrat who is the ranking minority member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, delivered the speech Wednesday to the Libyan National Congress. A transcript of the speech was made available Friday by his Washington office.
Biden met earlier Wednesday with Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi who has been Libya's undisputed leader for more than 30 years. He then spoke to the Congress about what he saw as the need to prevent ``the concentration of power into the hands of the few ... or the one.''
``Nothing about democracy is incompatible with Islam,'' Biden said, noting that decisions based on community discussions was a Muslim concept centuries ago.
``Please do not misunderstand me. I mean no disrespect. But the nations of the Arab world could be doing so much more to harness the enormous potential of their people,'' he said.
Arab countries should consider the example Spain, Biden said, pointing out that the country was part of a great Arab empire a thousand years ago.
``Why did you thrive then?'' he asked. ``It was not your armies alone. It was your ideas, your civilization, your culture, your openness. Why has this one small territory - then called Al Andalus, now called Spain - outpaced the rest of the Arab world combined today?''
``Don't take the answer from me,'' Biden said, citing a United Nations report on Arab human development, which recommended the granting of women's rights and an expansion of knowledge sharing and freedom as keys to a more prosperous future.
Biden's visit to Libya and the invitation for him to address the Congress was another example of the rapid development of U.S. relations with its one-time rival.
``By accepting responsibility for the past ... agreeing to abandon its weapons of mass destruction program ... and joining the war on terrorism ... your government is beginning to end Libya's political and economic isolation,'' he said.
03/05/04 20:56 EST
top February 19, 2004
Saudis Warn U.S. on Pushing for Reforms
By PAUL GEITNER
.c The Associated PressBRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - Saudi Arabia's foreign minister warned the United States on Thursday against pressing too hard for reforms in the kingdom, saying they were being enacted with ``deliberate speed'' to ensure their success.
Prince Saud al-Faisal also said he was skeptical about American efforts to promote democracy in the Arab world, pointing to the economic plight of Russians after the breakup of the Soviet Union.
``We would like to learn from you but we would like you not to impose things on us,'' the prince said in a speech at the European Policy Centre, during which he singled out the U.S. Ambassador to the European Union, Rockwell Schnabel, in the audience several times.
``Even in your schools you prevent the use of the cane to teach students.''
Prince Saud said reforms were being enacted with ``deliberate speed,'' which he defined as ``speed that doesn't push you to irresponsible actions before people are ready to absorb them, nor delay to the extent that you kill'' the reforms.
``Gradual change may seem slow or less impressive to some,'' he said. ``But if reforms are to endure and be effective, they have to respond to the will of the people and maintain the unity of the nation.''
The prince also said he was hoping for more information from the Bush administration about recent reports it is preparing a ``Greater Middle East Initiative'' modeled on the 1975 ``Helsinki pact,'' which the West used to press for greater freedoms and human rights behind the Iron Curtain.
``The results on the Soviet Union we all know,'' Prince Saud said. ``It was broken up, it suffered economic deprivations, its people the unhappiest people for at least two decades.
``So if this is presented as a lure to the Arab countries, we really don't see much lure in the Helsinki accords.''
President Bush has proposed spending an additional $40 million on pro-democracy programs in the Middle East.
Prince Saud mentioned homegrown efforts already underway in Saudi Arabia toward modernization and limited reform, citing statistics showing there are more females than boys in Saudi high schools and the kingdom has nearly 1 million Internet connections.
The kingdom was severely criticized after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States because 15 of the 19 hijackers involved were Saudis. Critics charged that the country's conservative interpretation of Islam helped produce militants.
The government subsequently gave directives to mosque preachers, amended religious textbooks and promised local elections - a first for a country with no parliament.
Also Thursday, the U.S. Treasury Department moved to block the assets of the American branch of a large Saudi charity accused of diverting money to help bankroll al-Qaida's terrorist activities.
The affected Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation branch is listed as having mailing addresses in Ashland, Ore., and Springfield, Mo., according to the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control.
02/19/04 11:29 EST
top February 16, 2004
U.S. May Veto Islamic Law in Iraq
Webmasters Note: A valuable lesson is learned from Egypt, where the rights of the Christian minorities are being violated by the constitution that stipulates, "Sharia [Islamic law] is the prime source of legislation."
By JIM KRANE
.c The Associated PressKARBALA, Iraq (AP) - The top U.S. administrator in Iraq suggested Monday he would block any interim constitution that would make Islam the chief source of law, as some members of the Iraqi Governing Council have sought.
L. Paul Bremer said the current draft of the constitution would make Islam the state religion of Iraq and ``a source of inspiration for the law'' - as opposed to the main source.
Many Iraqi women have expressed fears that the rights they hold under Iraq's longtime secular system would be rolled back in the interim constitution being written by U.S.-picked Iraqi leaders and their advisers, many of them Americans. U.S. lawmakers have urged the White House to prevent Islamic restrictions on Iraqi women.
Asked what would happen if Iraqi leaders wrote into the constitution that Islamic sharia law is the principal basis of the law, Bremer suggested he would wield his veto. ``Our position is clear. It can't be law until I sign it,'' he said.
Bremer must sign into law all measures passed by the 25-member council, including the interim constitution. Iraq's powerful Shiite clergy, however, has demanded the document be approved by an elected legislature. Under U.S. plans, a permanent constitution would not be drawn up and voted on until 2005.
Bremer used the inauguration ceremony at a women's center in the southern city of Karbala to argue for more than ``token'' women's representation in the transitional government due to take power June 30.
``I think it is very important that women be represented in all the political bodies,'' Bremer said.
``Women are the majority in this country, in this area probably a substantial majority,'' he said, referring to the Saddam Hussein's 1991 purges of Shiite Muslim men. Those killings left the holy city of Karbala and other Shiite cities dotted with mass graves and brimming with thousands of widows.
Bremer and an entourage of reporters flew from Baghdad into this Shiite holy city in a pair of U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopters. He toured a women's center renovated by U.S. and seized Iraqi funds, pausing to chat with women and girls who were sewing curtains and surfing the Internet.
In a speech to about 100 women - most dressed in flowing black abayas and some with tattooed chins - Bremer cited a 2003 United Nations report that found that productivity in Arab countries was being strangled because women had been kept out of the work force. Bremer suggested that women's participation did not run counter to Muslim values.
``Women who can read and write and understand mathematics are not prevented from being good mothers. Quite the opposite,'' Bremer told the gathering. ``No son is better off because his mother and sisters cannot read.''
Nawal Jabar, 44, whose husband was killed in the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, said she joined the women's center to learn a trade.
``Either my mother or my brother has supported me from time to time since my husband died,'' Jabar said. ``It's a very bad situation. But I am hoping I can get a job here so that I can support my kids.''
Enshrining women's rights in a constitution could be difficult. U.S. observers have predicted liberal reforms introduced in the transitional law could well be rolled back in a future constitution. Bremer acknowledged that U.S. influence on an Iraqi constitution would fade after the June 30 handover.
``There will be a sovereign government here in June. The Iraqis then will then have responsibility for their own country,'' Bremer said. ``There's a real hunger for democracy in this country. It may not look like American democracy, but there's a real hunger for it and we're encouraging that.''
There are three women on the Governing Council.
Mohsen Abdel-Hamid, the current council president and a member of a committee drafting the interim constitution, has proposed making Islamic sharia law the ``principal basis'' of legislation.
The phrasing could have broad effects on secular Iraq. In particular, it would likely make moot much of Iraq's 1959 Law of Personal Status, which grants uniform rights to husband and wife to divorce and inheritance, and governs related issues like child support.
Under most interpretations of Islamic law, women's rights to seek divorce are strictly limited and they only receive half the inheritance of men. Islamic law also allows for polygamy and often permits marriage of girls at a younger age than secular law.
In December, the council passed a decision abolishing the 1959 law and allowing each of the main religious groups to apply its own tradition - including Islamic law. Many Iraqi women expressed alarm at the decision, and Bremer has not signed it into law.
Earlier this month, 45 members of the U.S. House of Representatives signed a letter to President Bush urging him to preserve women's rights.
``It would be a tragedy beyond words if Iraqi women lost the rights they had under Saddam Hussein, especially when the purpose of our mission in Iraq was to make life better for the Iraqi people,'' the letter read.
02/16/04 09:13 EST
top February 12, 2004
U.S.-Gov't TV Station Gets Arab Criticism
By SALAH NASRAWI
.c The Associated PressCAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Even before its first broadcast, a satellite television station financed by the U.S. government and directed at Arab viewers is drawing fire in the Middle East as an American attempt to destroy Islamic values and brainwash the young.
Al-Hurra, or The Free One, is to start broadcasting Saturday. President Bush has promised the 24-hour news and entertainment station will ``cut through the hateful propaganda that fills the airwaves in the Muslim world.''
It is to debut with a one-on-one interview with Bush. White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan has said the interview allows Bush to tell of ``his commitment to spreading freedom and democracy in the Middle East.''
Washington's hope is that a fashionably produced Arab-language station will help stem anti-Americanism fueled by the war on terrorism, the occupation of Iraq and U.S. support for Israel.
It promises a balanced approach - a possibility critics dismiss - but the station has a long way to go to capture some Arab hearts and minds.
``The main goals of launching such a channel are to create drastic changes in our principles and doctrines,'' said Jamil Abu-Bakr, a spokesman for Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood movement. ``But the nature of Arab and Muslim societies and their rejection and hatred of American policies ... will ultimately limit the impact.''
Arab journalists also have criticized al-Hurra as unwanted or even dangerous propaganda.
Al-Osboa, a Cairo-based newspaper, criticized the Arab Broadcasting Union and Egypt's Ministry of Information for providing al-Hurra with satellite channels to beam ``its poison'' throughout the Mideast.
The U.S. government has tried reaching out directly to Arabs in other ways, most recently through the Arabic-language Radio Sawa and a slick Arabic-English magazine, ``hi,'' about American culture and life.
Radio Sawa - Sawa means Together in Arabic - began broadcasting shortly before Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was ousted in April. ``hi'' debuted in July in 14 Arab countries. Both also are accessible on the Internet.
Neither are smash hits, though many young Arabs say they enjoy Radio Sawa's Arabic and Western pop music even if they look elsewhere for news.
Rami G. Khouri, executive editor of Lebanon's The Daily Star, expects Al-Hurra to ``exacerbate the gap between Americans and Arabs, rather than close it.''
``Al-Hurra, like the U.S. government's Radio Sawa and 'hi' magazine before it, will be an entertaining, expensive, and irrelevant hoax. Where do they get this stuff from? Why do they keep insulting us like this?'' he wrote.
Philip Frayne, a U.S. Embassy spokesman in Cairo, defended the station.
``Al-Hurra will not be used simply as a vehicle for defending American policies, but rather will present a balanced perspective,'' Frayne said.
Al-Hurra is America's answer to the popular all-news Arab satellite networks it accuses of fanning anti-American sentiments, such as Al Jazeera. It will broadcast from Washington but have facilities in several capitals, including Baghdad, and a largely Arab staff.
Over the past decade, the Arab world has witnessed an explosion of satellite TV stations, both state-sponsored and private, resulting in a previously unheard of range of broadcast opinions. Al-Jazeera in particular has been lambasted by nearly every Arab regime for airing views of government opponents.
``These stations offer Arabic-language viewers a large choice of programs and viewpoints to watch,'' Frayne said. ``However, an American point of view is often missing, and accurate information about American society and policies is frequently absent from the airwaves.''
Al-Hurra also has some Arab defenders.
``Everyone is entitled to express his or her opinion. This is an open sky and nobody should be afraid of that,'' said Samiha Dahroug, head of Egypt's Nile News Channel.
But Dahroug added that Washington's image won't improve among Arabs until it changes its policies toward them.
``America is judged by how it conducts itself in the world,'' she said. ``The facts speak for themselves.''
02/12/04 11:34 EST
top January 21, 2004
Powell Urges Arabs, Muslims on Diversity
By BARRY SCHWEID
.c The Associated PressWASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration advises Arab and other Muslim governments to educate their children in schools that teach more than Islamic doctrine, Secretary of State Colin Powell said Wednesday.
In some of these schools children are being taught to hate, thereby hurting peace efforts in the region and also not helping their own societies, Powell said.
``We have been talking not only to the Saudis but to other Middle Eastern leaders and Muslim leaders around the world, and made it clear to them that Islam is a great religion,'' Powell said in an interview with WPHT Radio in Philadelphia.
``But they also have to be educating their youngsters not just in the tenets of Islam and the Islamic religion, but they have to educate their youngsters for the demands of the 21st century,'' Powell said.
``They have got to give them skills. They have got to teach them to read and write,'' Powell said. ``They have got to teach them science and math and all the other things that are necessary for societies to be successful in the 21st century.''
Drawing a bead on some of the Islamic schools, Powell said ``if they are just going to take their young people and put them in these madrases, these schools that do nothing but indoctrinate them in the worst aspects of a religion, then they are shorting themselves, they are leaving themselves back as well as teaching hatred that will not help us bring peace to the region, and will not help their societies.''
Powell said the Bush administration had made it clear to Saudi Arabia that the 21st century is going to require changes in their society.
``But we do it as friends, and we don't do it to beat them up or lecture them,'' Powell said.
The United States needs Saudi Arabia, but ``there are certain policies they have that we are not happy with,'' he said.
``They have a different culture, a different society than ours - things they do that would not be acceptable to us,'' Powell said, without elaboration.
top January 13, 2004
Pakistani Pastor Shot Dead
CSI calls for end to religious-based discrimination
KHANEWAL, Pakistan: The body of a Christian pastor was found at the Khanewal Railway Station in Pakistan on Jan. 5. An autopsy revealed that the cause of death was gun shot wounds to the chest, according to the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance (APMA).
Family members say Rev. Mukhtar Masih, 50, left home at 3:00 that morning to take a train to Lahore. His dead body was found one hour later and none of his personal belongings taken.
The victim's son, Mr. Musa Mukhtar, reported that his father recently received death threats from local Muslim extremists and, in the past, some of these extremists asked police to ban speakers from his father's church.
On Jan. 6, Christians in Khanewal gathered to protest the pastor's murder, condemn the continued violence against Pakistan's religious minorities, and criticize the failure of law enforcement and judicial agencies to protect them.
During the protest, demonstrators carried Masih's body to the Office of the District Administrator of Kharampura demanding a police investigation. To date, no one has been arrested in connection with the murder.
Masih leaves behind a wife, son, and six daughters. Members of the APMA say they will continue to investigate the incident and forward their findings to local authorities.
At least 45 people have been killed and over 90 injured in terrorist attacks on Pakistani Christians since September 2001. The leaders of Pakistan's non-Muslim minority groups accuse the Government of Islamabad of maintaining conditions for violence by upholding a discriminatory system of "religious apartheid". Pakistan's Christian community is estimated to number 3.8 million people.
Today, CSI president, Rev. Hans Stuckelberger, responded to the death of Rev. Masih by urging Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to help end the cycle of violence against the country's Christians, and other non-Muslim minorities, by ordering increased security measures and by repealing all laws that discriminate on religious grounds.
Pakistan was created in 1947 as the first modern state to be founded on the basis of religion. It became an Islamic state based on discriminatory Shariah law.
Contact:
Stephen Crawford
CSI - USA
805-777-7107 (phone)
805-777-7508 (fax)
csi@csi-usa.org
top January 5, 2004
EGYPT
Christian Centre Attacked by Army for the Ninth TimeThe Patmos Christian Centre has been attacked for the ninth time. In the fracas one of the employees was killed.
Today beginning at 11.30am local time the Egyptian army subjected the Patmos Christian Centre to an hour long attack. Five hundred soldiers descended upon the centre, 30km to the east of Cairo, accompanied by two bulldozers. They blocked the entrance to the compound with a large pile of stones and rubble and then they destroyed seven metres of adjoining wall. Those working at the centre rushed out en masse to prevent the army from coming onto their property. Soldiers threw stones and bottles at the protestors. In the mêlée a bus ploughed into a crowd who were surrounding Bishop Botros who heads the centre. The Bishop was not among those injured, but one staff member, Kirilos Daoud, was killed. Seven people are currently in hospital, one in a critical condition. The police have tried to find the bus driver, but the army appear to have taken him away. Also injured was a nun who was beaten by soldiers.
BACKGROUND
This is the ninth attack on the centre in the past six and a half years. Soldiers from the local army unit are seeking to destroy the wall supposedly in order to conform to a new law passed on 25 January 2003 which requires all buildings to be at least 100 metres from the Cairo-Suez road. The wall stands 50 metres from the road and was built ten years ago in full accordance with the law at the time.
Workers at the centre point out that the local army barracks’ own walls also stand 50 metres from the road and no attempt has been made to demolish these. Similarly many other buildings in the area are much closer to the road, including some 15 mosques which stand only 5 – 10 metres from the road. Likewise no attempts have been made to demolish any of these buildings.
Church leaders say that the Minister of Defence, who has been opposed to the centre since 1997, ordered extreme and conservative Muslim officers from the local army unit to enforce the law on the Patmos Centre. They believe the repeated attacks are a result of anti-Christian prejudice amongst Muslim officers rather than a simple disagreement over building regulations. Other government representatives, including the President’s office and the Ministry of the Interior, have intervened positively in the past to protect the centre from intimidation and attacks by the military.
The Patmos Centre has been serving the local community in Egypt for fifteen years. The centre is providing care and support for mentally and physically handicapped children and orphans. The centre is legally registered with the Egyptian authorities. It receives between 500 – 1000 visitors every day.