2000 News

Blasts Outside 5 Indonesia Churches

By GEOFF SPENCER
.c The Associated Press

The blasts, including one outside Jakarta's main Roman Catholic church near the presidential palace and the main mosque, happened as prayer services were about to get under way Sunday night. The explosions set cars ablaze and damaged some churches.

``This is an act of terror against Christians on Christmas Eve,'' said police Senior Inspector Supono, who, like many Indonesians, uses only one name.

There were no immediate claims of responsibility, but religious violence and tensions have been rising throughout this predominantly Muslim country. Although most of the violence has taken place in the Moluccan islands, Muslim vigilante groups have recently attacked restaurants and nightclubs in Jakarta, the capital.

President Abdurrahman Wahid, himself a Muslim scholar, has advocated religious tolerance, but Sunday's attacks add to a long list of crises and acts of violence that have worsened during his 14-month rule.

Five Catholic and Protestant churches were targeted in Jakarta, where three people were killed. The Jakarta bombs exploded within an hour and a radius of about a mile.

The bomb that exploded near the Roman Catholic Cathedral, thought to have been planted in a parked car, left worshippers shaken.

``I was in the cathedral with my wife and two children. I heard the explosion. I am very worried that there will be religious fighting everywhere,'' said Winarno, who also goes by only one name.

An unexploded bomb was also discovered near the cathedral, where hundreds of Christians were arriving ahead of midnight Mass as thousands of Muslims were leaving the nearby mosque at the end of Islamic evening prayers.

Other churches were evacuated after receiving threats.

``This is clearly the work of people who are determined to make trouble and to bring about clashes among people,'' Jakarta police spokesman Superintendent Anton Bahrulalam said. ``We will be on full alert when people come to pray on Christmas Day.''

There were four explosions outside one church in the exclusive Jakarta suburb of Menteng, police said.

In east Jakarta, a man was killed in an explosion at a bus stop outside a church and an adjacent Christian school, Supono said.

Four of the dead Sunday were police officers who tried to disarm a bomb in Pekanbaru on Sumatra island, the official Antara news agency said. One civilian was also killed there.

Antara reported blasts outside of churches in Medan on Sumatra island. Police there later found nine unexploded bombs.

Two people were killed in a blast at a Christian-owned house in Bandung west Java, Indonesia's main island, police said.

On Batam island, not far from neighboring Singapore, three blasts injured 22 people, it said. Explosions rocked three churches in the town of Mojokerto in the east Java. Bombs also went off near three churches in Mataram on the tourist island of Lombok.

The Christmas celebrations coincide with the final days of Ramadan, Islam's month of fasting, which ends Tuesday.

Sunday's attacks follow a rise in Muslim extremism throughout the country.

The heaviest violence has been in the Moluccan or Maluku islands in Indonesia's east, where an estimated 5,000 people of both faiths have been killed over the past two years.

Christians make up less than 5 percent of Indonesia's 210 million people. Many are from the ethnic Chinese minority, which has been targeted by Muslim groups during past civil unrest.

Sunday's bombings were the latest in a series to rock the capital. The worst this year came in September, when a car bomb and subsequent fire killed 15 people in a basement parking lot at Jakarta's Stock Exchange.

In August, two people were killed when a car bomb blew up outside the Philippine ambassador's home.

Authorities made arrests after those attacks and several smaller explosions, but have filed no formal charges. Most of the suspects have been released.

AP-NY-12-24-00 1439EST

Reports: Muslims Force Conversions
By HARIS SYAMAUN
.c The Associated Press

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - Armed Muslim gangs have been forcing Christian villagers in the remote Moluccan islands to convert to Islam ahead of Christmas and Muslim feast days next week, Indonesia's president said Friday.

In a speech at a mosque in Jakarta, President Abdurrahman Wahid condemned the gunpoint conversions - some of which reportedly have included circumcision as part of the conversion ceremony.

``There is an effort by Islamic extremists to convert Christians to Islam in the Moluccas,'' Wahid said. ``This is not right.''

Christian groups have said the conversions represent a disturbing escalation in a conflict between members of the two religions in the region, also known as the Maluku islands, 1,600 miles east of Jakarta. At least 5,000 people have been killed in sectarian violence there in the past two years despite a heavy military presence and repeated peace efforts by Wahid, himself a Muslim scholar who has long preached religious tolerance.

Muslim clerics in the Moluccas admitted on Friday that some Christians had recently changed religions. But they denied that the threat of death or violence had been used.

``The claim that they were forced to become Muslims is baseless. They voluntarily converted to Islam,'' said Malik Selang, an official at Al Fatah Mosque, the main mosque in Ambon, the provincial capital.

However, several displaced islanders told Associated Press Television News this week that they were among hundreds of Christians coerced into switching faiths. Some male converts said they were forced to undergo Islamic circumcision and had their heads shaved as part of a conversion ritual.

``I only said yes to save myself,'' said Anton Sagat, who escaped with dozens of others by boat last week from the village of Sumelang on Tior island.

Another, who spoke on condition of anonymity, claimed that some members of Indonesia's armed forces had helped the Muslim gangs. ``A soldier aimed a pistol at our chests. He said if we refused to become Muslims we would be shot,'' he said.

Yonas Adjas, a Roman Catholic priest in Ambon, said he has collected accounts from villagers on Seram island that suggested at least 260 people there had converted against their will.

``Some of the people who were forced to convert to Islam were circumcised. Not only men, but also some adult women,'' he said in a telephone interview.

Gov. Saleh Latuconsina confirmed that some forced conversions had been carried out but said the practice had been stopped by security forces and government officials. Church workers said the conversions had inspired hundreds of people to flee several of the Moluccan islands, including Seram, Tior and Kasiui, southeast of Ambon.

Indonesia is the world's most populous Islamic nation - about 90 percent of its 210 million people are Muslim. In the Moluccas, however, the balance is more even between Christians and Muslims.

The conversions have come during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Ramadan ends on Tuesday and will be followed by two days of feasting to mark Eid al-Fitr, a time of family reunions and Muslim prayers.

AP-NY-12-22-00 0325EST

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Human Rights WatchWorld Report 2001
Egypt
Human Rights Developments

The government of President Husni Mubarak intensified its efforts to exercise control over civil society institutions, harassing and restricting the activities of political parties, human rights and other nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), professional associations and the press. Infringements of freedom of expression, association and assembly, particularly in the run up to the People's Assembly elections scheduled for October and November 2000, raised doubt about the government's stated commitment to fair and free elections. State security forces continued to commit grave human rights violations with impunity, including the detention without charge or trial of political detainees and torture, and political opponents continued to be sentenced after unfair trials.

In May, the state of emergency was extended for a further three years. In force almost continuously since 1967, the emergency laws gave the authorities extensive powers to arrest suspects at will and detain them without trial for prolonged periods, and to refer civilian defendants to military courts or to exceptional state security courts whose procedures fall far short of international standards for fair trial.

Elections for the People's Assembly, initially scheduled to start in mid-November, were brought forward to October 18, 2000 and spread out over three rounds to allow judicial supervision of both principal and auxiliary polling stations. The change came as a result of the Supreme Constitutional Court ruling on July 8 that legislation governing parliamentary elections was unconstitutional due to the absence of full judicial supervision. In two extraordinary sessions on July 15 and 16, the People's Assembly and the Majlis al-Shura (consultative council, the upper house of the parliament) approved three presidential decrees that amended the legislation governing the elections. The principal amendment was to Article 24 of the Law on the Exercise of Political Rights (Law 73 of 1956), which had provided for judicial supervision of principal polling stations only, while auxiliary stations were supervised by civil servants.

On May 20, the Political Parties Committee of the Majlis al-Shura froze the activities of the Islamist opposition Labor Party and banned its publications, ostensibly because of a leadership dispute within the party. This action, widely perceived as part of an attempt to silence government critics ahead of the elections, followed violent street demonstrations in early May over the publication of a novel alleged to be offensive to Islam. The Labor Party's bi-weekly newspaper, al-Sha'ab, had denounced the novel (see below). Despite several court rulings in favor of the party, the ban on its publications remained in force as of October.

In another legal move on July 24, the Political Parties Committee formally requested the Labor Party's dissolution by referring the case to the Political Parties Tribunal, an exceptional court established by the Law on Political Parties (Law 40 of 1977). This followed a decision by prosecutors to charge nine Labor Party figures with having links with the banned Muslim Brotherhood, receiving unauthorized funding and "working against national unity," among them Labor Party secretary general `Adel Hussain. In April, he and three other Labor Party figures were convicted for slandering Deputy Prime Minister Yusuf Wali. Hussain was fined and the others sentenced to between one and two years in prison.

In keeping with past practice of referring civilian political suspects to military courts, the government brought twenty defendants allegedly linked to the Muslim Brotherhood to trial before the Supreme Military Court on December 25, 1999. The defendants faced incitement and other charges under articles 30, 86, and 88 of the Penal Code, including membership of, and recruiting others to, an illegal organization and attempting to control the activities of professional associations. None of the charges involved the use or advocacy of violence. The defendants, mostly lawyers, university professors, and other professionals had been arrested in October 1999 and detained at Mazra'at Tora Prison. The 2000 announcement of the verdicts, due in July, was deferred first to October 3 and then to November 7. Many Egyptians saw the prosecutions as an attempt by the authorities to prevent the defendants from running as independent candidates! in elections for the People's Assembly and for the boards of their respective professional associations. Mukhtar Muhammad Nouh, for example, a former member of parliament, had been expected to stand as a candidate in the Egyptian Lawyers' Association's board elections due to be held on July 1 but postponed by the authorities pending a court ruling in a dispute over election procedures. This was resolved on September 5 when the Supreme Administrative Court rejected a government appeal against a lower court decision that board elections be held solely on the premises of the Egyptian Lawyers' Association and its branches. By October 2000 no new date had been set for these elections.

In the absence of official figures, it was not possible to specify the number of political detainees being held without trial, but the authorities freed at least several hundred between January and July. They also made scores of new arrests, mostly of suspected members of the Muslim Brotherhood, and thousands of other political detainees, the vast majority of them actual or suspected membership of banned groups, in particular al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya (Islamic Group) and al-Gihad (Holy Struggle), continued to be held in administrative detention under emergency legislation. They included some who had completed prison sentences and others who had been held without charge or trial for prolonged periods, in some cases for over ten years. Many detainees successfully challenged the legality of their continued detention in the courts, but Ministry of Interior officials routinely ignored the courts' rulings and continued to hold the det! ainees in harsh conditions at prisons such as al-Fayyum, Wadi Natrun I and II, and Abu Za'bal al-Sina'i, where detainees were deprived of all contact with the outside world for long periods. In a positive development, at least sixty-eight detainees held in these prisons were allowed family visits in September.

Security forces tortured and ill-treated detainees, and there were reports that as many as fifteen detainees died in custody due to poor conditions and lack of medical care, and, in at least one case, due to torture. Again, however, the authorities' failure to disclose information on such cases, or whether official investigations were held to determine the causes of such deaths, hampered efforts to assess the true scale of the problem in Egypt's prisons and detention centers. One case, however, did lead to official action. The authorities charged six police officers following the death of Ahmad Muhammad `Issa, beaten to death on February 10 in Wadi Natrun prison, and their trial was continuing in October.

In a positive development, Interior Minister Habib al-Adli announced on September 17 that the practices of flogging and caning as disciplinary measures in prisons would be banned.

Egyptian courts sentenced as least sixty-six people to death, and the authorities carried out eighteen executions between February and September, according to Amnesty International. Most death sentences were imposed for ordinary criminal offences, but two of those executed had been sentenced in their absence for membership of an armed illegal group after an unfair trial.

The controversial Law on Civil Associations and Institutions (Law 153 of 1999), condemned by Egyptian and international human rights groups for excessively restricting the activities of NGOs and facilitating undue government interference in their internal affairs, was overturned by the Supreme Constitutional Court on June 3. Issued shortly after the 1999 law's registration deadline for NGOs, the court ruled the law unconstitutional on procedural grounds because it had not been presented to the Majlis al-Shura. Egyptian human rights activists welcomed the ruling, which also noted that administrative courts, not the courts of first instance, should hear cases arising from disputes between NGOs and the authorities. The day after the ruling, the Ministry of Social Affairs announced that Law 32 of 1964, which the 1999 law had been intended to replace, would remain in force, but that NGOs that had been granted registration under th! e overturned law would retain that status, giving rise to confusion as to which law governed their activities. On September 3, Deputy Justice Minister Fathi Naguib told Human Rights Watch that the overturned law would be revised in light of the constitutional court decision and then submitted again to the People's Assembly after the elections. He said there would be no further consultations with NGO representatives regarding the provisions of the law, which he asserted was "fair and democratic."

The government prosecuted at least one writer for his exercise of freedom of expression. On March 10, police arrested author Salahuddin Muhsin, charging him with writing books deemed offensive to Islam. Prosecutors cited two of his books, A Night Talk with Heaven and Trembling of Enlightenment, when he appeared before the State Security Court for Misdemeanours in Giza on June 17. On July 8, the court imposed a six-month suspended sentence, rendering Muhsin liable to certain imprisonment should he be convicted of a similar offence in future.

The November 1999 decision of the Ministry of Culture to authorize the re-printing of A Banquet of Seaweed by Syrian author Haidar Haidar, first published in Lebanon in 1983, led to widespread protests in Cairo following an April 28 article in the Islamist al-Sha'ab newspaper, which denounced the book as blasphemous. Several thousand demonstrators, many of them al-Azhar University students, staged a series of protests from May 7, and students at `Ain Shams and Cairo universities held similar protests. As the protests became increasingly violent, police reportedly used rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse the demonstrators, and several police officers and tens of students were injured. Police also arrested scores of students, prompting further demonstrations calling for their release, and all were freed without charge within days. Although a panel of literary experts appointed by the Ministry of Culture cleared the novel of! the charge of blasphemy, the authorities announced that the book would be withdrawn from circulation. On May 12, the prosecutor-general's staff interrogated two Ministry of Culture employees about the re-printing of the novel but no formal charges were brought.

The right to freedom of conscience and religion also came under attack in other ways, involving both Muslims and Christians. On September 5, the Emergency State Security Court sentenced Manal Wahid Mana'i to five years in prison under Article 98(f) of the Penal Code for denigrating Islam. She was arrested, together with fifteen others, in December 1999 as the alleged leader of a Sufi sect and accused of "claiming prophecy and using the Islamic religion to propagate extremist ideas." Twelve of her co-defendants, among them her husband `Abd al-Hamid Muhammad Kamel, received sentences ranging from six months to three years of imprisonment. Two other defendants were fined. Another died in custody, reportedly of natural causes before the verdict.

In another case, the Sohag Criminal Court sentenced Sourial Gayed Ishaq, a Coptic Christian, to three years in prison under articles 160 and 161 of the Penal Code for insulting Islam. He had reportedly made offensive remarks in public about Islam after sectarian violence broke out between Muslims and Christians in his village, al-Kusheh, on December 31, 1999. A financial dispute between a Muslim and a Christian had led to three days of rioting and the deaths of some twenty-three victims, most of them Christians. Security forces imposed a curfew and arrested scores of villagers to end the bloodshed, and both the government and local human rights groups, including the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) and the Centre for Human Rights Legal Aid (CHRLA), launched their own investigations. On March 11, Prosecutor-General Maher `Abd al-Wahed announced that those responsible would be tried on murder, attempted murder, inc! itement to violence, robbery, and other charges, and two trials involving 135 defendants began before criminal courts in Sohag and Dar al-Salam in the first week of June. On September 5, the Sohag court sentenced four defendants tried in their absence to ten years of imprisonment and sixteen others to prison terms of between six months and two years. The court acquitted nineteen others. The trial of the remaining defendants before the Dar al-Salam criminal court was still continuing in October 2000.

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INDONESIAN CHRISTIANS FORCED TO CONVERT TO ISLAM OR DIE!
THOUSANDS FORCIBLY CIRCUMCISED.
15 December 2000

Over 700 Christians are being held in mosques on Keswui island and are being forced to either convert to Islam or face execution. Some 93 Christians have already been killed and hundreds have been forced to convert. At least 20 have been forcibly circumcised as a sign of their "conversion".

In another recent incident of mass forced conversion over 1,150 Christian men and boys from the town of Bacan were forcibly circumcised and a minister tortured and killed. Elsewhere in Indonesia and Moluccas islands over 5,000 Christians have been forced to convert to Islam and many Christian women made to marry Muslim men, thus forcing their conversion in the eyes of their Islamic extremist tormentors.

Dressed in traditional Islamic-style clothes and caps the Christians of Keswui endure a conversion ceremony in a mosque whilst Islamic warriors stand guard. One said "We agreed because we were concerned for the safety of our children".

The horrific violence began on Tuesday 28 November when four Christian villages came under attack from Islamic extremists. Eight villagers were killed outright and over 3000 fled into the jungle to hide. However, the Islamic raiders chased them through the trees capturing the 700 Christians. Stories of indescribable terror and fear are beginning to emerge from the very few Christians who were fortunate enough to escape the island.

Chased through the jungle and surrounded by Islamic extremists, many Christians had no option but to seek refuge in nearby Muslim villages. One group was found in the jungle by local Muslims who persuaded them to come to the Muslim village of Tanah Baru for their own safety. Once there they were seized and questioned by Imams outside the mosque who told them "By the order of the Jihad, now you have come down from the woods, this means you have to embrace Islam." If you are not willing to do so, we have to separate you from the others and you will be killed.

One desperate Christian woman from Ambon travelled to Keswui with a military escort and managed to secure the release of her husband and children "I would do anything to get my husband and children back." "I even begged, down on my knees and kissed Ibrahim's [an extremist leader] feet. A team was sent by the authorities in Ambon to investigate these atrocities. Significantly, all of the team members were Muslim except for two Christians.

A Christian leader recently said that many of the Laskar Jihad Islamic warriors who are terrorising the Christians of the Moluccas come from the army. Others have joined their Javan and Sumatran comrades from the Southern Philippines, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Libya. This would seem to support the accounts of many survivors of ruthless attacks in the Moluccas who reported seeing Afghan, Saudi Arabian and Filipino Muslim fighters amongst the extremists who attacked them.

The militants have promised to "Turn off the candles in December" and that no church bells will ring in Ambon this Christmas. The candle is the symbol of Ambon. They have also threatened that the rest of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan will bring greatly increased violence. Ramadan began on Sunday 26 November and will end on approximately Tuesday 26 December (depending on the sighting of the moon).

IVORY COAST

In Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) Christians are also facing bloody persecution at the hands of Muslim aggressors. Abidjan, the capital of the Ivory Coast, was torn apart by two days of rioting on 4­5 December in which as many as 50 people may have been killed, and Christians and ethnic southern Ivorians were deliberately singled out for horrific personal attacks. The fighting began when thousands of supporters of the ethnic northern Muslim-based political party the RDR took to the streets in violent protest at the decision of the Supreme Court to ban their Muslim leader Dr Alassane Dramane Ouattara from standing in parliamentary elections.

Barricades of timber, rocks and burning tyres were set up and the RDR's Muslim supporters, armed with guns, swords, machetes and clubs, and chanting "Takbir Allahu Akhbar” (Allah is Great), systematically stopped residents in the streets. Christians and other non-Muslims were harassed, beaten or stabbed. Many, including several school children, were killed, some beheaded, others burnt alive. Other gangs of Muslim RDR supporters launched attacks upon police stations and government offices. Several police officers and soldiers were killed. Security forces raided mosques where they found caches of guns, swords and ammunition.

By 6 December most of Abidjan was calm. However, in the majority-Muslim north of the country, the heartland of RDR support, the conflict and violence have continued and many are now fearing a northern Muslim versus southern Christian civil war. Some Muslims are calling for the north to secede and set itself up as an Islamic Republic with Dr Ouattara as its President.

In the cities of Kong and Kombala the local governors and civil servants have been forced to leave town, and in Kong the flag of neighbouring Muslim-majority Burkina Faso has been put up. In Boudiali the governor's offices have been destroyed. Across the north churches have been burnt down and Christians and southerners have been threatened and intimidated, their homes looted and vandalised. On Friday 8 December sermons were preached in many mosques calling for the secession of the north, following which polling stations were attacked and damaged so badly that 29 of 32 districts in the north failed to hold the planned parliamentary elections on 10 December.

Both of these reports are taken from news updates which appear regularly on the Barnabas Fund's website. A fuller background on the conflict in Indonesia can also be found on the site.

www.barnabasfund.org

For further information or to make a donation to support suffering Christians in Indonesia and the Ivory Coast please contact the Barnabas Fund.

Dr Patrick Sookhdeo, The Barnabas Fund,
The Old Rectory, River Street, Pewsey, Wiltshire, SN9 5DB
Phone 01672 564938, Fax 01672 565030,
Credit card donations to 01672 564940,
E-mail bfund@globalnet.co.uk

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What exactly happened in al-Kosheh
A message from H.G. Bishop Wissa of Baliana
December 10, 2000

Events started with the arrest of Shayboub William Arsal after he was falsely and unjustly accused of murdering two young people, including his cousin, on Saturday August 15, 1998. He remained in custody until he received an unjust sentence of 15 years with hard labor on Monday, June 5, 2000.

One must ask, if Shayboub had committed premeditated murder, as indicated in his sentence, why then was he not sentenced to death? Wouldn't this be considered an inappropriate leniency? But, the truth is Shayboub did not murder or participate in the murder of anyone. Why imprison an innocent individual?

The Attorney General, with instructions from Egyptian President Mohammed Hosny Mubarak, decided to reopen the torture case of more than 1,000 Egyptian Christian citizens, whom were stripped of their human dignity, including women and children, by police officers. They started with questioning 70 people each day, however the investigation lasted only two days (August 7 and 8, 1999), then it was halted. Only 129 people were questioned at that time. On October 15, 1999, The Attorney General decided to reopen the investigation once again. Starting on October 30, 1999, the investigation resumed with only two people questioned each day.

On Friday, December 31, 1999 (4:00 PM) Rashid Mansour [a Christian] was attacked in his shop in the village of Al Kosheh. He immediately reported the incident to the prosecution police and was released. However, police later detained him and all efforts to free him have failed even as this document is being written.

Attacks on Christian-owned homes and shops continued through the night in the village of Al Kosheh and lasted until 10:00AM on Saturday, January 1, 2000.

At 11:00 AM on Sunday, January 2, 2000, armed attackers opened fire on Christians at random. This resulted in the killing of 12 people inside their homes, 8 in their fields and one on a roadside. A total of 21 Christians were killed at the hands of their Muslim neighbors and brothers, not by the "Israeli" or "Zionist" enemies [as some had alleged].

Following the attack, police ordered the arrest of 56 Muslims involved in the murder spree, and 40 Christians (victims) for illegally congregating, possession of firearms and forced robbery!!! The accused individuals remained in custody from the first week in January until December 7, 2000 after a judge ordered the release of victims and their attackers, the murderers and innocent alike.

Also on January 2, 2000, attacks on Christian-owned businesses were reported in Dar Al-Salaam, the villages of Awlad Tok Gharb, Al Nosirat, Naga Moussa, and Nigoa Mazin Sharq. All of the attackers were Muslims, and some were arrested. On September 5, 2000, 18 of the accused were released, and only 4 were sentenced in absentia to 10 years. This action indicates that Christians will not be compensated for damages sustained to their property and justice has been denied.

On March 4, 2000, Surial Gaid Isshaq [a Christian] was arrested and charged with publicly insulting Islam on December 31, 1999. He remained in custody pending the investigation until a judge sentenced him to three years with hard labor on July 16, 2000, despite his innocence.

What next? If the guilty is not punished, and the criminals are exonerated of their crimes, and the victim is blamed, why should we not expect these events, or worse, to be repeated against us? This is what we expect will happen to us soon. We only have God.

His Grace Bishop Wissa
Coptic Orthodox Bishop of Al Balaiana

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Slavery in the Sudan
By John Eibner

John Eibner, assistant to the international president of the Geneva-based Christian Solidarity International (CSI), addressed the Middle East Forum on November 7, 2000. He began by showing a short video of his experiences redeeming slaves originally shown on "CBS Evening News."

In Sudan today, more than 100,000 women and children are victims of chattel slavery. Once captured, they become the private property of individual masters, and have to endure endless hard work, poor nutrition, and sexual abuse. Torture is commonplace and severe beatings the norm when a slave displeases his or her master.

Slavery in the Name of Jihad

One finds slavery and quasi-slavery around the world, yet what makes slavery unique in Sudan is that there was a revival of the practice in the mid-1980s. The institution was virtually extinct in the 1970s and slave raids were unknown, except in a few remote places. The revival began in 1983, when then-president Ja'far an-Numayri placed himself at the vanguard of the Islamic revolution in Africa. Casting aside his socialist baggage, he became the great imam and arbitrarily imposed Sharia law on the multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, and multi-religious Sudanese society. In the process, Numayri abolished the autonomy of southern Sudan ending over ten years of peace in the country and imposed a policy of radical Islamization and Arabization. These policies generated small-scale armed resistance among southern Sudanese, including black Africans, Christians and other groups who adhered to their traditional religious beliefs. The government in Khartoum then began to use slave raids and slavery as an instrument of counter-insurgency to break the resistance against its policies.

In 1983, the Numayri government began arming Arab militiamen, sent them southwards, and allowed them to keep whatever booty they could seize, including women and children as slaves. As we know from testimonies of former slaves, Arab raiders even today burn the villages they overpower and usually shoot the men. Forming old-fashioned slave caravans, the remaining women and children are tied to a long rope and dragged by horses. Those unable to keep up are beaten, often to death, while crying children or babies are thrown into the bush to die.

Once enslaved, the women and children are forced to adopt Islamic religious practices (most slaves are Christians or animists) and must take different names and speak Arabic, thus changing their cultural identities to Arabic. They are often subjected to beatings and sexual abuse, including female genital mutilation.

Slavery in the Sudan today takes place in the context of declared jihad, a concept of holy war that considers the taking of slaves perfectly legal. We at Christian Solidarity International went to villages that had been raided a few days prior. We found horses wearing necklaces with little leather pouches containing Quranic texts about jihad. Other pouches featured obscure magician symbols worn by the raiders to protect themselves from bullets.

The Underground Railway and CSI

Besides documenting slavery, my work involves freeing slaves from bondage by purchasing their freedom (about $35 per slave). The redemption of slaves is done in cooperation with local black Africans and Arab leaders. When CSI first went to the areas affected by the slave raids it found that local people had taken initiatives to stop the slave trade. Some black African community leaders had local peace agreements with some of their Arab Muslim neighbors who want to live in peace with their neighbors and do not want to participate in jihad. These peace agreements prompted some Arabs to facilitate the return of women and children who were enslaved. As a result, from the early 1990s and years before CSI first came on the scene, there has been an underground railway. We were invited to support that initiative, and after studying the issue carefully we felt an obligation to support those whom the rest of the world has completely ignored.

The CSI slave redemption program is thus really a local grassroots initiative involving black Africans and Arabs, Christians and Muslims. It is a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, and multi-religious enterprise for peace. The real heroes of the slave redemption are the Arabs who risk their lives to retrieve tens of thousands of women and children.

CSI received consultative status some six years ago as an NGO [non-governmental organization] at the United Nations and participated in the Commission on Human Rights. We used this position to campaign vigorously to raise awareness of slavery in the Sudan. The government of Sudan attempted to intimidate CSI and myself from raising the issue in public by means of a Salman Rushdie-like campaign against me, calling me an enemy of Islam. Things reached a crescendo a little over a year ago when Khartoum made a formal complaint against CSI and successfully pressed the U.N. to deny CSI its consultative status. This has made it clear to us that we cannot use the U.N. as a forum to further our interests.

The International Community

In the latter half of the 1980s, Sudanese journalists and academics exposed the existence of slavery in the Sudan. Since then, although policymakers and international organizations have been aware of slavery in the Sudan, there has been virtual silence about the practice that international law defines as "crimes against humanity."

The international community treats slavery as a taboo subject. It knows that public awareness of slavery's existence would oblige it to deal with the issue. The international community is further paralyzed because Sudan enjoys the solidarity of the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference. Nor has the Organization of African Unity (OAU) taken up the issue. On the contrary, the OAU has invited the Sudanese government to represent Africa with a seat on the Security Council.

The American response has been very modest as well. When the revival of slavery started in Sudan in the mid-1980s, the U.S. government was preoccupied with Ethiopia's Mengistu, whom it regarded as the greatest threat to its interests. That compelled U.S. policymakers to turn a blind eye to the practice of slavery in the Sudan.

Only recently has a small but effective lobby managed to put pressure on the U.S. government, resulting in a number of statements by Washington critical of slavery in the Sudan. These few modest statements represent a much more proactive antislavery policy than one finds in Europe, where due to oil interests, the European Union is spearheading a cover-up of slavery and a process of legitimization of the government in Khartoum. The African American community is showing signs of readiness to begin confronting the issue. Still, no community, today, is doing all that it should be.

Summary account by Assaf Moghadam, a graduate student at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University

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Egypt to release 89 communal clash defendants
CAIRO, Dec 7 (Reuters)

An Egyptian criminal court ordered the release without bail of 89 defendants who remain charged with offences related to Egypt's worst Christian-Muslim clashes for decades, court sources said on Thursday.

Seven more defendants had remained at large during the trial, which is due to reach verdicts on January 9.

The cases arise from New Year violence between Muslims and Coptic Christians in which 21 people were killed in the village of al-Kosheh, 400 km (250 miles) south of Cairo.

A separate court sentenced 19 people for up to 10 years in jail in September for their part in the disturbances. They were convicted of arson, destruction of property and wounding people.

Of the 89 defendants released, 57 were Muslims and 32 were Christians. One reason for the release was believed to be the fact that the month-long Muslim holy period of Ramadan is under way, along with the Coptic Christmas season.

Egypt's population of 65 million people is predominantly Muslim but includes about 10 million Coptic Christians.

A quarrel between a Moslem and a Christian shopkeeper on December 31 sparked violence and they escalated over the next few days into broad Muslim-Christian clashes in which 19 Copts and two Muslims were killed and 33 people wounded.

Scores of shops were destroyed in the violence.

10:49 12-07-00

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H.H. Pope Shenouda protests the film Awan El Ward
From: "Kees Hulsman"
Date: Wed, 06 Dec 2000 18:03:31 -0500

The film "Awan El Ward." is shown every evening between 11:00 p.m. and 12:00 pm on TV and is presented as a film representing national unity. Each time the film opens with old film material related to national unity; a priest holding the hand of a sheikh, etc.

The story is about a Christian mother, Rose (played by the Muslim actress Samiha Ayoub), who married a Muslim Ambassador (Ahmed - the father doesn't appear in the film) who have one daughter, called Amal. Amal falls in love with a policeman called Mahmud Baghit and marries him. The film is a love story in which he continuously has to choose between Amal and his work. Rose lives as a Christian, has icons at home and prays in front of these icons. Mahmud shows respect for Amal's Christian mother but neither Mahmud nor Amal speak about religion.

Christians in Egypt commented that the film is giving a veryunreal picture of national unity. Marriages of Christian women with Muslim men are not desired because children must become Muslim. Secondly, they don't know of a Christian woman who married a Muslim who was able to display her faith as Rose is able to do in the film. Real life in Egypt is different. The Christian women we know off who married Muslim men were virtually all encouraged to convert to Islam. That cuts off her ties with her Christian family and makes it very, very difficult for her to return to her Christian family and faith (that would be considered murtad, apostacy) if problems occur and she would want to do so.

Tonight His Holiness said in his weekly meeting in the Cathedral in Abassiya, Cairo, attended by perhaps a thousand people, that he is very sad about the film and wants individual people to write letters of protest to Minister Safwat el-Sherif, Minister of Information.

Subj: State Dept. "heroine" flies to meet Christian slaves in Sudan
Date: 11/28/00 8:37:04 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: aasg@anti-slavery.org (Dr. Charles Jacobs)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

American Anti-Slavery Group
1-800-884-0719
www.anti-slavery.com

Anti-Slavery Group Hails State Department Heroine Who Flew To Meet Slaves

Challenges President Clinton, Gore and Bush to Address Sudanese Slave Trade

"Clinton Legacy Watch" begins

BOSTON - The American Anti-Slavery Group (AASG) today hailed Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Susan Rice, for her courageous visit with survivors of slavery in Sudan. AASG President, Charles Jacobs, called on President Clinton, Vice President Gore and Governor Bush, to follow suit by publicly condemning slavery in Sudan.

Rice defied Sudan's Islamic Fundamentalist regime and flew into southern territory held by the African-led army, defending against a decade-old "holy war." Rice was "outraged" by testimonials of African women and children who were "captured, enslaved, held, beaten tortured, and raped" by Khartoum's Arab militia. The slaves, Rice said, are "pressed to abandon their religion and convert to one not their own."

Rice blasted those who ignore Khartoum's slave raids. "Despite what some in the European Union may want to pretend, slavery exists, and it has to be addressed," she said. "We have an obligation to speak out to ameliorate the suffering."

"This criticism could be made of President Clinton, Al Gore and George W. Bush," noted AASG's Jacobs, who worries that "international politics are stifling America's natural response." Slavery is a crime against humanity, Jacobs explained. "If charged, Sudan's rulers would be brought before the Hague. Since no one wants to confront Sudan and her powerful allies, the slaves are simply abandoned."

Rice recently met twice with representatives of AASG, including escaped slave Francis Bok and Denver students who started a "children's crusade" to free slaves. As Rice noted, "the Sudan issue resonates in a way with the American public on a scale we haven't seen since the anti-apartheid movement."

Early this month, Sudan's President Bashir urged his troops to continue their "jihad." Tragically, the day after Rice arrived in Marial Bai to meet survivors, Bashir's militia executed seven black school boys following a slave raid on a nearby school. According to a local official, students were forced to watch as the boys were executed.

Jacobs noted that both the Bush and Gore campaigns publicly ducked addressing slavery in Sudan. Jacobs said the anti-slavery movement wants President Clinton to say the words "The slaves in Sudan must be set free," before he leaves office. AASG promptly announced "Clinton Legacy Watch" - "the President has only 54 more days to say those words and to end our shameful silence."

--
Dr. Charles Jacobs, President
American Anti-Slavery Group
http://www.anti-slavery.com

ph: 617-426-8161 - fax: 617-507-8257
198 Tremont Street, #421
Boston, MA 02116

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Saudi Women Bound By Tradition
By DONNA ABU-NASR
.c The Associated Press

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) - Five Saudi women sat in a coffee shop chatting animatedly about their lives over cafe lattes and sandwiches. Suddenly, they heard commotion outside.

Fearing the Mutawas, religious police, had come to throw them in jail for being in public without a male relative, they hastily grabbed their long black scarves and covered their hair and faces as they cast wary looks around them. The Mutawas did not show up, but the women decided to leave. Their outing had been spoiled.

Ten years after a group of women defied a ban on female driving and drove around the capital for 15 minutes, women in Saudi Arabia are still bound by tradition, their lives subject to the interpretations of male religious scholars of the sharia, or Islamic law.

Some Saudi women are happy with the status quo and denounce human rights groups that call for improvement of their situation. Others insist their lives should change.

``These traditions and customs, many of which go back to before the advent of Islam, target women and aim at marginalizing their role,'' said Hatoun al-Fassi, a historian who has published such opinions in local and Arab newspapers.

``Men behave as if they were the only ones in charge of building society and consider women as intruders whose sole mission is to procreate and be part of the decor,'' she added.

Saudi Arabian women lead among the strictest lives in the world. In public, they can only expose their hands, and sometimes kohl-rimmed eyes and hennaed feet. They cannot travel or get an education or a job without the written approval of a male guardian and the government does not issue them ID cards.

Mutawas are agents of the Committee to Prevent Vice and Promote Virtue, which is funded by the government and headed by a Cabinet minister. Mutawas reportedly get about $300 for every Saudi they arrest; $150 for every foreigner.

The Mutawas patrol shopping centers, restaurants and other public areas to ensure that men and women are behaving. They even go into sports stores or makeup shops with felt pens to black out promotional pictures of women on boxes and posters.

Princess Basma bint Majid bin Abdul Aziz, a niece of King Fahd, said foreign activists have no right ``to tell a people who have existed for thousands of years, even before America existed, to change their ways.''

``The problem with Americans is that they have a certain way of life and they think if you don't live like them, there's something wrong with you,'' said Princess Basma, head of the culture and heritage committee at Al-Nahda Women's Charitable Society.

``Why should I, a Saudi, dress the way an American woman does?'' added the 40-year-old princess, who, like all Saudi women, wears a long black abaya and scarf in public.

Princess Basma said she's not inconvenienced by laws that stop her from driving.

``If I can have someone drive me around why should I say no?'' she said. ``In Paris, you have to be a princess to afford a driver. Here, every woman is a princess because she has one.''

Not every family can afford to pay about $300-400 a month for a driver, so many women are at the mercy of male family members if they want to go out.

For most, especially for the 6 million foreigners who live here, life in Saudi Arabia can be a bit confusing because there are no written rules stating how one should behave. What is condoned today may not be condoned tomorrow.

A foreign woman wearing a navy blue scarf was stopped by a Mutawa because her head cover was not black. His colleague told him navy blue was OK, and the two men launched into a theological debate over scarf color before the woman was let go. An unmarried, non-Saudi couple who were seen kissing goodnight on the cheek in a parking lot were thrown in jail for a few weeks.

The role of women in Saudi society came under the spotlight during the buildup of 500,000 Western troops prior to the 1991 Gulf War that liberated Kuwait from Iraqi occupation. The troops included American women who drove trucks and had leadership roles, and this was said to have inspired the Nov. 6, 1990, ``drive-in'' in Riyadh.

Today, the 47 women who led the drive-in stay out of the limelight. Their punishment 10 years ago was harsh: they lost their jobs and passports for two years, they were denounced in flyers written by religious groups as ``fallen women calling for vice.'' Those who returned to work have been denied promotions.

Saudi women who work - about 5 percent of them do - are encouraged to enter fields such as nursing and teaching, where they do not mix with males. In college they cannot major in engineering, economics or law.

Very few women are seen in public or at government ministries. And many avoid being close to men. They do not get on elevators with them.

Outside most restaurants, signs announce that ``single ladies are not allowed without mahram,'' or male guardian.

Inside restaurants, family sections with frosted windows are set aside for women and their male escorts. They are seated in cubicles with curtains, screens and sometimes even doors to shield them from other diners. If a Mutawa discovers that the couple sitting behind one of the screens is not married, the two will be hauled to jail.

Banks have special ``ladies'' branches. Because they have no identity cards, women use ``family IDs'' without photos that list them as dependent of fathers or husbands - a practice that sometimes leads to fraud. Some men even forbid their wives from getting passports because they cannot stand the thought of their being photographed.

``It will take a revolution to change our situation,'' said Sara, a working woman, who did not want to be further identified because ``there's no one to protect you if you speak out.''

AP-NY-11-27-00 0329EST

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Egypt to renovate one of world's oldest monasteries

Comments: One must wonder why the Egyptian government is showing so much interest in renovating old churches and monasteries while, in the same time, is putting obstacles at building and repairing contemporary churches? The answer is found in this news clip, and it has nothing to do with religious tolerence. In one word it is: TOURISM

CAIRO, Nov 26 (Reuters) - Egypt announced plans on Sunday to renovate one of the world's oldest Christian monasteries.

Government antiquities chief Gaballah Ali Gaballah signed a contract with the local New Valley construction company for a 16.3-million-pound ($4.26-million) project to repair stonework inside the fourth-century St Anthony's monastery on the Red Sea.

"This is a monument of great, great value and our task is to renovate it, protect and preserve it," Gaballah told reporters.

"The monastic system began in Egypt and it began with the monastery of St Anthony," he said, adding that the repairs would take 30 months.

Conservation experts say St Anthony's, named after one of the founding fathers of Egypt's Coptic Christian Church, vies for the title of oldest Christian monastery with the nearby monastery of St Paul. Both lie in coastal desert hills about 180 km (110 miles) southeast of Cairo.

Dozens of ancient monastic centres dot the deserts of mainly Muslim Egypt, where Christians account for an estimated 10 percent of the population of 65 million.

Most of the monasteries belong to the Orthodox Coptic Church, which dates back to the era of Roman rule in Egypt before the coming of Islam in the seventh century AD.

A Culture Ministry statement said the renovation project aimed to turn St Anthony's into a Coptic tourist attraction, although monks there voiced mixed feelings about the idea.

"No one has done any kind of conservation work on this monastery, so we are lucky," Father Maximus, one of 115 monks resident at the monastery, told Reuters by telephone.

"We are not looking for tourism -- the monastic life is still there -- but we are looking to preserve the monastery because it is very important for Coptic culture," he said.

10:59 11-26-00

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Many Egyptians Embrace the Gospel
by the Editors of ReligionToday
November 21, 2000

Hundreds of thousands of people in Egypt heard the gospel preached last week, and tens of thousands reportedly became Christians.

...More than 10,000 people attended evangelistic services at Cairo's Kasr El Dobara Church Nov. 17-20, according to God's Love in Action (see link #1 below), the ministry of evangelist Sammy Tippit. The San Antonio-based Tippit preached four nightly services at the 5,000-member church, said to be the largest Protestant congregation in the Middle East.

..."The corridors are full, the grass is full. More people are coming each night," Rany Asham, Kasr El Dobara's missions coordinator, said midway through the event. Hundreds of thousands more people watched the services by satellite and videotape at 600 churches and other venues throughout the region, Tippit's ministry said.

...Church members in a town of 20,000 people set up a satellite system so every home could see the broadcasts each evening, GLIA reported. TV sets were tuned to an antenna positioned on top of the local Orthodox Church, according to the ministry.

..."The preaching is perfect for my culture," Asham said. "The Egyptian mentality is not easily convinced, but this type of preaching will affect my country."

...More than 1,000 people professed faith in Christ at Kasr El Dobara, and the number of those who became Christians at the outlying venues could be 10 times greater, Tippit said. "We don't know the results yet, but we believe tens of thousands have made the same kind of commitment," he told Mission Network News (see link #2 below).

...The new converts will bring a revival to Egypt, Kasr El Dobara pastor Menes Abdul Noor said. "God is blessing a new generation of leadership" in the Arab world and Egypt's church will play an important role, he said.

...The Christian church is growing in the region despite opposition. Kasr El Dobara holds regular evangelistic outreaches, and Tippet preached there earlier this year. Argentine-born evangelist Luis Palau held a series of services there in 1998. The church also participated in Billy Graham's Global Mission broadcast from San Juan in 1995, according to news reports.

...Kasr El Dobara is "salt, light, and leaven" in the Muslim society, Noor said, according to news reports. He has hosted a broadcast over Trans World Radio (see link #3 below) for 20 years and makes regular television appearances on shows broadcast by Middle East TV and SAT-7 (see link #4 below) Christian TV networks. The church also holds evangelism and leadership conferences for smaller congregations in the area.

...About 85 percent of the Egyptian people are Muslim, and Islam is the state religion, according to the reference book Operation World. About 14 percent of the population is Christian, most belonging to the Coptic Church, an offshoot of Orthodoxy. Evangelical Christians comprise less than 1 percent of the population.

...Christians are denied jobs and schooling because of their faith, and their representation in Parliament is limited to a few appointments by the president, according to news reports.

...Radical Muslims sometimes target Christians for violence. More than 20 Copts died in January (see link #5 below) in the village of al-Kosheh when Muslim police exacerbated a dispute between a Christian businessman and a Muslim, according to news reports.

...Egypt's government has taken action against Muslim groups it deems dangerous. Fifteen members of the Muslim Brotherhood, an outlawed group that seeks to institute Islamic law, were sentenced to prison recently, The Associated Press (see link #6 below) reported. Despite the official opposition, 17 members of the Brotherhood recently were elected to Parliament. Brotherhood candidates run as independents because the group is banned.

-----------

RELATED LINKS:

1. http://www.glia.org
2. http://www.gospelcom.net/mnn/
3. http://www.twr.org
4. http://www.sat7.org/
5. http://www.religiontoday.com/Archive/FeatureStory/view.cgi?file=20000105.s1.html
6. http://www.ap.org

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Briton killed in Saudi car blast, wife hurt
By Michael Georgy

RIYADH, Nov 17 (Reuters) - An explosion killed a Briton and wounded his wife in their car in the Saudi capital on Friday shortly before the opening of an international energy conference attended by officials from more than 40 countries.

The incident was seen as an embarrassment for the Saudis, coming just hours before Crown Prince Abdullah opened the energy conference in the oil-rich kingdom.

In London, a Foreign Office spokesman identified the victim as Christopher Rodway, and his wife Jane, both in their late 40s. They had been in Saudi Arabia for eight years and Rodway had worked as an engineer in a hospital, he said.

A source close to the investigation said Rodway worked as a technician at a Saudi military hospital in Riyadh.

An official at al-Hammadi private hospital told Reuters by telephone that Rodway had died shortly after his arrival and that his wife had been discharged after treatment from minor injuries.

"He was bleeding heavily. One of his lower limbs was amputated," she said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing, which occurred after Friday Muslim prayers.

But anti-Western sentiment is running high in the Arab world over perceived support of Israel in its armed forces' latest clashes with Palestinians, which have killed at least 236 people, most of them Palestinians, in seven weeks.

The explosion comes five weeks after a man lobbed a bomb at the British embassy in neighbouring Yemen.

No one was hurt in that blast which followed an apparent suicide bombing that crippled the U.S. destroyer Cole, killing 17 sailors as it refuelled in the southern Yemeni port of Aden.

EXPLOSIVE SAID TO BE INSIDE CAR

The official Saudi Press Association (SPA) quoted the head of Riyadh police as saying: "An explosion occurred in a car suspected of carrying an explosive device driven by a company employee and his wife who are both Britons...They were both rushed to the nearest hospital."

It was not immediately clear if the car was booby-trapped.

A regional news agency earlier reported that an American couple had been wounded in the blast in central Riyadh. But a U.S. embassy spokesman told Reuters no Americans were involved.

SPA said the explosion occurred at 1:23 p.m. (1023 GMT). It gave no further details, but said Saudi authorities had started investigations.

A police officer at the scene said the explosion threw one of the passengers from the four-wheel-drive vehicle.

Police cordoned off the area, near a major intersection in the northern part of Riyadh, and refused to allow reporters to approach the car which was being carried away on a truck.

Witnesses said the car was moving when the blast occurred. Police sprayed water to wash away a pool of blood nearby.

BLAST HOURS BEFORE MAJOR OIL MEETING

U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson and European Union Energy Commissioner Loyola de Palacio are among the officials attending the two-day oil conference.

Saudi Arabia is a major U.S. ally in the region and was a springboard for the U.S.-led international coalition that drove Iraqi occupation troops from Kuwait, but it has been prominent in Arab protests against Israel's use of force against the Palestinians.

Many in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, are critical of the continued presence of U.S. forces since the 1991 Gulf War ended Iraq's seven-month occupation of neighbouring Kuwait.

Two powerful explosions in 1995 and 1996 against U.S. targets in Riyadh and the oil-rich eastern region of Dhahran killed 24 Americans.

U.S. officials say they suspect Muslim militants for the two attacks.

14:25 11-17-00

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Saad Eddin Ibrahim Trial Postponed to January

A packed courtroom heard legal motions in the opening session of the trial of Saad Eddin Ibrahim and 27 associates today. The small space in South Cairo District Supreme State Security Court held at least 150 people by the time its three presiding judges appeared. The defendants were placed in a barred cage without chairs for the duration of the four hour proceedings.

Lawyers for the defense asked for a delay in the start of the trial to enable them to prepare the case. They cited lack of proper notification, irregularities in the evidence, and the volume of trial documents as reasons for a continuance. Additional requests were made, including the opening of Ibn Khaldun Center to allow the defendants access to documents and files needed for their defense. Lawyers for Dr Saad Eddin Ibrahim requested that his passport be returned and the ban on travel lifted. There was one exchange with prosecutors and lawyers over whether the case was inherently political as claimed by Dr. Saad's lawyer or merely a criminal matter, as alleged by the chief prosecutor, Hisham Badawy. The defense argued that by trying the defendants in a court identified with State Security, the authorities themselves have chosen to politicize the case.

After a short recess the judges returned and granted a continuance until early January. They declined to comment on the other requests, leaving uncertain whether they will respond to them before the next trial date. Other cases were heard before the session ended and the defendants were allowed to leave their confinement.

During the trial, a petition circulated signed by a number of Arab intellectuals in support of Ibn Khaldun Center and freedom for civil society in the Arab world. A large number of Egyptian and Arab press and television representatives covered the proceedings. German Television launched a complaint after being denied access to the trial. On November 5th they requested formal permission to attend, but the permit was issued only today and some time after the session was already underway.

Reached for comment outside the courtroom, Dr. Saad Eddin said that he had been impressed with the professionalism of the judges. However he felt that barring the defendants access to the Center and their documents would make it very difficult to prepare a proper defense. He expressed his appreciation for the presence of observers at the trial, including members of the diplomatic community in Cairo, international and local human rights groups, and a number of faculty members and students from the American University in Cairo.

14:25 11-17-00

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Egypt rights activist on trial for taking EU funds

CAIRO, Nov 18 (Reuters) - Prominent Egyptian civil rights activist Saadeddin Ibrahim went on trial on Saturday charged with receiving funds illegally and trying to defame Egypt.

Ibrahim, whose Ibn Khaldoun Centre for Social Development Studies monitors Egyptian elections, faces a possible 25-year jail sentence if found guilty, sources at the higher state security court said.

The centre aroused official anger with its reports on the 1995 parliamentary elections. He is charged with accepting 261,000 euros ($222,000) from the European Commission without licence and distorting Egypt's reputation.

The EC money was intended to help the centre monitor this year's parliamentary elections in October and November. Under Egyptian law it is illegal for a non-governmental organisation to receive foreign money without official licence.

Accusations by the prosecution include spreading rumours intended to undermine state authority through reports of clashes between Coptic Christians and Muslims in 1998.

The court sources said Ibrahim, a 61-year-old sociology professor at the American University in Cairo (AUC) with dual U.S. and Egyptian citizenship, was also accused of offering bribes to forge official documents.

Ibrahim was on trial with 27 other accused, all but two of them members of the Ibn Khaldoun centre and its affiliate, the Centre for Supporting Women Voters. Ten of the accused were being tried in their absence. All those present pleaded not guilty, court sources said.

The court adjourned until January after Saturday's hearing, the sources said. A date for a new hearing has yet to be set.

"If convicted, Ibrahim can be jailed for 25 years," one source said.

Ibrahim is a prominent academic and founder of the Ibn Khaldoun Centre, a key element in a non-governmental monitoring commission that had planned to observe the elections in October and November.

The commission reported widespread abuses during the 1995 election.

Ibrahim was detained on June 30 and spent six weeks in prison before being released on bail. He is banned from leaving the country.

Authorities also closed down the Ibn Khaldoun Centre.

Ibrahim said in a lecture at the AUC after his release that his detention was deliberately prolonged to prevent him training volunteer election monitors.

He later declared he would focus only on his case, dropping plans to monitor the elections.

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MIDDLE EAST CHRISTIAN GROUP CLAIMS U.S. OVERLOOKS THEM
For Immediate Release
November 3, 2000
Contact: Walid Phares
305-858-3405
.c The Associated Press

Washington, DC ... Yesterday (November 2, 2000), a delegation from the Middle East Christian Conference (MECHRIC), a coalition of American advocacy organizations representing over 2 million Americans of Mideast Christian descent from such countries as Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Sudan, raised concerns with the US Government that Christians in the Middle East are often marginalized in discussions about the region and their experiences are minimized in State Department human rights reporting. In a meeting with the State Department's Office on International Religious Freedom MECHRIC delegates raised specific concerns about Christian communities in Egypt, Lebanon and Iraq.

Egypt's Coptic Christian community faces continuing religious discrimination and persecution at the hands of Islamic extremists and sometimes by the government's own security forces. In Lebanon, the Christian community has been politically suppressed by the Syrian occupation since 1976. These concerns were recently raised by the Council of Maronite Bishops, which, on September 20, 2000, called for the withdrawal of the Syrian army. In Iraq, the Assyrian/Chaldean Christian community has also faced various forms of persecution by the government.

MECHRIC delegates also raised concerns over the escalating violence in Israel and the Palestinian territories. The delegates expressed their fears that the current conflict neglects the importance of Jerusalem as a place holy to Christians as well as Jews and Muslims. MECHRIC calls on the two sides to refrain from violence and return to negotiations.

MECHRIC was formed in June 2000 with the aim of raising the profile of the concerns of the various Christian communities in the Middle East. Participating organizations include: the American Coptic Association, U.S. Copts Association, Arabic Baptist Church (Washington, DC), Assyrian Academic Society, International Coptic Federation, Christian League of Pakistan, American Maronite Union, Assyrian Universal Alliance, Beth Nahrain National Organization, Southern Sudanese Voice for Freedom, World Lebanese Organization, Iranian Christian International, and Chaldean National Federation.

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Saudi Woman Appointed to U.N. Fund
By EDITH M. LEDERER
.c The Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Cracking a glass ceiling for women in the Arab world's most conservative nation, the U.N. chief on Wednesday appointed Thoraya Ahmed Obaid of Saudi Arabia to head the U.N. agency that promotes family planning, sexual health and women's equality.

Obaid, an American-educated expert on women's issues who has worked for the United Nations for 25 years, will replace Dr. Nafis Sadik as executive director of the U.N. Population Fund on Jan. 1.

Introducing Obaid at a news conference, Secretary-General Kofi Annan called her an outstanding U.N. professional whose work in social affairs has made her ``sensitive to the cultural issues'' involved in promoting often controversial population measures.

``Her record in working for reproductive rights for women, in promoting choice and improving women's health, is second to none,'' Annan said. ``She is conscious of the vital importance of promoting the rights of women and adolescent girls in order to safeguard their reproductive health, and she is aware of the need to focus on the threat posed by HIV/AIDS.''

Obaid told Annan he had already entered the history books in many different ways but she took pride that ``today all the Saudi women are recognizing you broke the ceiling one more time for Saudi women - and we thank you for that.''

Diplomats and population activists said the Saudi government campaigned extensively behind the scenes for Obaid's selection.

Obaid, 55, is in many ways a pioneer in the oil-rich conservative Muslim nation. Though some Saudi officials have called for women there to play a greater role in society, they are still not allowed to drive, need written permission from male relatives to travel, are banned from mingling with men and must be covered in public from head to toe.

In 1951, when Saudi Arabia had no schools for girls, Obaid's father sent her to the American College for Girls in Cairo. She then became the first Saudi woman to receive government scholarships to attend a university abroad - earning a bachelor's degree from Mills College in Oakland, Calif., and a master's and doctorate from Wayne State University in Detroit.

``What they have sowed - put in me at that stage - they are reaping now,'' Obaid said in an interview.

Obaid, who has spent the past two years running the Population Fund's division for Arab states and Europe, will take charge of about 1,000 staff members in some 80 countries. The fund is the world's largest international source of population assistance - and its largest supplier of condoms for family planning and AIDS prevention.

Obaid said she hopes to expand the fund's programs and give priority to cutting the number of mothers dying in childbirth, promoting girls' education and equality for women and preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Sadik, the outgoing agency head, is a Pakistani obstetrician-gynecologist who became the first woman to head a U.N. agency in 1987. Annan praised her for doing ``a remarkable job.''

AP-NY-10-25-00 2034EDT

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Mrs. Clinton Says She Will Return Money Raised by a Muslim Group
By DEAN E. MURPHY

Hillary Rodham Clinton said yesterday that she would return $50,000 in political contributions received at a fund-raising event sponsored by a Muslim organization based in California.

Mrs. Clinton said she was offended by remarks attributed to members of the organization, the American Muslim Alliance. The group's president has been quoted as defending a United Nations resolution that he said allowed for the use of armed force by Palestinians against Israel, while other members have been accused of making anti-Semitic remarks.

Mrs. Clinton's decision to return the money, as well as $1,000 from an official of another American Muslim group, the American Muslim Council, puzzled leaders of both Muslim organizations. The groups acknowledge that they have some members with extreme views on Israel, but say that they are mainstream and oppose terrorism. Officials in the groups yesterday took issue with the characterizations of the remarks.

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JERUSALEM POST
Wednesday, October 25 2000 13:26 26 Tishri 5761
Hundreds of Christian families fleeing PA areas
By Margot Dudkevitch

JERUSALEM (October 25) - Since the outbreak of violence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, hundreds of Christian Arab families have left with the assistance of the Foreign Ministry and foreign embassies, such as those of England, Canada, and Cyprus, Shlomo Dror, spokesman for the coordinator of activities in the territories, said yesterday.

In some cases, embassies sent cars to pick up the families from their homes in Ramallah, Bethlehem, Gaza, Nablus,and Tulkarm, granting passports to spouses and grandparents and offering financial assistance or air tickets to leave Israel, he said. In many cases the embassies eased restrictions and granted passports where only one of the couples had citizenship, to assist in their departure. A small number of those seeking to leave were Moslems, he added.

"Lately the number of requests has subsided. Those left don't have foreign citizenship, but all those able to have left," said Dror. He recalled the speech made by a Moslem preacher in a Gaza mosque after prayers on a recent Friday,in which he called on Palestinians to attack Israelis and Christians. Shortly afterward, a group of Christians was attacked in Gaza, he said.

His statements came as Israeli security officials said that the Palestinian Authority did not choose Beit Jala as the focus of violence by coincidence, but in an attempt to draw the Christian population into the conflict, a step it hopes will generate international support and criticism of Israel for shooting at civilians.

Central Command chief of staff Brig.-Gen. Ya'acov Zigdon noted that those shooting at Gilo from Beit Jala are not local residents, but extremists from elsewhere.

"What we have here are cells that are not necessarily from Beit Jala," he said.

While many of the families have fled the area, those left behind are being held hostage by the situation. "The armed Tanzim enter the village and take over homes and rooftops,and threaten the occupants if they object," one official said.

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Three wounded in Christian-Muslim clash in Egypt

CAIRO, Oct 23 (Reuters) - Christian-Muslim violence erupted in southern Egypt at the weekend over renovation work at a local church, security sources said on Monday. The said three people were wounded in a fight with sticks on Saturday near the town of Samalout, 200 km (125 miles) south of Cairo, over repairs to the wall of Mar Girgis Church. The Interior Ministry confirmed the clash had taken place, but would not identify the religion of those wounded. A ministry official said local prosecutors were investigating. Church building and renovation has been a flashpoint in the past for sectarian trouble in Egypt, where Coptic Christians form about a tenth of a mainly Muslim population of 65 million. Riots in another southern village in January killed 21 people in Egypt"s worst Christian-Muslim violence for decades.

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