Return to Islam Unveiled

Current Events Around The World Disprove The Claim Of Islamic Tolerance

5/2/2002, MUSLIMS MURDER TO ESTABLISH SHARIA IN ALGIERS

4/19/2002, RETURNING CHRISTIANS FACE THREATS AND VIOLENCE IN INDONESIA

4/19/2002, JORDANIAN CHRISTIAN WIDOW LOSES CUSTODY OF HER CHILDREN

4/19/2002, STATE GOVERNMENT CLOSES 24 CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS IN NIGERIA

4/19/2002, NIGERIAN STATE BANS HOUSE CHURCHES

4/19/2002, NIGERIA DECLARES ISLAMIC LAW UNCONSTITUTIONAL

4/19/2002, INTERNATIONAL CHURCH ATTACKED IN PAKISTAN

4/19/2002, IS RELEASE IMMINENT FOR AMERICAN MISSIONARY HOSTAGES IN THE PHILIPPINES?

4/19/2002, LAST TWO CHRISTIAN PRISONERS DEPORTED FROM SAUDI ARABIA

COMPASS DIRECT, April 19, 2002

RETURNING CHRISTIANS FACE THREATS AND VIOLENCE IN INDONESIA

Muslim Leader Refuses to Guarantee Safety of Refugees
by Geoff Stamp

MANADO, Indonesia (Compass) -- Muslim groups are trying to prevent Christians from rebuilding their homes, says Mona Saroinsong, coordinator of the Crisis Centre of the General Synod of Protestant Churches in North and Central Sulawesi.

Following last November's violence in Central Sulawesi, the presence of additional armed forces has resulted in "a significant cooling down." The government, keen to implement last December's Malino agreement which seeks to re-establish the peaceful cohabitation of Christians and Muslims, is pressuring people to return to their villages.

Nevertheless, Christian families are experiencing threats and stone-throwing when they start to rebuild their houses or tend their crops.

On Sunday, March 17, more than 500 Laskar Jihad, a Muslim extremist group, went to Tagolu, a village five miles south of Poso, and threatened the Christians using a public address system.

"If you do not listen, we will have to speak with our guns. If Muslims try to hinder us, we will throw them into the river. We will take back all of this land from the Christian dogs," the Muslim leader said. The Laskar Jihad extremists threw stones at Christian houses and spray-painted insults on the walls. They promised to return the following week, but were prevented from doing so by the presence of armed forces.

Christians from Toini and Malei villages, from Poso city and Poso Pesisir, confirmed the stone throwing and threats. They told Saroinsong they were living in constant fear of anti-Christian violence. Muslim fishermen who had resumed trading in Christian communities, however, said that nobody had threatened them and they felt at ease.

A bomb exploded at the Department of Social Affairs in Poso on March 26, destroying most of the main building. Crisis Centre workers believe this was a deliberate act to destroy any evidence of misuse of public funds. A rehabilitation grant of $4.50 per person per month had not been made available to the refugees since the government program began last December.

A Crisis Centre spokesman said that few people had ever received any of the allocated funds, but when questioned about this, local officials had claimed the funds were needed for other projects. Representatives from the refugee groups, the aid organizations and the Crisis Centre recently asked for proof of these projects. This now appeared impossible as all documents were destroyed in the blast.

In Palu and Poso, 155 Christian prisoners were released during February and March following the advocacy efforts made by the Crisis Centre supported by national and international advocacy organizations.

Fifteen Christians remain in Poso prison, including five men facing murder charges. The men were arrested following violence in Peleru during July 2001 when several villagers were killed. Muslims arrested for the same offense were released within three months. The men -- Imanuel Mokere (35), Pagi (25), Mudar (32), Sabar Prenta (27), and Boy Puai (25) -- have been in prison for eight months without trial, and their morale is low: one of them recently attempted suicide.

Twelve Christians are left in Palu prison. Among them are the three men sentenced to death for their alleged part in the June 2000 violence in Poso: Fabien Tibo, Marinus Riwa and Dominggus da Silva, who await presidential clemency or a re-trial.

The Crisis Centre advocacy team constantly raises matters of inequality and injustice to no avail. Crisis Centre spokesman Jan Patris Binela said there was "no justice for Christians." Christians received 18-month prison sentences for weapons-related charges while Muslims were given three months. In one instance, 29 Laskar Jihad Muslims who had been caught in the destruction and looting of Christian property last year were allowed to finish their month of fasting before arrest. "To date, these men have still not been arrested," said Binela.

"We need international human rights lobbying to bring these cases to the attention of Western governments," he added.

In Manado (North Sulawesi), six non-governmental aid organizations (NGOs) are pleading for Christian refugees threatened with forced repatriation to Halmahera in North Maluku. Government funding for almost 10,000 refugees in North Sulawesi has been stopped and refugee camps could all be closed by the end of April.

Those people who have returned to Halmahera face desperate conditions: no medical facilities, shortages of food, fuel and power supplies; children have no schools, books or clothes, and infants are malnourished. Tuberculosis and malaria are rife in the makeshift camps.

"We are beginning to see disease and malnutrition among the refugees in camps here," said Saroinsong. "We need to distribute medicines and good food now but lack the means. International NGOs seem to have no more funds. We are appealing for help from the international community.

"The authorities push the refugees to return to their burnt-out villages but have prepared nothing for them. Aside from starvation and disease, these people face the constant threat of Muslim aggression."

Laskar Jihad leader Jafar Umar Thalib recently stated that there was no guarantee for the safety of refugees returning to North Maluku. Unrest could break out at any time.

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COMPASS DIRECT, April 19, 2002

JORDANIAN CHRISTIAN WIDOW LOSES CUSTODY OF HER CHILDREN

Case Hinged on Husband's Alleged Conversion to Islam
by Barbara G. Baker

AMMAN, Jordan (Compass) -- An Arab Christian mother widowed seven years ago has been ordered by Jordan's highest court of appeals to surrender custody of her two minor children to be raised as Muslims.

Siham Suleiman Moussa Qandah's final appeal to the Court of Cassation was rejected on February 28. Her 13-year-old daughter Rawan and 12-year-old son Fadi could be taken at any time from their home in Husn, 50 miles north of Amman.

Written notification of the ruling arrived in late March at the court where the case originated, empowering local authorities to immediately transfer Rawan and Fadi to the guardianship of a Muslim sheikh (mosque prayer leader) who is Qandah's blood relative. The two have only seen their Muslim uncle once, years ago, and have never met his wife and children.

The "compelling evidence" presented by a local Muslim court to the Irbid Civil Court of First Instance which first heard the case was a document dated three years before Qandah's husband died, declaring that he had secretly converted to Islam. Under Islamic law, if a father converts to Islam, his minor children automatically become Muslims.

Dated July 29, 1991, the document was signed by two Muslim witnesses. But except for a simple scrawled "X," it does not carry the signature of Qandah's husband, Hussam Rasmi Issa Jibreen. Qandah told Compass that Jibreen never once indicated to her or any of their relatives that he had made such a decision, and that he even returned from army duty abroad to attend the baptism of his second child.

"His funeral was in the church, and he was buried in Husn's Christian graveyard," she said. "How is it possible that he was deceiving us for three years?" A soldier in the Jordanian army, Jibreen died in November 1994, just weeks before he was due to return from serving in the U.N. Peacekeeping Forces in Kosovo.

The Irbid court acknowledged in its ruling that "no one was aware of his conversion to Islam" in Husn, and that he was given a Christian burial and death certificate by St. George's Orthodox Church.

But when his widow went some weeks later to apply through Jordanian's civil courts for legal transfer of her husband's army benefits for herself and the children, the local sharia court stopped the process, stating that Jibreen was a Muslim, not a Christian. His conversion also made his children Muslims, the Islamic court declared, so his children could only receive his inheritance through a court-designated Muslim guardian.

Shocked, Qandah turned to her family for advice. The youngest in an Arab Christian family of seven brothers and three sisters, Qandah attends the Husn Baptist Church where two of her brothers are also members. But they have one brother who became a Muslim as a teenager, in order to meet the legal requirements to marry a certain Muslim girl.

"He was following his heart," recalled his sister. "But when the girl's father rejected his proposal, then it was too late, and he couldn't change back." Like most Muslim nations, Jordan allows its Christian citizens to convert legally to Islam, but Muslims cannot change their religious identity, which is considered an act of apostasy.

Under the common interpretation of Islamic law, anyone who recites the Muslim creed has automatically converted to Islam, even if the words are repeated in jest, and once said they cannot be revoked. So Qandah was advised that under Jordanian law, it was hopeless to contest her husband's "conversion" certificate filed in the Islamic court.

But rather than accept a court-appointed Muslim guardian for her children, Qandah decided to ask her brother who had converted to Islam to become their legal guardian. Long estranged from his family after joining the Muslim community, her brother had taken the name Abdullah al-Muhtadi (the converted one). By then married with several children, he had become a bearded Muslim sheikh.

"He is our blood brother, and we thought this would satisfy the legal requirements for a Muslim guardian," Qandah said. But a few months after her brother agreed to be appointed by the court, in April 1995, she began to regret her decision.

Although Al-Muhtadi received the regular monthly stipends to which Qandah and her children were entitled, he only forwarded the money to her sporadically over the next two years.

Then, he began to object that the children were studying at Husn's Roman Catholic School, where he learned they were registered as Christians and attending Christian religious instruction, rather than the Islamic classes required for Muslim students. Demanding that they be transferred to a local Muslim school and take Muslim instruction, Al-Muhtadi opened a case in May 1998 requesting full custody of the children.

Throughout the three-year civil court battle which followed, Qandah said her Muslim defense lawyer assured her that she was sure to win permanent custody of her children.

Under Jordan's dual judicial system, the jurisdiction of religious courts (sharia for Muslims and ecclesiastical for Christians) is distinct from the civil courts. But inexplicably, the Orthodox Ecclesiastical Court refused to comment on Qandah's predicament, issuing a decision on May 5, 2001, to negate its previous decisions on the case and refer jurisdiction in the matter to the sharia court.

Six weeks later, the Irbid Civil Court of First Instance ruled that custody of Qandah's children be handed over to their Muslim uncle.

Dated on June 21, 2001, the judgment faulted Qandah for enrolling her children in Christian religious classes at school and taking them to church services with her. In so doing, the decision said, she was "trying to change their religion" and "insisting that her children are Christian," whereas by law they are Muslim.

"The defendant's actions are legal enough reason to devolve her custody, for fear that the youngsters may embrace other than the Islamic religion," the ruling stated.

Seven months later, the Irbid Court of Appeals cited Article 155 of Jordan's Personal Status Law as a basis for upholding the lower court's decision, noting a woman guardian was required to be "of age, mature, sane, and reliable." Although it was a mother's legal right to raise her children, the January 22 decision noted, Qandah had proved herself "unfit to be a custodian of her children" by "distancing them from Islamic rituals and doctrine."

"Her registering them in a Christian school and her insistence to teach them Christian education and accompanying them to church is contrary to what trustworthiness and reliability means," the court stated.

In the final judicial appeal heard February 28, the Court of Cassation in Amman ratified the two previous rulings, ordering Qandah to surrender Rawan and Fadi to their Muslim guardian. After reviewing the entire case file last week, one Amman lawyer declared it had been "very badly mishandled" by the defense counsel, who simply repeated his original arguments in the subsequent appeal hearings.

"But the case is finished," he said. Despite some "gaps in the legal process" which could have been addressed earlier, he said, "No legal action is possible now." It has also been confirmed that the names of both children are blacklisted on immigration computers, forbidding them to leave the country.

In the weeks following, Qandah has appealed to Jordan's top judicial experts and religious leaders, both Muslim and Christian, seeking a solution to her dilemma. Her choices, she was told, were two: "Either become a Muslim yourself, or leave the country."

Fighting back weary tears, the 36-year-old mother told Compass she could no more deny her Christian faith than abandon her children. "Both are unthinkable," she said.

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COMPASS DIRECT, April 19, 2002

STATE GOVERNMENT CLOSES 24 CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS IN NIGERIA

The Schools Must Adhere to Islamic Law
by Obed Minchakpu

KANO, Nigeria (Compass) -- Nigeria's Kano state government closed 24 Christian schools in the state following the schools' refusal to implement a government decision that all Christian schools must provide Islamic religious studies as part of their curricula.

The schools were forceably closed by an education task force set up by the state government to enforce the implementation of Islamic studies in line with Islamic law, or "sharia."

Dr. Mohammed Tahir, Chairman of the Education Task Force, told Compass in Kano on March 19 that the law enforced the Islamic education policy and supported the closure of the schools.

He said more Christian schools would be closed unless they adhere to the Islamic education policy, pay the required education taxes and employ Islamic clerics to teach Islam.

Tahir added that the schools closed down so far have not complied with the government requirement of paying $16,000 in tax, employing Muslim teachers and enforcing the Islamic dress code in their schools.

"Because of these reasons, we were left with no option than to use the powers conferred on us to close down the schools," he said. Some of the schools closed included Prime College, Samandi International School, Tropical College, Prince International School, Rhema International College, and Translate College.

Rev. Dr. Joseph Fadipe, chairman of the Kano chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), said the closures resulted from Christians resisting the government's discriminatory religious policies that favor Muslims over Christians.

"It is a plan to spread Islamic law, sharia, to Christian schools. They intend to hoist Islam on our children by all possible means. We refuse this manipulation of religion. We cannot accept the indoctrination of our children with a religion we do not ascribe to," he said. "We are determined to fight this injustice. We are considering legal action to seek for a redress over this matter."

Students and parents of the affected schools are already finding it difficult to cope with the situation, as the children no longer attend schools and parents fear for their future.

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COMPASS DIRECT, April 19, 2002

NIGERIAN STATE BANS HOUSE CHURCHES

New Church Buildings Must Secure Government Approval
by Obed Minchakpu

LAGOS, Nigeria (Compass) -- Nigeria's Lagos state has outlawed the use of residential buildings as house churches, and new church building projects must secure governmental approval.

The Lagos state government communicated the new regulations to churches on March 27. Failure to adhere to these measures, the government said, would lead to prosecution.

Kola Animashaun, permanent secretary for the Office of Physical Planning, Ministry of Environment, told Compass that the measures were adopted to create a "peaceful environment." He said all churches located in residential areas would no longer be permitted to hold all-night programs such as prayer vigils unless their worship halls installed soundproofing materials.

"There is no doubt that we are going to demolish illegal church buildings being used as house churches, as we never gave approval for their construction," Animashaun said.

However, Rev. Mike Okonkwo, president of Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN), told Compass that the government decision is a "ploy by the Muslim government in the state to persecute Christians and deny them their right to worship God."

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COMPASS DIRECT, April 19, 2002

NIGERIA DECLARES ISLAMIC LAW UNCONSTITUTIONAL
But Northern State Governors Plan to Ignore the Decision
by Obed Minchakpu

LAGOS, Nigeria (Compass) -- Nigeria's Justice Minister declared the Islamic legal system now in operation in 12 northern states as illegal and unconstitutional. Kanu Agabi made the declaration in a March 18 letter addressed to the state governors who have implemented Islamic law, or "sharia."

He said that while the federal government of Nigeria appreciates the motives of Muslim governors in implementing the Islamic legal code, they should not allow their "zeal for justice and transparency to undermine the fundamental law of the nation, which is the constitution."

"A court which imposes discriminatory punishments is deliberately flouting the constitution," Agabi said. "The stability, unity and integrity of the nation are threatened by such action."

Fred Agbaje, a Nigerian constitutional lawyer, told Compass in Lagos that, "Sharia contravenes sections 10 and 17(1-2) of the Nigerian Constitution." These sections prohibit the adoption of any religion by any of the states of the federation, he said.

However, Ahmed Sani, governor of Zamfara state, the first to introduce the Islamic legal code, said no amount of pressure would make him stop the implementation of Islamic law.

"Nobody has the right or power to stop us from doing it," he said at a press conference on March 22. "As far as Zamfara state is concerned, sharia is a foregone conclusion."

Niger state Governor Abdulkhadir Kure sent a letter to the Justice Minister. He wrote, "The honorable cause to take, if you feel strongly about the constitutionality of our action, is to lay the issue before the court." According to Kure, sharia had come to stay and Muslims in his state are determined to stand by their convictions.

However, John Mbata, a senator in Nigeria's National Assembly, told Compass, "The position of the law is what the federal attorney general has said about the sharia legal system. Whatever the governors are therefore saying cannot change the position of the law."

Nevertheless, the secretary-general of Nigeria's Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs, Lateef Adegbite, said that by declaring sharia unconstitutional, the government of Nigeria was becoming coercive and dictatorial. "It is an intimidation. A very, very disturbing development," he said.

Some Christian leaders believe the northern governors have a not-so-hidden agenda.
"The implementation of sharia in northern Nigeria has political undertones. It has brought a situation whereby Muslim leaders violate the constitution to pursue a selfish political and religious agenda," said Benjamin Kwashi, Anglican Bishop of Jos.

Some Muslim governors in northern Nigeria introduced the Islamic legal system three years ago. Since then, more than 10,000 persons have died as a result of conflicts between Muslims and Christians, and property worth billions of dollars has been destroyed.

A number of Christians are currently serving jail terms for contravening sharia law in the 12 states that are implementing the Islamic legal code. Islamic courts have also convicted some Muslims from poor backgrounds.

On the long list of those convicted by Islamic courts are two women, Safiya Hussaini and Amina Lawal. A sharia appeal court in Sokoto City acquitted Safiya on March 25 after a spirited fight for her freedom by Christians and human rights organizations. Lawal could still be stoned to death if she does not appeal her conviction.

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COMPASS DIRECT, April 19, 2002

INTERNATIONAL CHURCH ATTACKED IN PAKISTAN
Five Killed, 40 Wounded in Grenade Blitz in Islamabad
by Barbara G. Baker

ISTANBUL (Compass) -- Unidentified terrorists hurled grenades into a Protestant worship service in the diplomatic quarter of Pakistan's capital city on March 17, killing five worshippers and wounding another 40 members of the congregation.

The dead included an American mother and her teenage daughter, a Pakistani woman and an Afghan man. A fifth body remains unidentified. At least six of the wounded were listed in critical condition at intensive care units of local hospitals after the attack.

The shocking assault began just before 11 a.m., when a loud explosion rocked the back of Islamabad's International Protestant Church during the Sunday morning sermon. One assailant with a grenade in his hand and several more on his belt ran down the aisle, shouting and lobbing the explosives directly at the 70 people in the sanctuary.

"At that point I hit the deck," a Briton working for the Tearfund aid agency told Reuters. "There were five or six more explosions," Nick Parham recalled. Between six to eight grenades were used in the attack, with at least two live grenades later recovered and disabled.

Windows were blown out, with the walls and ceiling of the church splattered with blood and body parts, survivors said. Some people dove to the floor for cover, and one woman hid under the piano until the smoke cleared. "Almost everybody was covered in blood," one person said, with mangled and unconscious bodies covering the floor. Panicked parents began calling for their children, trying to grope their way downstairs to the Sunday School rooms.

U.S. diplomatic sources confirmed that Barbara Green, wife of a U.S. Embassy diplomat, was killed along with her teenage daughter, Kirsten. Local police officials have also confirmed the deaths of a Pakistani woman, identified as Rabia Edward, and an Afghan man, Anwar Baizar.

A man's dismembered body still remains unidentified, with Pakistani investigators uncertain whether he was a victim or possibly one of the assailants.

Islamabad Police Superintendent Nasir Khan Durrani said that investigators believed only one attacker was involved. But several of the survivors told reporters they had seen two men throwing grenades. One U.S. diplomat told Reuters he had "reason to believe" that the fifth body was not that of an attacker.

"There was a lot of confusion," a U.S. Embassy press spokesman in Islamabad told Compass on March 18, "but I think things are becoming clearer." Although he said he did not yet have precise figures for the number of Americans wounded, he said the total was close to 15.

Among the injured were the Sri Lankan Ambassador to Pakistan and several members of his family, as well as the wife of a Japanese diplomat. Citizens of Pakistan, Germany, Iran, Great Britain, Canada, Ethiopia, Iraq, Australia, Afghanistan and Switzerland were also wounded.

One of the six worshippers on the critical list is the president of the congregation, Dr. Christy Munir. A retired chemistry professor from Quaid-i-Azam University, Munir is under intensive care at the Pakistani Institute of Medical Sciences. Munir's youngest son, Harun, confirmed to Compass that his father, now 62, has undergone three operations since his hospital admission on the day of the attack.

Built 10 years ago in a protected diplomatic enclave of Islamabad, the International Protestant Church has been without a permanent pastor for a number of months. The congregation of some 150 diplomats, teachers, NGO representatives and professionals shrank to half that number last fall, when many diplomatic missions and commercial companies sent their employees' dependents back to their home countries in the wake of September 11.

According to a "Washington Post" report, weekly services were still being held in the church in Korean, Urdu, two Afghan dialects and English. But members of the church said the building was now "in ruins," and virtually unusable.

The carnage was the second deadly attack against Christians at worship in Pakistan since the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States. In a previous assault on October 28, fanatic militants shouting Islamist slogans machine-gunned 15 Pakistani Christians and a Muslim guard to death during Sunday services at a church in Bahawalpur.

Calling the attack "an act of sabotage against Pakistan's national interests," President Pervez Musharraf told the nation on March 18 that his government was "undeterred" in fighting terrorism in all its forms, vowing that the culprits would be tracked down and brought to justice.

U.S. President George W. Bush condemned the carnage, declaring the murders "cannot be tolerated by any person of conscience nor justified by any cause."

"It is very, very clear that this was done to embarrass our government," one Pakistani Christian leader told Compass hours after the attack. "But we must keep going on, doing what we do, or otherwise it will be a victory for the terrorists."

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COMPASS DIRECT, April 19, 2002

IS RELEASE IMMINENT FOR AMERICAN MISSIONARY HOSTAGES IN THE PHILIPPINES?

Mission Officials Balance Hope with Realism and Experience in the Burnham's Case
by Deann Alford

SANFORD, Florida (Compass) -- It was hoped that American missionary hostages Martin and Gracia Burnham were within days of gaining freedom from their radical Muslim captors in the southern Philippines, officials with the couple's sending agency said on March 16.

But New Tribes Mission (NTM) leaders remember five NTM hostages held in Colombia in the 1990s. None of the five survived, and the Burnhams have yet to see freedom.

"We have been down this road many times already in this kidnapping, so there is a high level of excitement but also an experience of disappointment when things do not materialize," said NTM spokesman Scott Ross. "[But] we're optimistic and believe [the Burnhams] are going to be released. It could happen any time."

Ross declined to elaborate, citing the possibility of further endangering the missionaries. The Burnhams were celebrating their 18th wedding anniversary when the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) snatched them from Dos Palmas Resort more than 10 months ago. They are currently being held on the southern Philippine island of Basilan.

While the FBI and others working to free the Burnhams are constantly updating NTM and the hostages' families on the case's status, "We're being coy about what we know, and I'm afraid we're going to have to stay that way," said NTM vice chairman Dan Germann.

But keeping the Burnhams' story in the media and before the Christian community has been key, Ross said. That's why Ross sometimes grants 60 interviews in a week.

"If the constituency begins to believe a situation is important, that gets people in Washington believing it's important, and then you'll see people getting things done," Ross said.

For the first five months of the Burnhams' captivity, nothing was happening. Once NTM officials started making trips to Washington, the mission believes, those in power became responsive to the case and developed a strategy to resolve the kidnapping, Ross said.

"We have assurances from the administration that the White House is doing everything that it can," he said. "In my mind, there's a big difference between 'everything it can do' and 'everything that can be done.' The U.S. is probably doing everything it feels it can do within the political arena it finds itself. I don't think it's doing everything that can be done."

Heather Mercer -- the Shelter Now aid worker in Afghanistan who was jailed by the Taliban -- joined NTM officials in meetings with U.S. Senators in December. Mercer spoke with National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice about the Burnhams. In January, Congressman Todd Tiahrt of Kansas -- where the Burnhams are from -- went to the Philippines to support their case.

Germann said the mission's crisis management team is keeping close contact with Philippine sources that are able to gather information -- sources that in the past have delivered to the Burnhams letters, pictures and even packages with food and supplies. The team maintains daily contact with the U.S. Embassy and State Department and with the Philippine military and government.

NTM officials have interviewed several hostages held with the Burnhams who either escaped or paid ransom and were freed. The former hostages have been unexpected sources of support, Germann said.

"They deeply loved Martin and Gracia and received spiritual strength from them," he said. "They have been calling and asking how they could help and what they could do. Always without exception they said they don't know what they would have done if it hadn't been for the spiritual support of Martin and Gracia."

Ross said that he is encouraged by the presence of U.S. troops and equipment, which includes a spy plane and helicopters, "so the rebels will feel they should be dialoguing."

When Mercer and fellow Taliban prisoner Dayna Curry speak about their arrest, imprisonment and rescue from Afghanistan, they also talk about the Burnhams' plight and ask prayer for them. NTM co-workers worldwide hold a monthly prayer meeting; March was for the Burnhams.

"[We are] rejoicing in a God who can lovingly care for Martin and Gracia in the midst of their suffering," Germann said. "The ultimate victory is His."

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COMPASS DIRECT, April 19, 2002

LAST TWO CHRISTIAN PRISONERS DEPORTED FROM SAUDI ARABIA
Philippines' Diplomat Identifies Charges as 'Proselytizing'
by Barbara G. Baker

ISTANBUL (Compass) -- An Ethiopian and Filipino Christian jailed since last summer in the Saudi Arabian port city of Jeddah were released and deported to their home countries over Easter weekend.

Filipino Dennis Moreno flew home to Manila on Emirates airlines on Saturday, March 30, the Philippines Consulate in Jeddah confirmed on April 1.

Ethiopian Worku Aweke, identified as Ismail Abubakr on his Saudi identity papers, left Jeddah's Bremen deportation center the previous night on a flight back to Addis Ababa, Moreno reported.

The two were the last of 14 expatriate Christians imprisoned for months by the Saudi "muttawa" (religious police) without formal charges for allegedly illegal Christian activities.

Moreno, who spoke with Compass by telephone from Manila, said he had "no revenge in my heart" toward the Saudi authorities for the mistreatment and injustices done against him and the other Christians jailed for so many months. "My heart desire is that they will change," he said. "They are really scared. The government is afraid because people there are changing their faith."

A spokesman at the Philippines Consulate blamed the last 10 weeks of delay in Moreno's deportation on the "traffic of outbound passengers from Jeddah," as thousands of pilgrims returned home at the conclusion of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. According to the official, deportees from Saudi Arabia are classified as stand-by passengers, even if they have a confirmed booking for a particular flight.

"And there were some problems with the cars registered in his name, so he had to clear that up first," the spokesman said. Moreno's wife said she had delivered the final paperwork for his release to the deportation center just hours before he was escorted to the airport Saturday afternoon.

"Even Dennis didn't have any news of it beforehand," Yolly Moreno told Compass. But three hours after she returned home, he called her from the Jeddah airport, saying he was about to leave for Dubai. "I was so shocked," she said, "but I was happy, believe me!"

According to the Philippines Consulate spokesman, his office had been informed back in October by the Saudi police that Moreno was "charged for proselytizing." He admitted, however, that these charges were never produced in writing.

Arrested from his home on August 29, 2001, Moreno had worked as a driver and car mechanic in Saudi Arabia for 16 years. His wife and three children remain in Jeddah, where she will complete her current hospital contract as an ICU nurse in May.

Aweke, an unmarried Ethiopian of Christian descent, had worked for six years in the Gulf kingdom.

Aweke was seen in person by Moreno's wife in mid March, when she was visiting her husband at the deportation center. "He looked very thin," she said, and his clothes were in tatters. "I told Dennis to share the food I brought for him with Worku," she said. During the six weeks Aweke was isolated in a prison in Mecca, he reportedly had not had money for food or clothing.

On March 20, a spokesman for the Ethiopian Consulate in Jeddah had confirmed that "every travel arrangement had been made" for Aweke's deportation the previous week, but his March 14 departure was delayed by Saudi authorities "because of a computer failure at immigration."

Moreno and Aweke were among 14 foreign Christians, citizens of India, Nigeria, Eritrea, Ethiopia and the Philippines, who were involved in expatriate house churches meeting privately for worship in Jeddah. After refusing them consular access for five months, Saudi authorities began deporting them in January and February. All have lost their jobs and most of their work benefits in Saudi Arabia, which enforces a strict interpretation of Islamic law forbidding non-Muslims from meetings for public worship.

Moreno said he had been "blessed by God" to be released and arrive home safely, after seven long months in Saudi custody. "God humbled me," he declared, "and at the same time, I know that I need to know Him more. I keep praying for the people there."

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