Two Priests Arrested, Protestant Pastor Kidnapped in China
“Dozens of church members have been arrested in a police crackdown, and one was beaten to death . . .”

www.christianfreedom.org

CHIANG MAI, THAILAND --- As reported by the Cardinal Kung Foundation, authorities in northern China detained two priests from the underground Roman Catholic Church.

Police in Dingzhou, a city in Hebei province, refused to comment on the Cardinal Kung Foundation’s report that they detained Lu Genjun, 42, and Cheng Xiaoli, 40.

Lu, ordained in 1990, was recently released from a labor camp after spending three years there. The report said he was detained in Dingzhou. Cheng’s whereabouts were unknown.

Protestant Pastor Kidnapped, Dozens Arrested
In a separate report, the New York-based Committee for Investigation on Persecution of Religion in China said Xu Shuangfu, founder of a Protestant evangelical group, was kidnapped last month while visiting the northeastern province of Heilongjiang.

Dozens of church members have been arrested in a police crackdown, and one was beaten to death, the Committee said.

Police in Heilongjiang would not comment on the report.

Christian Freedom International Demands Release of Christians
Christian Freedom International is calling for the immediate release of Lu Genjun, Cheng Xiaoli, and Xu Shuangfu. CFI President Jim Jacobson said “China needs to stop the brutal harassment, detention, and persecution of unregistered Christians and release all prisoners of religious conscience.”

Background
China, a country slightly smaller than the U.S., has a population of approximately 1.3 billion.

According to the U.S. State Department, “. . . the Government seeks to restrict religious practice to government-sanctioned organizations and registered places of worship and to control the growth and scope of the activity of religious groups. The Government tries to control and regulate religious groups to prevent the rise of groups that could constitute sources of authority outside of the control of the Government and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Despite these efforts at government control, membership in many faiths is growing rapidly.”

China does not recognize any Protestant denominations.

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Christian Evangelist Kidnapped, Tortured in Pakistan  www.christianfreedom.org

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (IRIN)* is reporting that a Christian evangelist who was kidnapped two days ago in Quetta, Pakistan has suddenly reappeared on Tuesday in the capital, Islamabad, in "conditions that were just as mystifying."

He is currently in protective custody in a "safe haven," according to a minority lawmaker in the national assembly.

According to the BBC, Pastor Wilson Fazal of the Pakistan Gospel Assembly in Quetta, was last seen on Sunday being driven away in an unidentified vehicle.

The kidnapping came only a few days after the pastor was said to have received a pamphlet which warned Fazal against preaching Christianity and alleged that he had been blasphemous, IRIN reported.

Warning to Minority Christians
Warning Christians against evangelism in Pakistan, the pamphlet urged the minority community to join a jihad against the United States, promising large sums of money should the offer be accepted -- and bullets, if it were to be spurned, according to the Pakistan Christian Post.

Aasia Nasir, a minority member of the country's lower house of parliament, told IRIN from Quetta that Fazal had suddenly reappeared in Islamabad early on Tuesday and was now in a safe-house, where he was being treated for injuries suffered during his kidnapping.

Tortured for his Faith
"Today, suddenly, he came back, he escaped from those people and now he is in safe hands in a very safe place. But he is not in his [right] senses because he has been tortured a lot," she explained.

"He is so scared that he can't even talk. Even we don't know the details. I'm in Quetta and he came to Islamabad. I don't want to disclose his location. He has escaped from the terrorists," Nasir, who admitted that she had not yet seen Fazal herself, continued.

"But when I talked to him on the phone, he kept on crying," she said.

"Stop Preaching"
Earlier, the chairman of the All Pakistan Minorities Association (APMA) told IRIN that Fazal's kidnapping seemed to be the work of extremists linked to "jihadi organizations."

"Actually, according to those letters he received, we could say that it is the act of extremists linked to these jihadi organizations," Shahbaz Bhatti, the APMA chairman who claimed to have also read the letter, explained.

"It was written [in the pamphlet] that you are a blasphemer and an infidel, stop preaching in churches and hospitals and schools, and join our jihad against the USA," Bhatti claimed.

Background
Pakistan is an Islamic republic; Islam is the state religion. Islam also is a core element of the country's national ideology, according to the U.S. State Department

Pakistan has a total area of 310,527 square miles, slightly less than twice the size of California, and its population is approximately 150 million. According to the most recent census, taken in 1998, an estimated 96 percent of the population is Muslim; 1.69 percent is Christian.

The Pakistani Government restricts the right to freedom of speech with regard to religion. Speaking or publishing anything in opposition to Islam is strictly prohibited.

Under the "blasphemy laws," the Pakistani penal code mandates the death sentence for anyone defiling the name of the Prophet Mohammed and life imprisonment for desecrating the Koran.

Pakistan, an impoverished and underdeveloped country, suffers from internal political disputes, low levels of foreign investment, and a costly, ongoing confrontation with neighboring India.

*DISCLAIMER NOTE: The material from IRIN, a UN humanitarian information unit, does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies.

Google It!. 2:23:19 PM    comments []

Pakistani Pastor Escapes Islamist Captors

Badly tortured cleric forced into hiding.

by Barbara G. Baker

ISTANBUL, May 19 (Compass) -- A Protestant pastor kidnapped last Sunday morning escaped from his Islamist abductors overnight Monday, some 40 hours after he had disappeared on his way to church services in Quetta, capital of Pakistan’s Baluchistan province.

Pastor Wilson Fazal, 41, managed to jump out of the vehicle in which his kidnappers were driving him to Peshawar late on the night of May 17.

“He himself said he could not believe he could escape, that he got free from those people,” a church source who met Fazal today told Compass. “It was a very big miracle.”

According to the Pakistan Gospel Assemblies pastor, his captors were driving him from Islamabad to Peshawar at high speed in a Pajero jeep when a mobile police patrol began following them.

Panicking, the kidnappers drove off the road to escape the patrol, braking enough to give Fazal a chance to jump from the vehicle and run for his life. Despite his injuries and emotional state, he escaped in the darkness, eventually finding bus transport back to Islamabad.

Fazal re-appeared early yesterday morning at the official Islamabad lodgings of a minority member of Pakistan’s National Assembly from Quetta, Asiya Nasir. In brief interviews with Pakistan dailies, Nasir confirmed from Quetta that she had spoken by telephone yesterday morning with Fazal and that he was now safe, but declined to comment further.

However, the Quetta parliamentarian told the U.N.’s Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN) that the pastor “kept on crying” during his call and was “so scared that he can’t even talk.” Although Nasir said she did not yet know the full details, she told IRIN that Fazal had somehow “managed to escape near Peshawar, and caught a bus to Islamabad.”

According to a church source who met Fazal today, the pastor was badly harassed and mistreated. “He is not in a condition to give a detailed statement yet,” the source said.

Fazal was severely beaten by his captors, who also subjected him to electric shocks, stabbed him through the tongue, shaved off his hair and mustache and taunted him with savage death threats if he refused to convert to Islam.

The pastor also said he was shown photographs and diagrams and questioned in detail about Christian leaders and institutions in Quetta, clearly indicating his captors had organized plans to move against the city’s Christian community.

Reportedly, police authorities from Quetta have insisted that Fazal return for questioning in their investigation of the case. One police official even accused local church leaders of orchestrating the kidnapping scenario, describing Fazal’s “mysterious disappearance” as a deliberate “drama.”

However, those providing a safe haven for the pastor have declared that returning to Quetta would be “a huge security risk” for both Fazal and his family.

Fazal’s wife Nasreen and six sons left Quetta yesterday to be reunited with Fazal at a protected safehouse in an undisclosed location. The family’s security as well as contact with the media has been delegated to representatives of local human rights groups.

According to an Interior Ministry spokesman quoted in today’s Dawn newspaper, Fazal was given medical treatment yesterday for his injuries and provided with the police protection he requested. The unnamed official claimed it was “premature” to state whether any “religious elements” were involved in the pastor’s abduction.

Fazal was one of several local church leaders in Quetta to receive a series of hand-lettered threat letters last week from an unknown Islamist group calling itself “Maham-e-Jihad” (Frontier of the Holy War). Other Pentecostal pastors, the chairman of the Bethel Memorial Methodist Church and directors of various Christian institutions in Quetta also received threat letters.

The letters urged Fazal and other Christian leaders to “convert to Islam or face unspecified consequences,” Reuters news agency reported. The letters also told them “to stop teaching Muslim students.” Those who failed to heed the warning would be subjected to “acts of terrorism or suicide attacks,” the letters said.

Six of Quetta’s Christian leaders who had received these direct threats went into hiding the day after Fazal disappeared, in order to avoid capture themselves. Yesterday, all were confirmed to be safe and in contact with their families.

After Fazal’s disappearance was reported Sunday night, Christian churches throughout Quetta held continuous prayer meetings all day Monday for his safe recovery.

Less than 70,000 of Pakistan’s estimated eight million Christians live in Baluchistan, a sparsely populated province along the country’s southwestern border with Afghanistan.

Since President Pervez Musharraf joined the U.S. war on terrorism in the fall of 2001, fanatic Muslim extremists have killed 42 people and injured another 114 in eight terrorist attacks against Christian churches and institutions in Pakistan.

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Copyright 2004 Compass Direct

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