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ASSIST News Service (ANS) - PO Box 2126, Garden Grove, CA 92842-2126 USA
E-mail: danjuma1@aol.com, Web Site: www.assistnews.net

Sunday, September 26, 2004

NINE MISSIONARIES INJURED IN INDIA VIOLENCE
Left wing parties condemn attacks

By: Stefan J. Bos
Special Correspondent, ASSIST News Service

The nuns were delivering food to one of India"s most poorest groups.

Source: AFP/BBC

KOZHIKODE, INDIA (ANS) -- Left wing parties of India's southern state of Kerala have condemned anti Christian attacks which injured a team of nuns and priests of the Mssionaries of Charity, saying the government has "failed" to protect minorities, The Times of India newspaper reported Sunday, September 26.

They made the announcement after Kerala's police reportedly detained 15 people following two attacks on at least three priests and six nuns of the organization, raising fears of escalating violence against India's minority Christians.

The national governor of the Bangalore-based Global Council for Indian Christians Sajan K George said members of the right-wing Hindu parties Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were behind the violence on Saturday, September 25.

One Hindu official demanded "a comprehensive probe into the incident" but also demanded the arrest of a missionary team member from Kenya, identified as brother Bernard, on charges of "religious propaganda after coming to India on a tourist visa," and "insulting remarks against (Hindu) Gods", The Times of India said.

NUNS ATTACKED

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) said the attacks on nuns in Kerala began Saturday morning when two of them isited a slum on the outskirts of Kozhikode town where they had carried food for slum people, mostly Dalits, who live in extreme poverty.

They were allegedly pulled out of the jeep and the crosses they wore around their necks were said to have been broken. The nuns managed to escape and took refuge in a police station after slum people intervened, the BBC reported.

An hour later, another jeep belonging to Missionaries of Charity carrying Mother Superior Kusumam and six others, including the Kenyan missionary, arrived at the slum to help their colleagues, but were reportedly surrounded and attacked by 40 people carrying iron rods. Nine missionaries were admitted to a local hospital with head injuries, the BBC said, adding that the assailants managed to escape. Government officials have pledged to take hard actions against those behind the attacks.

Read more on these and other news stories on news agency BosNewsLife at website http://www.bosnewslife.com

Award winning Journalist Stefan J. Bos was born on the 19th of September 1967 in a small home in downtown Amsterdam, in the Netherlands not far from the typewriter of his father, who was (and still is) a Reporter and ghostwriter. Already at a very young age Bos decided to become journalist and finally arrived in Hungary, the same country where his parents had smuggled Bibles during Communism.

Bos has traveled extensively to cover wars and revolutions throughout the region and received the Annual Press Award of Merit from the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for his coverage about foreign policy affairs including Hungary's relationship with NATO and the European Union. Stefan J. Bos can be reached at: stefan@bosnewslife.com.

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September 27, 2004

Jeremy Reynalds
P O Box 27693
Alb., NM 87125-7693
Tel: (505) 400-7145
www.joyjunction.org

Chinese Christian Killed after Allegedly Refusing to Give in to Extortion Demand:

Family Reportedly Still Waiting for Compensation after Seven Years

    On the afternoon of April 23 1997, China's Sipu Town Office sent an official to order Kaihuo Huang to report to the Town Office of Political and Legal Affairs.

    That was the beginning of a nightmare which ended in Huang's brutal torture and death days later.

     Alleging that town officials were responsible for his death, Huang's family filed a petition with a variety of Chinese local government officials of the Jiangxi Province in 1997 asking that the township be ordered to compensate the family for its loss.

    However, seven years later there has reportedly still been no response from any Chinese official.

    Kaihuo Huang's daughter Xiaohua Huang explained what happened once her father made his initial visit to the town office. She said officials reportedly chained her father's hands and feet for 26 hours and ordered him to pay a 6000 renmenbi – RMB – ( about $700) fine on behalf of his church. (He was apparently a church elder or pastor). "We thought that religious freedom is clearly stated in our "constitution," she said.

    Kaihuo Huang's "crime" was apparently not getting official permission for his church to meet. However, because many church members were not really educated they were unaware of the need to get an okay, Xiaohua Huang said.

    Taking advantage of this, the town office tried to extort money from the Christians, Xiaohua Huang said.

    Shixiong Li, founder of the Committee for Investigation on Persecution of Religion in China, or CIPRC (and online at www.china21.org), wrote "This is the real ‘religious freedom' that tens of millions house church Christians are facing under the ‘protection' from the public state ‘constitution' and the suppression from the secret ‘practicing policies ... The mass people have no place to appeal. If they shout ‘injustice' for some time, the government would use police to crackdown the protest disturbing ‘social order.' The plight the Chinese believers have been suffering is much more injustice than the ‘injustice' in the TV dramas showing the dark time in China history."

     When the authorities failed to receive the money they wanted, Xiaohua Huang said, on April 28 they again summoned her father to the town office where this time he was held captive for 14 hours.

    After returning home late that evening Xiaohua Huang said her father told her, "The town office ordered me to hand in 300 RMB for myself before 9:00 a.m. tomorrow (April 29), and then lead them to every believer's home to collect 6000 RMB before 12:00 noontime. Otherwise they will detain me."

    According to Xiaohua Huang, her father was a "timid and submissive" person. Consequently on the morning of April 29 he borrowed 300 RMB from friends and then went to the town office at 10:00 a.m. When her father failed to return home by midday, Huang became concerned and went to the town office to ask about her father.

     When an official told Xiaohua Huang that her father had never come to the town office, she was very worried.

    "I hurried back home and asked some people to go to look for my father,"Xiaohua Huang said. "Two days passed. But we could not find him. My heart (was) filled with grief and indignation! How come my father (had) disappeared? (It wasn't) until May 1 at around 6:00 in the afternoon, a 14-year-old village child found my father's body while picking up mushrooms in the mountain at the back of our house."

    Upon learning the news, Xiaohua Huang said she ran to where her father's remains lay. "I saw my father's body lying on the ground, fully covered with injuries and blood. The chains left deep mark on his wrists and feet. His chest swelled and became black ... We could not stand (the) scene. The whole family fell in(to) deep grief. All the village residents cried with us. I almost died of grief. I stumbled to the town office to ask for the reason, and reported to the county Public Security Department. The county police came to the scene very quickly and took photographs. About 10:00 p.m., we had his body carried home."

    According to Xiaohua Huang, Mayor Shiming Deng came to the village the next day and told people that the town office had not had anything to do with Kaihuo Huang's death. He added, Wang said, "Recently, Kaihuo Huang showed disagreement to what the town office did."

    Xiaohua Huang said the mayor's actions angered village residents, who carried her father's body down to the town office. "Instead of trying to calm down the people, the town officials called police from the county Public Security Department to crackdown the people. More than 20 harmless people were injured by the police."

    The situation got so bad, Xiaohua Huang said, that on the afternoon of May 5 the town office called an emergency meeting, "ordering every town and village official to come to our village to suppress the people's suspecting and talking about the reason for my father's death."

    Concerned about a continuing protest, Xiaohua Huang said, the town office offered 1600 RMB to help her family bury her father. Officials wanted to help with the family's financial difficulties, they said. However, Huang said, she knew differently. "The fact was that the town office wanted to bury my father to close the case as soon as possible."

    When Xiaohua Huang's family and village residents refused to bury her father without knowing why he died, she said the town office was very concerned and called on more than 100 officials. "They came suddenly, forcibly took away my father's coffin and buried him in the mountain while guarded by the police in case someone would interrupt."

    The worst thing was, Xiaohua Huang said, was that when the autopsy reports finally came that they were not allowed to see them. Village officials had a plan, though.

    "Several days later," Xiaohua Huang allaged, "they counterfeited one report and gave to us. Then the town office declared that my father died of stroke and self poisoning. He committed suicide and he was not murdered."

    However, Xiaohua Huang refused to buy what to her was a contradictory answer, asking that if her father died of a stroke why would he then also have to poison himself?

    "If he died of a stroke," Xiaohua Huang asked, " he must (have) died on the road to or back from the town office. How come he died in the mountain with so many injuries? If he poisoned himself, then it must be because the town officials beat him up since he could not pay the 6000 RMB fine, and he would be beaten up again if he still could not get the money. He was obviously pushed to this dead end. How could the town office have nothing to do with his death?"

    Xiaohua Huang said that her father's death was obviously a result of the "town officials behavior of covering the facts and abusing their power like ‘local emperors' over the village people."

    As a result, she said, the family is facing debilitating financial circumstances. In 1997 Xiaohua Huang said, "My family lacks labor power. My mother's schizophrenia has been becoming more and more severe. She cannot work but needs attendance. Our family of four lost the source for basic life. We are facing extreme financial difficulty."

    The still to be answered petition concluded by reading, "We beg the respected leaders of General Office of the State Council, Ministry of State Security, Ministry of Justice, Supreme Procuratorate and Jiangxi Provincial Political and Legal Bureau to deal with this case according to Item 3, Article 27, State Compensation Law.

     "If the Town Office refuses to compensate, then we request to open the coffin to run the autopsy again and thoroughly investigate this case in order to maintain the state law and calm down the people's indignation!

    "We request our government punish the Town Office's criminal conduct of putting people in a dead position after being unable to extort money. We, the mass peasants, want to see the dignity of law. We have been expecting any answer from any department. Please answer us. Isn't it true that the upper government would not care if the lower government kills Christians? Isn't this connivance to these ‘local emperors' who publicly abuse people's lives?

    "We have nowhere to appeal. The only thing we can do is to kneel down before our Communist Party and the People's Government and knock our head on the ground!"

    A CIPRC official said that this story was first published a few days ago in an e-mail distribution list maintained by the organization.

    According to CIPRC, the group was founded in 2000 in New York. Its objectives are to reveal the plight that the Chinese house church Christians have suffered, and to to call on Christians in the free world to help their brothers and sisters in the persecuted church.

    CIPRC's Chief Secretary John Lee said by e- mail, "We have mobilized thousands of brave house church Christians in China to investigate and collect the persecution cases. They have interviewed 560,000 house church Christians from 22 provinces, and have obtained invaluable first-hand information of over-two-million-word testimonies full of blood and tears and many photos as well."

    Lee added, "Due to the nature of our ministry, our organization has become the target of the Chinese Communist Party's ‘secret force' in the U.S. They tried various means to stop us, such as stalking, intimidating, etc. But ‘The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?'"

    For additional information about CIPRC go to http://www.china21.org