Nine killed in Myanmar bomb blast

Published: April 15, 2010
Nine killed in Myanmar bomb blast

YANGON – Three bombs rocked a park in Myanmar’s main city Yangon Thursday as revelers celebrated an annual water festival, leaving at least nine people dead and more than 60 wounded, officials said.

The blasts occurred near Kandawgyi Lake in the military-ruled country’s commercial hub where crowds had gathered to celebrate the Buddhist new year.

“Nine people were killed — five men and four women — and so far 62 people were injured,” an official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

A fourth bomb was found and defused, the official said.

The blasts came as the country prepares for elections planned for this year that critics have dismissed as a sham for effectively barring opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi because she is a serving prisoner.

Hundreds of people gathered around the area, which was cordoned off by police after the explosions. Witnesses said people fled and ambulances rushed away casualties.

“I saw blood on many people,” said a Red Cross official.

Myanmar has been hit by a series of bomb blasts in recent years, with the junta blaming attacks on armed exile groups or ethnic rebels.

The military has ruled Myanmar since 1962, partly justifying its grip on power by claiming the need to fend off ethnic rebellions that have plagued remote border areas for decades.

The regime has stepped up its decades-long campaign against minority insurgent groups in an apparent attempt to crush them before the polls planned for this year.

Democracy icon Suu Kyi has been detained for 14 of the past 20 years.

Rights group Amnesty International in February called on the governing generals to end repression of ethnic minority groups ahead of the vote, accusing the regime of arresting, jailing, torturing and killing minority activists in a bid to crush dissent.

The government has signed peace pacts with some ethnic groups previously opposing the regime.

Myanmar is home to several ethnic groups, with some waging decades-long armed uprisings along the country’s eastern border alleging they are subject to neglect and mistreatment.

The authorities said in August last year that they had foiled a plot by a man sent by exiled pro-democracy groups to bomb Yangon during a visit by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon the previous month.

Ban had been in Myanmar to seek the release of Suu Kyi, whose house arrest was extended by 18 months in August after she was convicted over an incident in which an American man swam to her house.

Myanmar has also seen clashes between government troops and rebels in Kokang, a mainly ethnic Chinese region of Myanmar’s Shan state.

Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) won a landslide victory in 1990 elections, but the junta never allowed it to take office. The Nobel peace laureate has been under house arrest almost constantly since.

SOURCE: Makoob Business Letter

Five pilgrims killed at Kumbh Mela

Published: April 15, 2010
Five pilgrims killed at Kumbh Mela

Nearly 1.45-crore pilgrims took a dip in the Ganga on Wednesday, the day of the last royal bath during the Mahakumbh here, according to Director-General of Police Subhash Joshi. The occasion was Mesh Sankranti. Five pilgrims, including three women and a girl, were killed after being hit by a car carrying Naga Sadhus in the Birla Ghat bridge area, official sources said.

The accident took place when the procession of Joona Akhara was approaching Har-Ki-Pauri and crowds of people had lined up to witness it. Nine persons were injured in the incident. The health office at the Mahakumbh Mela said seven persons had died on Wednesday. It was not clear whether this figure included those who died in the accident.

After the accident, Sadhus belonging to Joona and Niranjani Akharas did not proceed towards Har-Ki-Pauri, the main bathing ghat. They returned to their camps for bathing at private ghats.

Sadhus of Mahanirvani, Nirmohi Ani, Digambar Ani and Nirwani Ani akharas reached Har-Ki-Pauri in procession and bathed at the ghat.

Source: THE HINDU

House churches thrive in Beijing

Published: March 26, 2010
House churches thrive in Beijing

By Wu Yiyao and Cui Xiaohuo (China Daily)

Beijing has a growing number of, and an increasingly open attitude toward, “house churches,” according to members of these churches and experts on religion.

“House churches” refers to Christian churches other than those government-sanctioned, officially registered ones, which include the Three Self Patriot Movement, the China Christian Council and the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association.

The increase in house churches is partly due to lack of space at official churches, according to Jacob Sun, a 38-year-old house churchgoer. Sun spoke on condition of being identified only by his surname and English first name, instead of his full Chinese name.

“Many of our practical needs, which are not satisfied at official churches, are well catered to at house churches,” said Sun, who is also a philosophy professor at a university in Beijing.

He said he went to Three Self churches for five years after he was baptized in 1999, but then shifted to house churches for several reasons, the main one of which was overcrowding at the Three Self churches.

House churches thrive in Beijing

“Thousands of people gathered in the Three Self churches for Sunday service and sometimes you could barely hear anything,” said Sun. “The congregation could hardly be considered intimate at that size.”

There are more than 50,000 Christians and 17 Three Self churches in Beijing, roughly one church for every 3,000 Christian, according to a study on Chinese Christianity in 2008 by Duan Qi and Tang Xiaofeng, from the Institute of World Religions at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

When the congregation size is smaller, as it is at most house churches, it is easier to develop a close rapport with fellow churchgoers, said Abel Li, a manager with a technology company in Zhongguancun. Li also spoke on condition of being identified only by his surname and English first name.

“My church’s congregation of 300 members is ideal for me,” said Li. “In a small congregation like this, I have more opportunities to communicate and build relationships with other churchgoers before and after services. We have also fellowships for people who have things such as occupations in common.”

The other reason for the growing number of house churches could be a more tolerant approach by authorities, according to an academic who studies religion.

“The authorities have a much more open attitude toward discussion and debate on house churches,” said Cao Zhongjian, an expert on religion in China at the China Academy of Social Sciences, in an annual report on China’s religions in 2009.

This more open attitude has allowed some house churches to establish permanent venues. In the past many often had to continually shift location, jumping from office buildings to canteens to small apartments.

Li’s house church will soon have a permanent location in a large apartment in an office building in Zhongguancun, Haidian district. The congregation raised 22 million yuan to buy it.

“We don’t have to wander from one place to another, or crowd in a small apartment,” Li said.

Many house churches do small things to foster a sense of community among congregation members and attract potential new members.

Lily Zhou, a 25-year-old fine arts student in Haidian district, said her house church’s publication was a major factor that drew her to the church, which has a congregation of just 50, more than five years ago. Zhou also spoke on condition of being identified only by her surname and English first name.

The 120-page quarterly, which is available online, gives Zhou “a sense of belonging”, she said.

“As a fine arts student I have to leave Beijing for painting and miss Sunday services from time to time, but I can always follow what is happening at the church and feel connected to other churchgoers through the publication,” said Zhou.

Despite their growth house churches in Beijing continue to operate in a gray area.

“There is currently no law legitimizing house churches in China, but China’s constitution and international convention allows freedom of religious belief” said Yang Fenggang, the director of the Center on Religion and Chinese Society at Purdue University in the US.

And although house churches may continue to increase in number in the capital and establish more permanent venues, they likely have a long way to go before receiving any kind of official approval, according to a worker at a Beijing Three Self church who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“Some house churches have already attempted to officially register with the authorities, but their applications were denied because their clergyman had not trained under Three Self system,” said the worker.

SOURCE: China Daily For related reading, visit “A Beijing Christian Shares His Testimony”

Officials Threaten to Burn Shelters of Expelled Christians

Published: March 23, 2010
Officials Threaten to Burn Shelters of Expelled Christians

Village heads tell church members they must recant faith or move elsewhere.

Officials in southern Laos in the next 48 hours plan to burn temporary shelters built by expelled Christians unless they recant their faith, according to advocacy group Human Rights Watch for Lao Religious Freedom (HRWLRF).

Authorities including a religious affairs official, the district head, district police and the chief of Katin village in Ta-Oyl district, Saravan province, expelled the 48 Christians at gunpoint on Jan. 18.

Prior to the expulsion, officials raided a worship service, destroyed homes and belongings and demanded that the Christians renounce their faith. (See www.compassdirect.org, “Lao Officials Force Christians from Worship at Gunpoint,” Feb. 8.)

Left to survive in the open, the Christians began to build temporary shelters, and then more permanent homes, on the edge of the jungle, according to HRWLRF. They continued to do so even after deputy district head Khammun, identified only by his surname, arrived at the site on Feb. 9 and ordered them to cease construction.

More officials arrived on Feb. 18 and ordered the Christians to cease building and either renounce their faith or relocate to another area. When the group insisted on retaining their Christian identity, the officials left in frustration.

On Monday (March 15), district head Bounma, identified only by his surname, summoned seven of the believers to his office, HRWLRF reported.

Bounma declared that although the republic’s law and constitution allowed for freedom of religious belief, he would not allow Christian beliefs and practices in areas under his control. If the Katin believers would not give up their faith, he said, they must relocate to a district where Christianity was tolerated.

When the seven Christians asked Bounma to supply them with a written eviction order, he refused.

The Christians later heard through local sources that the chiefs of Katin and neighboring Ta Loong village planned to burn down their temporary shelters and 11 partially-constructed homes erected on land owned by Ta Loong, according to HRWLRF.

These threats have left the Christians in a dilemma, as permission is required to move into another district.

Both adults and children in the group are also suffering from a lack of adequate food and shelter, according to HRWLRF.

“They are without light, food and clean water, except for a small stream nearby,” a spokesman said. Officials also forced them to leave the village with minimal clothing and other items necessary for basic survival.

Village officials have said they will only allow spirit worship in the area. A communist country, Laos is 1.5 percent Christian and 67 percent Buddhist, with the remainder unspecified. Article 6 and Article 30 of the Lao Constitution guarantee the right of Christians and other religious minorities to practice the religion of their choice without discrimination or penalty.

Decree 92, promulgated in July 2002 by the prime minister to “manage and protect” religious activities in Laos, also declares the central government’s intent to “ensure the exercise of the right of Lao people to believe or not to believe.”

Muslims Murder Pakistani Christian with Axe Blows

Published: March 23, 2010
Muslims Murder Pakistani Christian with Axe Blows

Rival merchants threatened to kill potato seller if refused to convert to Islam

MIAN CHANNU, Pakistan, March 22 (CDN) — Six Muslims in Khanewal district, southern Punjab Province, killed a Christian with multiple axe blows for refusing to convert to Islam this month, according to family and police sources.

The six men had threatened to kill 36-year-old Rasheed Masih unless he converted to Islam when they grew resentful of his potato business succeeding beyond their own, according to Masih’s younger brother Munir Asi and a local clergyman. The rival merchants allegedly killed him after luring him to their farmhouse on March 9, leaving him on a roadside near Kothi Nand Singh village in the wee hours of the next day.

The Rev. Iqbal Masih of the Mian Channu Parish of the Church of Pakistan said Rasheed Masih was a devoted Christian, and that both he and his brother Asi had refused the Muslims’ pressure to convert to Islam.

“As the Christian family strengthened in business and earned more, the Muslim men began to harbor business resentment, as Muslims are not used to seeing Christians more respected and richer than them,” the pastor said. “That business rivalry gradually changed into a faith rivalry.”

Mian Channu police have registered a case against the six men and an investigation is underway, but the suspects are still at large, police officers told Compass. Police said the suspects were Ghulam Rasool, Muhammad Asif, Muhammad Amjad, one identified only as Kashif and two other unidentified Muslims; they were charged with torture and murder.

Masih’s family lives in Babo John Colony, Mian Channu of Khanewal district. Masih’s brother Asi is a representative of the Council of Mian Channu.

“Our continuous denial to recant our faith and convert gradually turned into enmity,” Asi told Compass. The FIR further states, “Both the Muslim men [Rasool and Asif] were not only inviting them to Islam but hurling threats of dire consequences and death on them for the last six months in case they refused to convert.”

Police said Rasool – a radical Muslim who along with Asif had threatened to kill the brothers if they did not convert, according to Asi – called Rasheed Masih to his farmhouse ostensibly to purchase potatoes on March 9, and that Rasheed went to it by motorbike at about 5:30 p.m. Waiting for Masih there, police said, were Rasool and Asif with an axe, Amjad and Kashif with iron rods and the two unknown Muslims with clubs.

They began striking him as soon as he arrived, police said.

An autopsy under the supervision of Dr. Muhammad Khalid of Tehsil Headquarters Hospital Mian Channu revealed 24 wounds all over the body of Masih, according to a copy of the report obtained by Compass.

“In my opinion, cause of death in this case is due to the shock caused by all the above-mentioned injuries collectively and torture,” Khalid states in the report. “All the injuries are ante-mortem and sufficient to cause death in an ordinary course of nature.”

According to the FIR, when Asi and two Christian friends went to the farmhouse when Masih failed to return after a few hours, they were stunned to hear Masih shrieking as they witnessed him being beaten and struck with an axe.

“As Ghulam Rasool and his accomplices saw me at the farmhouse,” Asi told police, according to the FIR, “the Muslim men put my fatally injured brother on a motorcycle and then threw him off the road near village Kothi Nand Singh.”

Asi and his Christian friends found Masih by the roadside after he had succumbed to his injuries. The Muslims had absconded with Masih’s motorcycle and 350,000 rupees (US$4,088), as well as his cell phone, according to the FIR.

As Asi and his Christian friends were on their way to the hospital with the body of Masih, a city police station patrol met them and transferred the body to the Tehsil Headquarters Hospital Mian Channu.

At press time the Muslim suspects were at large even though police have filed a case strong enough to apprehend and prosecute them, Asi said. He appealed for assistance from Christian rights groups and politicians, as his family is still receiving death threats in a bid to intimidate them into withdrawing the case, he said, and they feel powerless in comparison with the influence and wealth of the Muslim suspects.

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